An Update, In Which Breathing Occurs

Posted by Anonymous.

So a while ago I wrote a post here about my mental illness, general disgruntlement with New York City, and my ridiculous college. (It was called "Suffocating.") Some folks in the comments section wanted to know how that all ended up, so here it is:

I found a subletter for my apartment, sold eighty percent of my clothing to Beacon’s Closet, packed up my cowboy boots and my snowboard, and high-tailed it back to Colorado faster than you can say “spring semester medical leave.”

Or rather, that’s how it should’ve happened. It is true that I left, but it was more complicated than that. I met this boy. Theme parties are dangerous in so many ways, Internet. On October 29th, I went to a Black Friday party with my hair in pin curls. We drank gin out of a bathtub, blasted jazz on vinyl and celebrated our forthcoming decline into financial ruin. There was a boy wearing suspenders and a fedora playing piano. Like, really, really mind-blowing piano. It was his twenty-first birthday. I told him that my birthday is also on the anniversary of a terrible event: JFK’s assassination. He was a piano major at the jazz conservatory at [my ridiculous college].

The day before I went to this party, I had called my parents and told them I was leaving New York, and would never step foot in it again except maybe for Passover Seder.

I am so not that girl. I don’t do things for boys, like move across half a continent. But here I am, living in Colorado, screaming about how miserable it is to be alive in front of a great shrink twice a week, auditioning medications into my system, and moving back to God Damn New York in August, to pull one more semester at my God Damn College. He’s been out here twice; I taught him to snowboard. I spent ten days at his family’s house on the Puget Sound in January, baking bread with his mother for their co-op. (Yes. It’s exactly how it sounds.) Let’s back up.

I said to him: “I’m miserable and moving away, but I’ll have coffee with you and be your friend.” He said, “Okay.” Stupid. What that ALWAYS means is “I will marry you, move to Portland, and have your genius babies. On the weekends we can go antiquing.” Internet, we had a lot of coffee. (BTW, coffee means sex.) The plan was to have a lot of coffee, never commit, I would leave and that would be that. Then we started doing terrible things like having conversations, going to Prop 8 protests, and revealing intimate facts about ourselves like “I am batshit insane sometimes because I have unmedicated bipolar disorder, can you pull my boot off because I’m sobbing uncontrollably and can’t do anything at the moment thanks.” He stayed. Even after he saw me have a panic attack about how to put on pants.

I had an ovarian cyst rupture in November, (My third, and yes, I’m on the pill for it. Look how effective that treatment is!) and he skipped an entire day of class to hang out in the emergency room with me while I got high on morphine. He read aloud to me the last forty pages of Eclipse, which I had crawled into my room to grab as the paramedics banged on my front door. I had it clutched to my chest when they loaded my into the ambulance. (He doesn’t like it when I tell people that he has recited Stephanie Meyer aloud, but hot damn, that makes a keeper, doesn’t it?)

I love him, Internet. I love him more than I hate New York. (And I really, really hate it there.) So I’m moving back, with an arsenal of legally-acquired Xanax, a team of mental health professionals already found, and my very tired snowboard. It’s only until we both graduate, which is two more years, because he is earning two degrees at once, (a BFA and BA) and I am scholastically incompetent. After that, he wants to ride a motorcycle with me across Europe. My only concern was, how would all of my Sephora Problem fit onto a motorcycle? He said, “We can get a side car.” Oy Vey.

Violent Thoughts

Posted by Anonymous.

I am really struggling with this. I have various mental health problems, including depression with bipolar tendencies (means my moods go haywire but I'm not actually manic), personality disorder (closest to Borderline Personality Disorder), Anxiety, Panic Attacks and the like. I get so frustrated with my kids and we've been working on changing my meds to compensate for that. The new meds I just started are helping but I still have one main symptom that is starting to scare me. When I get frustrated at my kids (which is always and over VERY little things) I want to hurt them. I don't think I actually would but I get the thoughts and I have spanked them (which I don't actually believe in.) I feel like an awful parent and I want the thoughts to stop. I'd never forgive myself if I hurt my children.

