Medication and Mental Health Shame

Today I had a sports massage for the first time. IT was my first one, so naturally I was a bit nervous. I had to fill in a questionnaire; one question was ‘Are you on any medication?’

The correct answer is ‘Yes, I am on Aripiprazole and Procyclidine’. But I still found myself ticking the ‘No’ box. When in the massage room, I was asked again, and of so, what its for. After a pause I said yes, I was on medication for head stuff, not physical stuff. She didn’t understand, and I had to explain that it was a mood stabiliser. I didn’t feel comfortable saying this, and I didn’t even mention the second pills which I have to take twice a day. I have to admit, I felt ashamed. It felt like I was showing a weakness of some kind.

This got me to thinking about something really important; that people like me, people who are on medication just to make life survivable, are the people who can change the stigma. If I have the strength to hold my head up high and say ‘Yes, I am on medication’ and if they ask why, I just say ‘to help with my Borderline Personality Disorder’. If I had severe asthma or kidney problems, I would be able to casually mention my medication. It wouldn’t be my fault. Yet the mention of casual Mental Illness just doesn’t seem possible, I feel embarrassed, I feel like people will judge me by either being scared of it, thinking I’m making it up, or thinking I’m seeking attention.

We can change this, by being brave enough to mention mental health casually. ‘Yes, I’m on medication for a personality disorder, it doesn’t have physical affect so shouldn’t be a problem’. I am not saying every human needs to know, but at the same time, I am determined that today won’t happen again. I will not be ashamed; I will just answer with the truth about my reality. Because it’s not a reality I need to feel guilty about.

Mental Health awareness with one word

Mental health awareness is so important to those who suffer from mental health issues, but is still barely on the radar of those who have no contact with it. This is a massive problem, because it means that those who are uneducated in mental health are unprepared to deal with it. Awareness is important so that when you do come across mental illness, whether it be you, a family member, a co-worker or a friend, you both have a better sense of what it is they're fighting. Understanding your enemies is the first step to conquering them.

I can talk forever about my experiences with mental health, and I hope part of that can help others come to terms with it, but if awareness is going to improve, understanding needs to cover a larger spectrum than one person’s experience.

Over this week I have asked dozens of people, all with a mental health problem of some description, to describe their mental health issue using one word. Despite my own experiences, I was still shocked at how emotive and all-consuming the responses were. These words come from a range of people who experience a huge range of disorders, from Depression to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Eating Disorders and Post Natal Depression, among many more. These are words which everyone should read and consider. Think about how your life may be different with a constant feeling of your mental health being:

restricting, limiting, consuming, misunderstood, crushing, disconnected, soul-sucking, emotional, debilitating, overwhelming, frustrating, asphyxiating, guilty, crushing, absorbing, isolating, exhausting, crushing, looming, sporadic, engulfing, mountainous.

 

They feel ‘worthlessness’.  ‘Resigned’. Like a ‘Burden’. ‘Cursed’ even. These are all words from people who are surviving like this every day, putting on a face to hide feeling like they are ‘limited’ or ‘disconnected’.

But two words stood out to me; the first is  ‘Determined’.

On a list of heart breaking words, determination still finds a place.

Because mental health sufferers may find it limiting, exhausting, turbulent and overwhelming, but the important part is that we live with these things every day, we face this alongside every normal day to day activity, and we survive. We push through, and the stigma attached means that we often fight it in silence, we go through the pain alone, scared that if we confide in someone they will judge us, or decide we aren't worth the friendship. In reality, we are people who have a huge capacity to understand your emotions without judging you. We know how it feels to have to to fight with ourselves, we know how to be brave and we know how important listening is.

The second word which stood out to me was lonely. It was the only word which was repeated by more than one person. It was the most popular word. Lonely isn’t a symptom, lonely is someone being let down by the people around them when they most need them. Lonely is being too scared to ask for help, lonely is why there is a barrier between those who suffer from mental health issues and those who don’t.

Mental health issues are often romanticised or joked about. Casual references to ‘I’m so OCD’ or ‘i'm so bored I’m going to kill myself’, or even ‘just lighten up, you’re not depressed your just lazy’ can be so hurtful, and are all things I’ve heard people say. So now I want you to remember some of those words above, just one will do, and re-think what you’re saying. Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't hurt every day. It’s in your power to make sure the next person doesn’t make ‘lonely’ their word. And one day, the word can be recovered, or hope.

