Topic: The Mental Health Thread

[Karyn]

I've been interested in psychiatry for most of my life, but when I was in college, I was more interested in answering the secrets of the universe, so I went into astrophysics, despite how much better I was in my psychology classes. It's posts like thes,e and knowing Rich Lyons from the Living After Faith podcast and hearing his struggles with PTSD, as well as the stories of others going through the same problems and having difficulty finding therapists that are secular and skeptical that made me decide to finish my degree in applied psychology and become a therapist.

I have a panic disorder and general anxiety disorder that are very easily treated with medication.  It's been so long since I've suffered from the symptoms, I basically consider myself 'cured as long as I take this little pill every day.'  Most of my family suffers from bipolar, anxiety or depression issues, and I see how detrimental it is to someone's existence.  One thing my dad said to me early on, and he's coming from the point of view of someone who thinks we're all shards of the same eternal soul, is "I always knew the illness was with this body, not with me."  Although I have very different ideas about how intwined the body and the mind are, I've always considered his words an extremely useful way to see mental illness.  Goodthink, you hinted at this earlier, but I'm curious about any more insight on the interaction of your diagnosis with your personality.

[Plastique]

It's hard to describe without sounding hyperbolic. The lows are low.

No idea if it compares, but I've had low lows—I was on SSRIs for well over a decade for clinical depression/panic attacks (diagnosed late teens). The worst of my depression was very difficult, but nothing compared to when I decided to ditch the medication because of the sexual dysfunction side effects (new girlfriend).

After doing some online research and finding protocols to gradually reduce the dose over many, many months, I decided to bite the bullet, and came up with my own drastically accelerated one (I had fast approaching major life changes I wanted to be rid of the medication for—not the least of which was spending much more time with my girlfriend). I basically chose to grit my teeth and bear it instead of doing the sensible slow approach.

I don't regret it, but I've never had to do anything harder than weaning off that drug I'd been taking for over a decade. The months of devastating sadness, paranoia, anxiety, "brain zaps", constant insomnia, complete lack of positivity or anything resembling the remotest joy; it was a bleak, gray mental abyss.

I should point out that I didn't just casually decide to come off. I'd done a good amount of work on myself during that time, and I had some mental infrastructure in place to deal with my depressive/anxious tendencies. Admittedly I had no idea if I could really pull it off—I had fully expected to take medication for the rest of my life—but it was something I had to try.

[Plastique]

I have a panic disorder and general anxiety disorder that are very easily treated with medication.

GAD is bad enough, but there's little in life quite as horrific as a full-blown panic attack with the accompanying derealization/depersonalization is there? For a few years I was a slave to fear (I guess you know—the narrow little comfort zone you delineate and rigidly adhere to out of fear of subsequent panic attacks).

[goodthink]

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[WC]

Trying to join Anytime Fitness today. Midnight Elliptical would really help my buggy angry insomnia. But their 14 day trial means IN THE DAY when a staff member is there keeping an eye on equipment or something. Kind of defeats the purpose of trying the place out for 3AM manic marathons, which is the only reason I'd do business with them.

I don't like benzos one bit. Stops panic attacks dead, and quiets the screaming brain, but my productivity goes to shit. Don't see how people have fun with the stuff.

[Karyn]

I have a panic disorder and general anxiety disorder that are very easily treated with medication.

GAD is bad enough, but there's little in life quite as horrific as a full-blown panic attack with the accompanying derealization/depersonalization is there? For a few years I was a slave to fear (I guess you know—the narrow little comfort zone you delineate and rigidly adhere to out of fear of subsequent panic attacks).