But here's the problem. How do I tell the doctor without having my kids taken away? I don't want CAS (Children's Aid Society) involved in my life. If I admit to having feelings of hurting my children, they will become invovled but I obviously need some kind of medication or something. It's starting to scare me but I just can't admit to having the feelings. Losing my kids to CAS is a big fear for me. We were involved with them once before only because I had a major panic attack and dissacioative episode right after giving birth the first time and they wanted to make sure everything was okay and kids were being taken care of. I can't take weekly visits and probing questions. I asked once what would happen if I was hospitalized or something, would the kids be taken away and they said no, as long as they were being cared for properly at home (like by husband or my mom.) But if I said I felt like hurting my kids surly they wouldn't allow them in the home with me until my thoughts were gone. That would make things a million times worse and there is NO way I am admitting to the thoughts if that could happen.

So I don't know what to do. How can I tell the doctor I'm having violent thoughts and not say towards whom or elaborate? Will that be enough info to get proper medication/diagnosis or whatever? I'm at a loss.

How To Forgive/How To Forget

Posted by Anonymous.

I literally cannot forgive my mother, but the problem is, I can’t forget her either. My life would be so much easier if she were to just disappear to a far away planet so I would never have to deal with her again.

My mother is in her early fifties and she has eight children, four of the eight are under the age of 11, and the other four don’t speak to her. We try to avoid her like the plague. She is bi-polar, manic-depressive, with a splash of OCD.

I found out about a year ago that her bi-polar had got so out-of-control that her house had filled with junk from the top to the bottom. She filled it with random things, literally anything that she could buy. Shopping feeds her need. I am not sure what that need, or hunger is but I know that it is insatiable. The house was in such despair that there was no food, and the silver ware drawers were filled with roaches.

They have absolutely no money. My mother has a Masters in Biology and my Stepfather has a Ph.D in Business Communications. They both were at one time very successful but this lifestyle, and all of these problems now control their lives. They abuse prescription medications and spend most of the day in a drug induced anti-depressant comma.

In my mother’s last manic moment, she decided that she wanted a divorce. We found out that she was emailing some random man in Oklahoma, who I later discovered was the same man that destroyed her first marriage. She picked up last Christmas day, left her children and moved to Oklahoma. She bought a car along the way, but she basically just drove the thing right off the lot.

My sister is a little older than me, and she was in a position to take the children. She took them last spring until my mother could get her house under control. My mother sent the children with a stash of medicine, enough to feed an ADD army of children. We promptly called the doctor that was prescribing the medication, and then put the rest down the toilet. The girls said that they needed this medication because their mom said that they “were stupid”. Oh, I forgot to add that they were withholding them from school.

We sent the kids back after a few months, because my sister said that my mom got one more shot. We make sure that the kids are in school, and being fed. My mom finally got a job, but she is still the same. We are good for the next few months, until she does something manic again.

It’s this never-ending cycle. It wasn’t always this way, and I think that’s the part that hurts the most.

I haven’t seen my mom since my junior year in college, about four years ago. I spoke to her last May, when she told me she wasn’t sure if she could handle that I was a dirty liberal and dating a Jew.

She doesn’t know that I just got my first job as a law clerk, or that I know that I have found the greatest man and that I am going to spend my life with him. There are a few milestones in life that you want share with your mother. Sometimes I pick up the phone to call her, but then I hang up, because I know that the woman on the other end isn’t the mother than I know, or want to know.

I have a Step mom, but it isn’t the same. I think she tries to love me like a daughter, but I don’t have mother-daughter moments with her, like I did with my mom.

I keep hoping that she will come back to me, and be the mom that she was when I was little.

She sent me a birthday card yesterday. She is trying to talk to me again.

I don’t know if I am strong enough for her games this time.

Does anyone know if this gets better? Any advice on how to deal with her or people with mental illness?

Suffocating

Posted by Anonymous.