And if you're someone who does have a mental health issue, I hope you're proud, because fighting invisible illness is so scary, and I'm proud of you for doing it every day. I am proud of your ‘determination’, even if it comes alongside feeling‘emotional’ and ‘crushed’.

My experience of dealing with Dissociation

Dissociation is one of the scarier symptoms of many mental disorders. For those who have experience it, it is almost impossible to describe. But I can try; I want you to imagine that your brain has an on/off switch, you don’t know where this switch is and for most of you, you may not know it exists. Dissociation is when this switch is turned to ‘off’. The thoughts that are stressing you out disappear, you may not remember them at all. Your brain is full of fog, you can’t see your thoughts properly, you can’t think properly, you can’t remember things properly. Time doesn’t seem to go at the same pace as you – it can just disappear as you sit there, in ‘off’ mode. Feelings melt away, both good and bad, and you’re left empty, and numb.
When I dissociate, I lose the tension in my body. I don’t sit up straight, I can’t smile or laugh properly, I have to fake reactions and movements. Anything more than sitting still seems out of my control, my voice lacks enthusiasm, my hands can’t grip things as well, I have no energy and no desire to do anything, no matter how much I need too. For me it comes on very quickly, and I can’t yet notice the warning signs.

So what can I do about this?
There are many ways I have found to help with Dissociation:

The first is distraction and relaxing. I need to try and get myself out of the bubble that is my head, and focus on the outside world. The first way I do this is by watching things. I can be watching people walk past the house, noticing what they wear, how they walk, what’s their hair like, do they look happy? This helps me connect with the outside world. I also watch films sometimes, the more dramatic the better, to try and pull myself back into the world around me.
Secondly try to physically bring yourself back. Anything  safe that may shock your body, for example holding a cube of ice until it melts, doing exercise until you’re worn out, having a cold shower.
These techniques are just things I have discovered myself or from talking to others, there are many more out there! They don’t always work, but they are always worth a try.

If you’re a friend of loved one trying to help, here are some tips:

Most importantly, try and remember what is going on for the other person. They may say hurtful things, but it isn’t them saying it, they just have no care, no control. They are literally not thinking properly or normally.
Be patient – sometimes you night just need to talk to them, sit with them. I know that when I snap out of dissociation, I get all my emotions back in a wave and immediately want to hug the person who was with me, even if 5 minutes earlier I told them I didn’t care about them much. The hug is the true part, the not caring is the disorder.
Distraction is very important, try get them talking about something else, perhaps a fond memory, or a funny situation you were in. Try and play a game with them, or practise a hobby.
Lastly, they might just need time to get there themselves, so just sit, and tell them that you love them, tell them you care, no matter what. Because it is those times when we need the love the most.

Lastly, if you struggle with dissociation, the most important thing to remember is that its okay, its not your fault, and it WILL pass. This isn't going to be you forever, its temporary, and you're going to get yourself back again soon.

Death isn't Romantic

F**k you for romanticising mental health issues,
F**k the people whose only experience is what
they see on a TV screen and think that mental
breakdowns are just an emotive soundtrack
then a montage of recovery.

The reality is the silence when even though your
loved ones are so willing to help, no one knows
how to end your hell. There's no soundtrack.

And if this stigma doesn't end, f**k the montage,
lots of us won't ever get as far as recovery.

The reality of Mental Illness, it’s stigma, and why the term attention seeking needs to be re-thought.

An open letter to all the people who have judged someone for believing they are faking mental health issues to seek  attention; I want you to open your mind for a few minutes, and try and believe what life might be like for people with a different reality to yours.

Today I checked my emails, a fairly normal activity, and I had a look in my Saved box. What I found was many, many suicide notes, written over the last 3 months. I had deleted any from before that, thankfully, if they were impossible to delete I would probably have hundreds.
I read a few, and two things struck me. The first is that I feel like I’m reading someone else’s words; I can understand the emotions and I remember writing them, but it doesn’t feel like me. The second thing is how much these notes vary. Some sound like desperate cries for help, one even says ‘I need you to help me’ and ends with ‘Help me’ yet it is still a goodbye. Even in the times where I believe I don’t even have 24 hours to live, I know I want help. I don’t know what the help is, or where it would come from, but in an email which I know will probably never be read, I still want to try.