I was having panic attacks 5 or 6 times a day, though I had them so under control, no one guessed there was anything wrong with me.  I didn't even think anything was wrong with me.  They started happening at night, and would be well under way before I woke up, making them even worse.  I'd wake up, and I'd already be in full run, half way across the bedroom, screaming.  That was when someone finally told me that there may be a problem.  I had already taken a course in Abnormal Psychology, and had managed to convince myself I had everything except the panic disorder.  And yeah, between panic attacks, nothing but constant low level fear and irritability.  I think I had my first panic attack at 6, when watching Blade Runner and realizing I was mortal.  I didn't have one again until I was 19  or so, and was tripping on LSD while watching an episode of Voyager.  Nelix was on the holodeck, seeing a representation of his dead body, and he had some sort of nihilistic existential moment.  That was when the panic attacks started hitting regularly.  Suddenly, taking a astrophysics classes and learning about the heat death, size, vastness and workings of the universe were triggering panic attacks.  It only got worse over 8 years until I finally went in for help.

[goodthink]

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[WC]

I don't regret it, but I've never had to do anything harder than weaning off that drug I'd been taking for over a decade. The months of devastating sadness, paranoia, anxiety, "brain zaps", constant insomnia, complete lack of positivity or anything resembling the remotest joy; it was a bleak, gray mental abyss.

Brain zaps. Fucking brain zaps. Worst. Withdrawal. Symptom. Ever.

Also, what's up with the sexual side effects of SNRIs and SSRIs? Good god man! My fucking kingdom for a pill that doesn't mess with my junk.

[goodthink]

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[WC]

I'm definitely been going up into a rough one over the past week. Now I'm simultaneously yelling at relatives and crying. It is the intensity of things. The intensity of the thing. I can't turn it down. My brain is screaming and I can't quiet it. It's a frightening feeling, and I'm frightening everyone around me. Also, everyone is drinking, and that grates on my nerves even on a good day. I can't drink, and putting up with drunkenness of others is difficult anyway, when you're the only sober person for miles around.

Coming out of a stupor I've been in for about a month now. I really wish I could have a nice euphoric manic episode. What I get is all rage, all the time, and bouts of insane feelings that are too much to bear. Extremely unpleasant. All I can do is load up on klonipin, and then ambien to try to sleep, I also have to force feed myself. Actually, I really wish I could be normal.

You know, nicotine used to really take the edge off. I used to drink too. 9 times out of 10 I would hate it, but that 1 time out of 10; only time I've ever felt okay. Obviously, that led to a drinking problem.

Exercise is normally what I would do in this state, but it's not an option right now, well, not a very practical option.

[WC]

Didn't somebody say something to the effect of "knowing when it's him I'm talking to or the bipolar I'm talking to," I can't remember. Some vague memory of a book I read or a show I listened to about living with bipolar or living with a bipolar person. Trying to track it down.

It's days like today that make me give up hoping, with thoughts turning to suicided ideation. Everything is too intense. It physically hurts. I'll burst into hysterics, either laughing or uncountable gasping sobbing. And then I'll just start yelling with the kind of intensity you only see in a bipolar or a cracked out loon having a psychotic break. Hopeless because it has been like this for 20 years now. And the decade before that was a nightmare. When I was younger I believed people when they said I'd get better, or things would get better. I had hope. Not so anymore. It gets worse with time.

And so I don't put up with people telling me it will get better somehow.

I was pushed into the arts at a very young age. Creativity is rampant in my family, especially in the visual fields. I was sent to a magnet school for visual art, and went to art school afterwards.

People romanticize bpd. They ushered me into painting and art history because I had a 'flare' and because I was 'special'. Fuck that. It pisses me well the hell off when people have a van Gogh print book or a Rimbaud book on the coffee table, where you can have a little peak now and again in the safety and comfort of  your own home, where you can show off your little trinkets to your house guests. Mental illness is so glamorous and sexy and romantic when it's a century old or a thousand miles away, or in a book or a film.

"Oh, you're a painter are you? You must be very tortured, how marvelous!"

