Scrambled

I have notes and notes filled with blog post ideas. Ideas that are probably pretty great. Ideas that I will write at some stage, some point in the future but not right now.  I can't grasp them, it hurts my head to try.  The words, they are elusive.  Nothing is making sense and it all feels a little surreal.

Imagine your brain as a place filled with worker ants.  At the moment my worker ants have taken speed.  I tried to find a picture to represent it but I gave up after 5 minutes.  Nothing quite felt disorganised enough. Nothing represented the chaos that is my brain at the moment.  I have so much IN my head and no way to grab it and get it out.  I feelt like a spectator to my own inner workings.

No doubt this too shall pass but at the moment it's fucking insane.  I can't concentrate, I try and it's too hard.  Everything is scrambled and filled with static.  I want to share the ideas that I have but the path between my hands and my mind is filled with obstacles. 

This is a short one, to let you know where I am at...normal viewing will resume soon.  Until then I leave you with this 

Generalisations Can be Harmful to Stigma: Psychiatric Hosptials

After BB posted the link to the article of a person's account of their friends stay in a psychiatric hospital, it got me thinking. If you would like to read the article then it can be found here.
 

I really struggled with the gross over generalisations that were made in this article.  Things that could easily be seem as scare mongering.  Imagine being a person whose psychiatrist has suggested you have some time in a psychiatric ward and you read this article. It's likely to make you shy away from even thinking of the prospect.  Being inside a psychiatric facility isn't easy, it's far from it but that is because you are working on issues that are plaguing your mind, stripping yourself bare and starting again. A psychiatric facility is sometimes the only safe place that you can do that.
 

I get the impression from the article that the writer's friend was in a private facility. Something that I have no experience with.  There were somethings in the article that did ring true for a public hospital but they were still gross generalisations.  I have seen patients who looked like walking zombies.  These patients were violent when not medicated. I have also seen these patients months down the track, once the medication is settled and they are a completely different person. They have gone from a person with delusions, suicidal behaviour, someone who couldn't function in society, to someone who you could sit down and have a conversation with. They are someone who can string words together. They are the good outcome of the psychiatric facility. 
 

Comparing the modern day facilities to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is just the tip of the iceberg.  While some nurses and doctors really shouldn't be in the profession anymore as their passion is gone, this is no reflection on the end result that a stay in a psychiatric ward strives for.  The author saw a glimpse in a persons journey.  She had no idea how far they had come or how far they had to go. 
 

The comments of the writer about her friend being 'normal' except for needing to be in a psychiatric facility are extremely harmful for the fight of stigma removal. Everyone is 'normal' until they suffer from life event that renders them helpless.  There is no shame in needing to be hospitalised. 
 

‘Everybody hates being here. People talk about killing themselves, not because they want to die but because they want to get out of the hospital’, said my friend Julie.
 

I have no idea on the amount of times that I have been admitted but I would say it would be over 20 times.  Some of these stays have been for a month at a time.  Not once have I seen a patient express these words.  I do wonder if they have been twisted. It was a common thread amongst depressed patients that they just wanted to get 'so that they could kill themselves' and so the hospital kept them in. It was not the hospital itself causing these thoughts, but the depression. They were already suicidal before coming into hospital and saw the people who were trying to help them as one more road block to their desire to be gone from this world.
 

The author of this article has no medical training, and yet commented on the medications that her friend was allowed to take.  The Drs and Nurses in a psychiatric facility want things to run as smoothly as possible.  They are not there to make your life difficult (even though it may seem like it when you are being admitted) but to keep you and the other patients safe.  They will give you the medication that will fit your medical needs. Just because one med worked for another, does not mean that it will work for you. 
 

This whole article just did not sit right with me, especially being from the friend of a friend in a psychiatric facility's perspective.  She was an outsider looking in.  She had no idea the issues that the other women were facing, or why they looked scared and unsure.  It can be pretty daunting to go into a strange place, even without suffering a mental illness. Add to the mix anxiety and you are bound to get a few people who look like a deer caught in headlights.  It may have come across more realistic if the friend had written it.  Seeing a glimpse of a ward, during visiting hours is not the same as staying in the ward.
 

The article has really done nothing to help the stigma that people feel about the 'looney bin'.  It saddens me that in 2013, we are still facing such close minded views. Views of those people who are looking from the outside, and get to go home to their cookie cutter life at the end of the day, not realising the damage that their words have done. 

Silver Linings Playbook

I went to see Silver Linings Playbook today.  I just couldn't let it go without sharing it with you.  It was a beautifully orchestrated movie. A movie that spoke to me in ways that I don't think a movie has ever done.  I felt part of the story, I found myself immersed in the story line, hoping for the same things the characters did.
 

I'm a bit of a sucker for movies and books about mental illness so I knew that this was a movie that was going to be on my 'must see' list.  I am always anxious to see just how a director has portrayed the mental illness, how 'real' it feels.  I don't like comedies about mental illness. They make me feel disgusted that so far into the 21st century we are dealing with 'making fun' of things that people everywhere, everyday struggle with. I can assure you that they don't think it's a laughing matter.
 

