So, as I’ve said, I’ve been diagnosed with
Clinical Depression
Bi Polar Disorder
and
PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)
Thanks For Your Interest, Part One
I’m mulling over some possible blog entries, so I decided to ask you for help. Several of you asked questions, the answers to which I may incorporate into future entries. Tonight, however, I am honored by your interest and hope share some of my experiences over the past two to three years in the hopes that we can uncover some things together.
The first thing that I would like to say is that I am by no means an expert. I have read some articles, browsed some message boards, questioned my nurse and therapist and conversed with others about how THEY feel following THEIR diagnoses, but there is a whole heap of a lot that I still don’t (and probably never WILL) understand.
Hence, the following disclaimer:
I am only one person. I have three different diagnoses, but I am not in any way claiming that MY thoughts, feelings and actions are identical to the thoughts, feelings and actions of ANYONE else, even if others have come to the same conclusions about that someone else as they have of me.
Also, I still don’t know a lot. I’m learning things (such as that, just as “depression” is an umbrella term, so too is the phrase “bi polar”) but I don’t yet understand much of what I’m beginning to figure out. I am, for example, not clear on my own PTSD AT ALL, but I am learning.
All this to say, PLEASE don’t take what is written here as any type of Gospel, because it’s not.
I’m just telling my story. It may be SIMILAR to that of someone else, but it cannot and will not ever be the same.
Before I begin, I’d like to take a moment to repeat a few things my caregivers have taught me over the years.
The first is simply this: To not be afraid of the word “trauma”. “It simply means that something bad happened to you. And it did.”
Those of us who watch medical shows may picture “trauma” as involving protruding bones, bloody sheets and open wounds.
My counselors are helping me see that trauma DOES involve a wounding, but it is one that CAN BE walked through.
The second thing I’d like to repeat is the phrase “you’re still you”.
I have spent hours trying to figure out if, since my brain is broken, anything that I want, anything that I say and/or any idea that I have can be trusted. I guess I’ve been thinking of being bi polar as something akin to being possessed. By this, I mean the kind of possession that you might see in a horror movie. I’ve wondered if the bi polar part of me was doing some kind of brain take over and could anything I did anymore truly be called valid.
As it turns out, mental illness CAN cause compulsive or obsessive thoughts that repeat over and over until the person experiencing them feels like he or she HAS to give in to get the awfulness to stop. This is not what I experience. I, if anything, live with a LACK of thinking. I’m excitable and emotional and there is usually not any sort of processing going on before I speak or act.
Action or not, however, the me that jumps up and down and begins spinning in circles when good things happen, who laughs far too long and loud when amused, who has been told that she is just “too…” (nosy, wordy, loud, emotional, just…MUCH) over and over is Me.
My counselor is helping me see that being depressed, or bi polar, or even having been traumatized is not the same as some kind of alien take over. Me being sad. Me being amused. Me being so happy that I clap my hands is still me.
I have messy hair. I have fair skin. I wear glasses and don’t match my socks.
These are some facts about me.
I’m mentally ill.
This is another one.
Thanks for your interest. I look forward to us journeying together.
I really do.