I often miss painting. I miss working in art departments, i miss my studio, and my shop. My heart kind of died around 21 or 22, but I kept going. Plodding through my 20s. Clocking in. Painting paintings. Having shows. Selling pieces. Doing all the various things adjacent to visual art and architecture and design I did for a living... And then I just had one or two or three breakdowns too many, and became too ashamed to show my face in town. To my friends and peers, to my clients, to my gallery, to my family, to my ex... And I limped away. I closed up shop, moved out of the studios, put everything in storage, and left, closed down everything, left my gallery.. I removed my internet presence. Gave everything I had to everyone who wanted it. I left it all behind.

And then I left the country for a while.

That's a long story about nothing. I could go on and on. I was encouraged along in the arts, from childhood, throughout my education, and long after my heart was broken, after it wasn't in it anymore. I thought it was meds or lack of meds. Maybe it was the love of my life leaving me and never being able to get over that, I associated all of my work and education and all of my painting and passion for it, everything for that person. It ended badly, and I never really recovered. I began having panic attacks when I was left. That was 2001. I'm now 33. Over a decade of my life is missing. It gets worse with time and age. Lose hope, get old, lose more hope of getting better as you get worse, get even older, get worse, no hope.

I need to get help. I'm not due in until the 24th, no way to get in sooner. I'm thinking more and more that I'm going to have to Baker Act myself real soon here. I should gather up what family I have in the area and tell them somehow what is going on with me, and how they can help, because I'm not gonna be around much longer at this rate, not without a tremendous amount of help.

Thing is, my family is magnitudes of orders more fucked up than I am. So, no go there.

[goodthink]

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[Plastique]

Meh.

[Plastique]

It would be even nicer if the doctors considered the sexual dysfunction an issue.

After doing my own research, I feel a bit angry that the side effects were so minimized during consultation, and that I was allowed to go on taking that shit for year after year (sometimes throwing drugs at the issue isn't the best course of action). I've since read that some people are simply never able to recover from the drugs, and that as a consequence of taking them so long, they can't ever stop. Also with sexual dysfunction—apparently there are cases where people don't recover from that, either.

Given all this, my insanely hard, prolonged withdrawal period had the added trepidation that I might have permanently damaged my endogenous chemistry with the SSRIs.

I don't regret it, but I've never had to do anything harder than weaning off that drug I'd been taking for over a decade. The months of devastating sadness, paranoia, anxiety, "brain zaps", constant insomnia, complete lack of positivity or anything resembling the remotest joy; it was a bleak, gray mental abyss.

Brain zaps. Fucking brain zaps. Worst. Withdrawal. Symptom. Ever.

Yeah, fun, right?

They started happening at night, and would be well under way before I woke up, making them even worse.

Ugh, been there. My only hope of dealing with, or precluding, a panic attack is talking myself through it. Nothing like having all your machinery of conscious rationality shut down and waking up in the midst of a panic attack, groggy, and not knowing what the hell is happening. Takes minutes of confused, intense panic to realize what's happening and slowly talk yourself down. Many times I've lain in bed violently shivering for well over half an hour from the effects of the adrenalin dump.

I didn't have one again until I was 19  or so, and was tripping on LSD while watching an episode of Voyager.  Nelix was on the holodeck, seeing a representation of his dead body, and he had some sort of nihilistic existential moment.  That was when the panic attacks started hitting regularly.  Suddenly, taking a astrophysics classes and learning about the heat death, size, vastness and workings of the universe were triggering panic attacks.  It only got worse over 8 years until I finally went in for help.

Never tried hallucinogens, and don't think I ever will. I really don't think I could handle it. A 12 hour panic attack doesn't hold much appeal. In the past, I've managed to get panic attacks from even a cup of coffee or a couple bottles of beer. Not to mention benzos! I guess it's a control thing—feeling like there's a foreign substance heavily messing with my consciousness can be alarming to me.

Interesting about the nihilism/cosmological stuff. My triggers are heavily existential, too. It's really counter-intuitive what can set me on edge sometimes.

Edit: spelling.

[Karyn]

That was the last time I took hallucinogens. I had used them quite regularly for years before that. I'm sure they triggered the problem, but I don't think they caused it. I would have eventually ended up with the attacks without them.