This was a really difficult decision to make fearing the stigma behind mental challenges and disorders. Revealing my condition will definitely make me more vulnerable in my personal and professional lives. However, if we want to change the perspective of the general populace giving them more insight. More and more people need to express what it’s like to suffer in silence.
What my inside perceives as the outside. I can hear and see the colours. It’s more pain than annoyance.
Thanks to my friend Mary Moody McLean (gifted copyright 2022) for the illustration.
There’s definitely fear associated with these kinds of problems but for the sufferers, it’s even scarier. Losing control of your mind because of brain chemistry problems and neurological pathways that are going in the wrong direction. We are still in the dark ages of psychiatry, but experimentation and studies have developed therapies that enhance quality of life.
The majority of these conditions are chronic and go in the disability bucket. They affect your functioning and make living very difficult as you have to fight your mind while it tries to control you. The darkness is overwhelming and if you really knew what kind of paining we had, it would change your perspective and reveal the thoughts that make us crazy.
What is really important to understand is that our symptoms are beyond our control and not our fault. It’s not something that can be talked out of someone and telling someone to just smile and be happy is the most insulting thing you can say to us. It doesn’t work like that and having your first diagnosis really feels dehumanizing. Learning that you have something wrong with you isn’t the first step to therapy.
The majority of mental conditions are due to genetics and in some rarer cases environmental factors. One might live with a clear-mind until the genetic switch is turned on, usually between the age of 19 and 24. There’s several genomes that indicate a probability of developing a certain condition.
At one point, you realize that you need help and that’s when you seek the help of practitioners. From psychiatrists, to psychologists, to psychotherapists and counsellors. Learning that you have a broken brain causes often jealousy for those who have a ‘normally’ functioning brain. But, eventually you become mindful of what you have and strive to live with it.
Pills, pills and more pills. Day by day they get harder to swallow. As hard to swallow as my reality.
Thanks to my friend Mary Moody McLean (gifted copyright 2022) for the illustration.
A good variety of chronic conditions are somewhat well understood by most, because they can imagine what it feels like, or even have experienced themselves on a transient basis. Chronic pain, multiple sclerosis and diabetes are examples of diseases that don’t require shyness to expose. A headache for example is something experienced by many thus making it easy to relate.
Unfortunately, there is no way to ‘cure’ most affective or psychotic disorders. Treatment focuses on management of symptoms and developing coping strategies to live with them. Most psychiatric drugs have unknown mechanisms of action and they often don’t get rid of the manifestation of the illness but rather only make it easier to manage. What we take aren’t magic mood boosters or stress reducers but rather attempts to correct deficiencies in the brain. Often, just partially.
My adventure started twelve years ago with misdiagnosis after misdiagnoses being put on many drugs that were ineffective. Personally, I got my ‘final’ diagnosis only 3 years ago. Learning that I was bipolar schizoaffective with a mix of borderline personality sank my heart and even made me feel hopeless. Nevertheless, I finally had words that would tell my story in a couple of minutes rather than two hour consultations.
The symptom constellation that I own are both painful and frustrating. As for many mental conditions, they are often discovered to be prodromes. In other words, often things will get worse over time. My combination of mood swings, emotional instability, hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, psychosis, anxiety, stress, derealization, depersonalization, dissociation. avolition, anhedonia, bipolar depression and mania generate quite a battle that requires insight into each monster. You can’t get rid of them, but only learn to live with them.
I don’t need to explain every symptom I have as a quick peek at Wikipedia will give you a good taste of what these complicated words mean. Becoming an outside expert is challenging because it’s hard to speak the same language as your doctor, but for us sufferers, it’s extremely clear and we can only make sense of it when we talk with others who has similar conditions.
At this point, I’m considered ‘managed’ but not ‘treated’. Remission is too far away and often impossible; we are broken for life. Functioning for some is completely impossible while others have hope of living a somewhat ‘normal’ life. But the pain will never go away no matter how mild or severe you have it.
Dreamed view of my relief. The phantasy of reaching remission. But the coloured pain will never go away.
Thanks to my friend Mary Moody McLean (gifted copyright 2022) for the illustration.
In my case, most of my treatment was done through medication. So heavily medicated I am that I would be considered a living pharmacy with over 30 pills entering my blood. A combination of antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, reuptake inhibitors, benzodiazepines and betablockers. Some are luckier than me taking a much smaller cocktail but pharmacists tell me that only they have seen some with a bigger combination. Unfortunately, the side effects can be really dangerous requiring constant bloodwork and ultrasounds. On those drugs, you really do feel medicated, that brain fog never goes away.
Medication is not enough to manage illnesses for most of the time. I did psychotherapy for several years, and out of my pocket, such as Dialectal Behavioural Therapy, Distress Tolerance and Acceptance-Commitment. Many undergo Cognitive Behavioural Therapy but it was a failure to me and I didn’t respond.
While most people picture imagine us sitting on a sofa telling out life story but it’s much different. The focus is on symptoms and treatments with only very basic questions about personal life such as functioning, work and study. Sometimes you mention brief aspects of your existence such as stressors or other triggers.
The best way I can explain what living with mood and psychotic disorders is like this. For me, it’s like living two lives: one that is daily and outside of my head, and the other dealing with the pain inside our brain. So much energy it is depleting that fatigue is a common symptom among us. With no solution other than life hygiene such as eating properly, exercising and sleeping enough.
Blood drawn from my arms because I have to.
Thanks to my friend Mary Moody McLean (gifted copyright 2022) for the illustration.
In another way, we have the desire to eliminate the second life with any means of desperation. I have taken risks trying recreational drugs that nearly put me on the street. I have several suicide attempts under my belt including self-harm such as cutting my arms leaving permanent scars. The mental pain is so great sometimes that physical pain brings relief and a distraction to what’s going on inside your head.
I want to sympathize with those who suffer from any chronic diseases, you are brave. You are not losers who are crazy or someone with an anger management or temper problems. Our disability-adjusted life years are lifelong. Many of us have chosen to be silent. However, the person sharing your desk might be feeling like this. There’s a one-in-fifty chance that they are keeping quiet from the invisible pain.