Two of these notes break my heart to read. The first goes through each of my closest friends with a final message to them. It isn’t written with desperation or sadness, it is just resolved and accepting of my imminent parting of this life. It tries to help each friend through my death, remind them that it’ll never be their fault, that they really did do all they could, and that they deserve everything the world can offer them. It is beautifully written, and when I read each note I can feel my entire personality having been poured into it. I had nothing left at the moments of writing these, they were the use of my last energy, and I had found a reserve of the essence of who I am in an attempt to give my closest friends a part of me and to help a part of them.

The final one, though, is the worst. It is a letter written to me, from me. It is a reminder from the girl who is at rock bottom, to the girl who might see a glimmer of hope, that it would be selfish of me to live, and that I have no choice but to take my own life. It is me pleading with myself to put me out of this pain, it is me making a logical argument and desperately asking myself to go through with my own plans even if that means ignoring a moment of feeling ‘better’.

I am in my early 20s, and I have spent the last 7 years struggling with the intensity of my disordered emotions. In that time I have been told by the people around me that I need to accept I’m just being attention seeking, that this will pass because I will ‘grow up’, that I’ve chosen this as a way to manipulate the people around me, and that when I choose to be ‘normal’ I will be. I have been told my medical and mental health professionals that I’m like this because I’m gay, that I can’t be mentally ill because I’m well dressed, that my only hope is prayer and turning to god, that I have made attempts at my own life enough times that that they think I will die by suicide, and that I’m ‘sane but just quite messed up’.

With each of these comments, I felt as if I was holding a great deal of pain and struggle in my hands, a struggle which I have been fighting against for years, and someone had approached me, looked at one corner of that struggle and flicked it, then walked away with a smirk on their face thinking about what to make for lunch. That is how unimportant I was to them.

The trouble with mental health problems is that they can’t be seen, and to those who haven’t experienced them there isn’t any visible evidence of the suffering. How could someone who has not been through it start to understand it. This means that the struggling victims of this nasty, nasty problem, are left feeling alone and even more distanced from the rest of the population. So, perhaps, those suffering want evidence that their problems can be seen. Perhaps they cut into their own skin, which I can tell you is incredibly painful and upsetting, and if they let you see those wounds then they are not casually trying to manipulate you into giving them attention, they are trying to show you’re the only visible part of their mental torment which exists.

Imagine you had been stabbed in the ribs and were in immense pain and asked a friend for help and they told you it would be better tomorrow, just distract yourself. You lie awake at night in pain, and you struggle to concentrate on any of the responsibilities you have, yet the people around you tell you that they can’t see the wound, it’s not there. But you know it is there, you can feel it and see it. What would you do to get them to see what you see and help your pain go away? You might cry. You might try and numb the pain with alcohol. And after weeks when it hasn’t healed at all, you might cut yourself just to see whether you can even feel other pain, to see if it can take away the stabbing pain, and when your friend sees and offers you help, you will accept it. It won’t get rid of the initial injury, but you are at least being helped with something. And when it has been months years and the pain never left, you might actually decide that you can’t live like this anymore. The constant pain, the lack of ability to do life properly, it’s not a pain you can handle. It’s at the heart of you, it’s in everything you do. When you’re happy, it’s despite the pain, it’s not instead of it. You’ve seen so many Drs, you’ve been referred so many times, yet it’s just you at the end of the day, lying awake in pain.
I would understand if that person decided to take their own life. If you would understand too, then perhaps you can understand a tiny part of mental health and suicide.

It’s lonely, and waking up to a letter from yourself asking you to take your own life and end the pain is bound to leave anyone feeling weak and afraid. So you can try and tell me that talking about my mental illness, that self-harming, that overdosing, my writing suicide notes, is attention seeking. And every time I will reply that maybe I am seeking some attention,  but that’s not because I am weak or pathetic, it’s because I am being as brave as hell and I’m showing you the most vulnerable painful part of me in a desperate attempt to save my life and not put you through the pain of dealing with my death.