Silver Linings Playbook was the first movie that I have ever seen that really portrayed mental illness in a respectful way.  The director made you fall in love with the characters, despite their 'damage'.  I could really relate to the characters, they were real people, people who you could imagine living next to you, people that you've met. In fact Pat Jnr reminded me of some of the patients I have encountered during my inpatient stays. 
 

The talk of medication was something that I myself have done countless times with other patients. You scope each other out, figure out who is the 'crazier' one.  It's always the other person.  Which kind of adds to your own delusion.  The struggles of the family were also raw and gut wrenching.  The family were doing everything they could to help their son, and nothing seemed to work.  Robert De Niro was  a surprising addition as Pat Snr. I teared up right along with him when he poured his heart out to his confused son. 
 

Even if you don't have a mental illness yourself, I think you will be touched by this story.  A love story with a twist.  A story where you find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat, hoping he gets the girl.  This movie really offers insight into the lives of the people who both suffer from mental illness and those who love them.  The acting was superb and really gave life to the story. Nothing was over acted, it made you feel that things were that much more real. 
 

If you haven't already, I really suggest you go and see this movie. It will stay with you, it will make you think and it will make you feel. Take your tissues though, because it will touch you in ways that you didn't thing were possible. 

Here's the trailer, just in case you weren't convinced 

 

Smart one dumb one

Today I had an appointment with my mental health case manager.  She had a power nap half way through.  No I am not even close to shitting you.  If it hadn't been at my house I would have considered walking out.  Chances are I wouldn't.  I don't always have the fire I should in life.  Today is one of those days.

My loss of fire is one of the things that worries me most.  I wonder if I am too medicated but then I remember that maybe a little too much fire is a bad thing.  Major man has commented a couple of times that I don't seem to have the same amount of pizzazz as I used to.  This is the first time that I have consistently been on sedatives since being with him.  I used to be on seroquel but didn't take it often enough to be any use.  Or when I did take it, it would knock me out for days at a time. I once slept through his son punching holes in the wall just outside his bedroom.  

I feel 'safe' taking all of the medication I do.  I have a lot of faith in medication....until I don't.  I swing from one train of thought to the other.  I either love it or hate it.  Welcome to the world of borderline.  Although I have started to wonder if it wasn't just a label  put on me because I was self harming and wasn't fitting into any other category.  I fit some of the symptoms now but not enough for a diagnosis.  While sometimes it's nice to be known for more than just a label sometimes it is also nice to know what the fuck is going on.  Having a name to put to it, sometimes just makes that seem easier.  

Excuse the strangely wrinkly hands (I'm 23 dammit I have grey hair and wrinkles!).

This is the concoction of 'drugs' that I take every day to make me 'stable'.  These drugs help keep me from the edge and thinking it's not that far to the bottom.  They help me sleep instead of laying in bed at night and staring at the ceiling willing sleep to come.  The new ones are supposed to help with the mood swings that go all over the place.  They are the last port before lithium apparently.  I started them on the weekend and so far I haven't noticed and bad side effects so that has to be a good thing right.  I'm working hard to keep the weight off and I guess my lack of appetite has worked in my favour so far.  Although not so much when I had to have a blood test this morning.  

Untitled

This is probably going to be a post of verbal diarrhoea because my head feels all over the place at the moment and some days I am having trouble gathering everything together.

Ever felt like the world is too noisy? That every sound grates against your every fibre? That everything startles you?  This is the feeling I have been having lately.  Not even tranquilisers are dulling it.  All I can do is close my eyes and hope the world is a little less 'noisy' when I open them.  For the record it rarely works. The 'noise' still grates on me, I still feel tense. 

It sucks being the 'bad' parent but someones gotta do it right.  Someone has to be the kill joy.  I just wish it wasn't me, or at least that sometimes Major Man wasn't always the 'fun' one.  I've found myself being quiet when he is disciplining him to let him feel what its like to be constantly not listened to.  I think its more for my benefit to know that its not just me.  He doesn't listen to daddy too. 

I signed up for weight watchers a couple of weeks ago and its well, its hit a plateau.  I've really lost my weight loss mojo.  I lost 30kgs, then have now put close to 10 back on.  Yet I still eat crap.  I bought a block of chocolate today.....WHY?????? I feel bad about not losing weight but it doesn't stop the hand to mouth with the crap food. 

I've lost life mojo I think.  I'm really struggling to rein it back in.  Even Major Man has really noticed the difference. He keeps asking what's wrong, I keep smiling and saying nothing.  The truth is I have no fucking idea! Is this something that is just always going to float above me and there is nothing I can do? I'm sleeping 10+ hours a night and still feel tired all the time.  I could lay in bed all day just staring at the ceiling....instead I sit on the couch staring at the tv.