All posts discussing support networks and tools
I’ll be honest, I’ve started and stopped this week’s post a number of times. Every draft I put together wasn’t quite right, so I’d walk away and come back thinking I’d figured it out. The end result? 3 separate drafts. All of which should be great blog posts, mind you, but they’re just not right for today.
So, what are we going to talk about today? Truth. Specifically how telling the truth about our illness affects us, our friends, partners, and most importantly, our kids.
Sorry guys, this one might hurt a little. I’m gonna tell you a secret I’m pretty sure you’ve already guessed. I don’t want to get better. Okay, I do… but there are some days when I really don’t. Wanna know why? Well, here we go…
So, I’m apparently on a leave of absence from work. I say apparently because it wasn’t really planned ahead of time… it just happened. I went to work a couple weeks ago and three hours later I was heading home with the intent of staying home for the next two weeks. Why? All the troubles in life kept adding up to the point that I could barely function. I was exhausted, severely depressed, and my anxiety had blown up to the point that I spent every waking moment shaking. Ultimately, something needed to change, and that meant work.
I’ll admit, I’ve been sitting at my computer for hours trying to figure out how to start this post. I was chatting with a student at work the other day about mental illness, specifically bipolar, and why it terrifies me as much as it does. The truth is, it’s hard to explain. The hypomania isn’t terribly scary and even the depression isn’t that bad, most of the time. Part of that, though, is because of my mom.
I think she must have always known that I would end up with bipolar. After all, she had it, and the chances were high enough that I would inherit it. In fact, some of my earliest memories were lessons on how to regulate myself through meditation, mindfulness, breathing, and so on. Imagine that. I was 6 years old and I could meditate as if I had been born doing it. Talk about a life skill!
First off, I’ve gotta ask: is there an extreme mode? Because it sure seems like someone changed the settings on our life and switched it from hard to extreme. Borderline personality disorder is nothing to be messed with. In a moment, our life went from complicated, to extreme challenge, not because anything was intrinsically different but because it was suddenly…real. The ups and downs of the last six years finally had a name, borderline.
So, here I am, creating a blog focused on helping others learn more about mental illnesses and cope with chronic conditions. It’s something I’m very passionate about, for sure, but I need to stress that I am not an expert. In fact, I frequently fail to listen to my own advice. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been in therapy for years. It doesn’t matter that I have a fantastic psychiatrist. Sometimes, I just fail.
And….well…I think you need to know that.
Well, I did it. I made it through my first day back at work after over a month away. In some ways, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d expected, but in some ways, it was a little worse. Everyone seemed to be pretty happy to have me back, which definitely made my heart soar. Obviously, after a month, there were some questions to answer, though.
First and foremost: “Are you feeling all better?” (Or the alternative statement of “glad to see you’re all better.”) This question is always closely followed with “Where have you been?” or “What was wrong?” If I hadn’t spent the last week or so rehearsing my answer, those two questions alone would be enough to make a giant pot of anxiety soup. As it was, it was still a little nerve-wracking to have to shoot them down at the first question and explain why the thought of “all better” is all wrong. Follow that up with explaining where I’d been and suffice to say, it was a long half day.
Well, when you’re dealing with a chronic illness (mental or physical) the reality is there may never be an “all better.” You can be better than you were. You can even on some days be decent, or good. But there might never be an all better. The nature of a chronic illness is just that, that it’s chronic. Persistent, recurring, possibly never-ending. And when someone someone suggests that it has just vanished, that creates a very strong misconception.
Today, I spent a lot of my time explaining that while I feel better, I am not fixed. Bipolar doesn’t have a cure, and while I might be lucky enough to never have a depressive episode like that again, even that would be because of constant vigilance and medication. Maintenance is a life-long task when it comes to illnesses like this. I have to eat properly, sleep enough, pay very close attention to my moods (and notify appropriate medical peoples if that changes), and ALWAYS take my medication. Even if I feel “all better.”
It’s hard to have to share this with well-meaning well-wishers. I understand the sentiment behind it: that they’re glad I’m back and they want to express concern over my health. For some, maybe even many, people, it would be sufficient to leave it at that. I would never blame a person for saying “yup, thanks for asking!” and moving on with the day. But I worry that if we fall on that ideal too often, we risk creating unrealistic expectations from those around us. Heaven forbid I relapse tomorrow and all they can say is “But you said you were better!”
When I answer honestly, though, it opens up a new conversation about Bipolar disorder and what it means for my day to day life. We begin to talk about hypomania and manic depression, and what it means to have your brain work so hard against you that you choose to be locked away for over a week.
There are a lot of ailments that send a person to the hospital. And an awful lot of them are the sort you just don’t want to talk about in polite company (colonoscopy, anyone?). But few have the stigma associated with a psychiatric stay at the hospital. Many seem to think mental patients only stay in a hospital by force, and those are “dangerous lunatics” or “addicts” or some other kind of horribly labeled human. Seemingly “normal” folks don’t need to be locked up, and certainly not of their own choice. Right?
Wrong. In fact, of the people I met while an inpatient, many of them were there because they chose to be. Were some forced? Sure. Were some dangerous? Yeah, they could be. Were they all there because they were ill? Yes. Every. Single. One. And the hospital offered them a safe place to figure it out. There they were kept safe from outside influences and toxic relationships, and from themselves. They had a place to learn a bit about what was going on (because many came in with no real idea why they were sick), and a team of medical professionals to care for them while they figured it out. Of the people who showed up involuntarily, many of them chose to stay and work on getting better.
Because of that, I am honest. When people ask where I’ve been, I talk about the 9 days in the hospital. I talk about the 12 days as a partial hospitalization patient. I talk about all the times in between, too, and how it all worked together to help me get to a better place. If they stick around and want to know, I talk about what it feels like to have your brain rebel against you and tell you things that you logically know aren’t true. I talk about how hard it was to decide to go into the hospital, and how my daughter cried while I was away. I talk about any of it that they ask about because they need to know.
Healing is a process and there is no shame in getting the help you need. I had a weekend of extreme depression, two medical visits with all of my family on watch, and three missed days of work before I believed I should get that help. Damned if I’m going to waste it.
The psych floor of the hospital. Healing. Getting to a better place than I was. Yes, it took a long time. No, I’m not fixed. Yes, it will probably get worse a few times before it gets better again.
But most of all, yes, I’m very glad to be back.
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