So perhaps, just perhaps, you should re-consider the way you accept my illness, and if the metaphorical 'stab wound' in my ribs doesn’t seem to heal in a normal amount of time, please just stick by me. Because when it does heal and I get my life back, I am going to be so proud, and I am going to shine brighter than you knew a human could shine.

Yours sincerely,

Someone who’s reality is not very nice, but it’s still my reality. 

My Borderline Paint Pallet

I love metaphors, and for me one of the hardest things to describe is my experience of Borderline Personality Disorder (or Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder).

I want you to imagine your emotional range as a paint pallet. There are different colours, different emotions, in their own little slots. But as is the way art works, they get mixed. You mix some red and blue and end up with a lovely deep purple, then you get some white on your brush and you’re painting with a lilac-y mix of red, blue and white emotions. You’re happy, but there’s a bit of sad too, you’re a bit stressed but hopeful also. All in all it makes a fairly nice colour, sometimes too many colours are mixed and it goes a slightly murky brown colour, that’s not such a good mood.

My paint pallet works a little differently; I have different colours, just like you. But the paint doesn’t work, it’s a bit magic, and when I try and mix colours, one of them overrules. I mix red and blue but I can’t get purple, it just stays red, or goes all blue. I still have lots of colours, but they don’t mix, they just overwhelm my paintbrush and leave my painting to have some very odd colours of shadow. When I’m sad, all I can see is black, and when I am happy everything is bright white. Anxiety can take over and everything goes blue, or when I’m angry, the only colour is red. If I’m stressed, they don’t mix, I just have colours flying at me, asking for my attention separately, consuming me.

So when you get a bit confused because one minute I am laughing and the next I’m sobbing, remember that I can’t make purple, no matter what I mix, and we’re all just going to have to get used to that for now. Yes, its overwhelming, and sometimes its the best, or the worst, or the most terrifying, but for me, its the best I can do.

Trigger Warnings

I feel like the word ‘trigger’ is thrown around these days without being properly understood. Trigger Warnings appear all over the place, you are alerted with warnings of triggering content, but most dangerously is when a trigger warning is needed and left.

The trigger is the part of the gun that you pull to release the bullet. It is the action which causes a potentially dangerous reaction. No, it doesn't mean that when posting your article about ironing mishaps you have to post a trigger warning to people who may find household chores infuriating. It means that for some people in society, life can be dangerous in a way many people do not understand. Yes our hands are our own, and our brains work, but sometimes the signal sent between them make us do things we might not want to do. Like hurt ourselves, or take too many pills. Everyone’s brain is a gun, we all have the capacity to do those things, but some of us have a gun which is loaded, and ready, rather than one where the ammunition is in a locked safe in the outhouse.
This is why a trigger is so dangerous. The live ammunition in my head is scared and volatile. If it is made to sit and look at a picture of self-harm, instead of just being sad or upset, it is made to think about it. The thought of self-harm is projected across the brain; it eats away at even the dustiest corners of memory and thought. And when a brain is full of something which in the past has hurt you, then it is hard to get rid of. But sadly, with this thought, the ammunition goes off, and it is very hard to get a bullet back once it’s been fired. This also goes for other difficult topics such as suicide and many more.

So think of what you’re saying. It doesn't have to be a post on a forum, a trigger can be verbal or visual too. A trigger can be a lecture, a movie, a difficult conversation. It is important to bear in mind that just because your ammunition is locked safely away, for some people it isn't, so perhaps be less graphic, more thoughtful, and with a few more warnings about the things that can really hurt. Please, don’t pull the trigger for us. 

My Strange Sea

As an introduction I am going to be fairly vague. This is a Blog where I want to able to talk openly about difficulties I face with Mental Health. This is a place for me to share poetry, discoveries, and explain the minutiae of life; for me, its life with Borderline Personality Disorder. This is my safe place, but for that to happen, I need anonymity due to the stigma attached to mental illness. 

Sure, you accept it, but would you befriend me? Would you hire me? Perhaps not. 

I can say that I am a student in my early 20s, I am someone who is lucky to be alive, and someone who doesn’t always remember the ‘lucky’ part.  I also started this blog because there are so many thing left unsaid with mental illness.

I am not going to change the world with a blog, but if I can verbalise it, then maybe I can change my little world.

Because it really needs to change.

With love x