I went to seek drugs, because I need them desperately. They said, “you are exhibiting drug-seeking behavior. We will give you nothing.” Well, Sherlock... My aunt has the same illness I do, and has been sending me Xanax in the mail. I ran out, and I don’t want to ask her for any more. It makes me feel dirty and exploitive. So now I just scream into my sweater for hours.

I hate everything about college. I hate New York, I hate my classes, I hate the idea of transferring again. I don’t even want to be a writer anymore. It was all so fluid before; I only wrote when I had something to say. Now I have to write constantly, all the time, about things that I don’t care about, and it’s all crap, which makes me feel bad about myself, so then I go spend all of my money on alcohol and cab fare. I miss Colorado so much it makes my skin burn to think about it. All of my friends here are so glamorous; and they think that I am too, but really, I’m not. I read books and listen to decent music and know how to dress myself coherently. If that’s all it takes to be glamorous, than people should stop spending so much time reading up on it in Vogue. I will never be glamorous for real, because I am never going to be calm when I meet a famous person. I've become good at pretending, but the whole time I was talking to John Mayer I wanted to throw up. Also, John Mayer is an asshole. They are all assholes. Nobody here is normal. They get vodka companies to sponsor their birthday parties and then rent out some venue and fill it with people they don't know. I am constantly surrounded on all sides by strangers, and they have their faces pressed against mine in the photos the next day. Fuck you. I don't even know your last name, or what makes you laugh. You seem to be laughing always, with your head thrown back like someone punched you in the spine. Nothing is funny. Don't worry, everyone is looking. Being suffocated by people is the most frustrating way to be alone.

I was crying uncontrollably the other day, and M. said, “You just have to not do that.” Right. Because that’s how bipolar disorder works; you just stop. God, why didn’t I think of that? M. has allergies that are so severe she has to carry around an epi pen with her, and I wanted to say, “The next time someone accidentally feeds you a tomato, you should just not swell like that. Seriously, just stop.” But that would be terrible and mean, so I didn’t.

It’s lucky that I only live on the third floor of my building, because if I lived high enough that I’d for sure die on impact, I’d totally jump off of my fire escape.

Don't Know How To Help

Posted by Selzach.

My mom is bipolar. She suffered post-partum psychosis after my birth and tried to kill herself. She was hospitalized for a year and eventually got well when the doctors realized she was bipolar, not just depressed, and got her onto the right meds. She was an great single mom and was mostly stable for over 20 years.

About 9 years ago she suffered neurological damage, we think from her meds. Her then-psychiatrist wasn’t monitoring her as frequently as he should have. It was awful – at one point she didn’t know who I was and couldn’t do simple tasks like dial a phone or balance her checkbook. Eventually another doctor figured out what was going on and put Mom through a series of neurological tests and got the meds straightened out. Mom improved, but was never the same. She went on disability because she can’t cope with stress and can’t really learn new skills. She now averages 3-4 visits to the psych unit a year. Her personality has changed as well. She used to be fun and kind. Now she’s judgmental, rude, and has a warped sense of entitlement. I don’t like what she’s become. If she was a friend or acquaintance, I would have written her out of my life years ago.

She’s pushed my husband to the point where he wants nothing to do with her. We do what we can to help her and we get complaints and a nasty attitude in return. I don’t feel like I can talk to him about it, because he’s (rightfully) angry at her. My dad understands what I’m going through, but has little sympathy for my mom after all he went through with her…it’s hard to
hear one parent be brutally honest about the other. Most of my friends have no idea what it’s like and have little comfort to offer. A few others ignore the subject when I bring it up – I guess the stigma of mental illness is too much for them.

This weekend my husband and I had her involuntarily committed. We went out for a few hours and she took an overdose of some meds. It’s not clear if she was only trying to go to sleep or was hoping to die. I sat and held her hand while my husband called the sheriff’s office. I don’t know what will happen when she’s released from the crisis unit. She can’t live alone, and staying with us isn’t enough anymore. I’m so scared for her, and I’m near my breaking point.

I don’t know how to help her or if I can help.