My last post was a little bleak. I blame the hot weather in my city, and my ever changing internal moods for that.

I discussed the abuse at the hospitals with my therapist. Well, I didn't so much discuss things as I ranted and raved for a good hour about the injustices in the American mental health care system. Finally, he stitched me back together in about five minutes of behavioral modification (or cognitive behavioral therapy, whichever term you prefer), altered my perspective, and sent me home feeling like a little embarrassed for losing my patience.

I have this love hate relationship with the county mental health system. They were both the people who hurt me and the people who saved me and helped me to recover. Sometimes, the same person is in both categories.

I have been a ward of the county's mental health program since the age of 22-23 (previous to that I was enrolled in private insurance under my mother which warehoused me in the hospital that was actually pretty fancy back in the day, with lavish cakes for dessert and non-stop art therapy). For the bulk of the time I was with the county I felt ignored, belittled, maligned, and neglected. At one county center my doctor was a new person every three months, the previous doctor having quit or gotten fired, and it was a stressful relaying all the painful bits of my life to a new doctor every three months.

Then again, the county provided free medicine so long as I entered a rehabilitation program, but that was years later, in approximately 2008-2009. The county both provided for me and left me to my madness with no concern for my well being. It was a confusing time, my enemies were my carers and my carers weren't caring....but they could care at random and unexpected moments. If this sounds confusing, that is exactly what I felt. Confused. Alone. Tormented by internal voices and treated as a leper by the external world. But there were moments of refuge. I found refuge with other schizophrenics and bipolar people. I made unlikely friends: from different social classes, of different races, and different religions. The only thing that bonded us was our shared experience of forced hospitalization. Despite what we were (or had been) on the outside, once inside we became blank, generic mental patients; interchangeable cogs in a machine we had no control over.

I cannot relay just how startling it can be to have staff not speak to you when they approach you to take your blood pressure. It is a silent act between a nurse and whatever that person saw me as: a sick person, maybe, or maybe they saw me as a sick thing, a thing that was more like an animal than like them. It is when you have been dehumanized to this point that something kicks in: a final coping mechanism. A last ditch effort to find human decency where there is none. Every smile becomes a source of fuel, more powerful than the watered down decaf coffee they serve on the wards. A smile could make the boredom tolerable, could make the interactions with the volatile patients tolerable, make being in captivity while the world moves around without you---tolerable. The bonds I made with the other schizophrenics are deep. I still run into someone from the hospital from time to time (in the county behavioral center, on the bus, etc...) they have always cracked a wide grin, approached me, sometimes hugged me, always asked how I was and if I remembered this group or that hospital from the past. I will not lie, I both cringe and breathe a sigh of relief whenever I run into another former patient. I cringe because I am almost done with my Master's degree now (I am going to be in my final semester this fall), I  have been passably healthy and out of the hospital for 5-6 years now, I have new hobbies, new friends, a new life---I pretend like I was not that sick person banging on the bullet-proof window rambling about suicide and CIA agents; I cringe because it hurts to remember the damage. Yet, I breathe a sigh of relief because I can finally smile my real smile at somebody who knew the "real me." There is a kinship between us former mental patients based on the mutual experience of being dehumanized, marginalized, imprisoned, all for our own good.We are what society mocks, at least when they are not busy building up hysteria around us because of some sociopath who may or may not have also had the label of schizophrenic, bipolar, or autistic at some point in their pasts. I strongly disagree with the idea that schizophrenia, bipolar, or autism disorder is the root (or even tangential) cause of mass murders. I have known many great men and women who were totally insane. One of the kindest woman on the wards was a middle-aged African-American lady who said she heard non-stop golden oldies playing like a radio in her head to the point where she could hear and do nothing else (except sing along, which, to my great amusement, she did frequently). I must remember this woman and the others whenever I get angry about the hospitals. There was cruelty, yes, but there was also random acts of love and compassion that I have never found on the Outside.

I will always love those that I met on the inside: who found a way to keep their souls through everything. They are like me. I am like them. This reminds me of a book by Philip K. Dick called "Clans of the Alphane Moon," a science fiction tale about a future where the mentally ill were rocketed en mass into outer-space, to colonize their own planet without infringing on the realities of the Normals. It is a great book! I  highly recommend it due to its unique insight into the quirks of those with mental illnesses and its laugh out loud style humor. On this random note, I bid you adieu. 

Lions, and Tigers, and Finals Week.

When the only thing that separates me from the other former mental patients is that I can perform well in school, finals week is a stressful, coffee-indulging, binge-eating festival of intellectual carnage.

I am schizo-affective. Most of my kindred schizophrenics are busy talking to pigeons in the downtown park, or rocking themselves in their drug-induced stupor. Some of us lead “normal lives,” though. I am apparently one of them. I work part-time and attend college as a Master’s program student full-time. Nobody knows what I am: a former mental patient who spent the ages of 19 – 25 in and out of mental hospitals before I finally stabilized on meds and took them consistently.

Now, I must study and prove that I am more than a delinquent set of brain chemicals called dopamine and serotonin. I am more than a mental patient. Or at least that is the way I must train myself to think or else I will plummet into a fit of self-destructiveness. My entire essence is wrapped up in how I can differentiate myself from society’s image of a schizophrenic: the bizarre, violent, freak of nature that needs to be detained indefinitely. I try to think of myself as a student, as a laborer, as a creative thinker, as a writer. Deep down, I will always be that girl locked in solitary confinement in the triage center of the hospital with three security guards monitoring every movement, but it’s worth a try to act like I have a chance at a happy life. I deserve that. On that nice thought, I will take my leave. Have a great day!

"Whoever told you you're schizophrenic was an idiot," --disability evaluator

I saw a disability evaluator last week. She was a stocky African American lady with a polished, clipped voice and a skeptical look to her.

“Whoever told you you were schizophrenic was an IDIOT,” she said, “There is NO chance you are schizophrenic. I know schizophrenia, I evaluate it all the time, and you are NOT a schizophrenic.”

I started to cry. She just glared at me. Having shattered my identity she went on to tell me how I was not entitled to disability, that I was not schizophrenic, blah blah blah. I sat there for 30 minutes listening to her wail on me. I hated her. I hated her from the deepest part of my soul. It is not nice to try to dismantle somebody’s identity. Schizophrenia is part of my identity. It is part of what defines me, and I don’t like people trying to wrestle out my soul with brittle disgust, like she did.

Two days later was my doctor’s appointment. I told her my Master’s program was going well. Then I asked her what my official diagnosis was.

“Schizoaffective,” she said, double checking with the computer’s information. My mind was restored, in a sad way. I knew I was different, sick, ill, not normal. Now, it was re-confirmed. I had spent two days wondering what I was, why had I hallucinated and heard voices if I was not schizophrenic? But everything was okay, or rather, it was back to being not okay--I was schizophrenic. It made me feel happy, in a weird way.

Note to self: Don't trust anyone. DTA.

I hope you have a nice day! Thanks for reading!

I Have a New Therapist

Well, after my distressing couple of weeks dealing with a classmate/friend's suicide, I finally had a session with a new therapist. She is a PhD at the campus psych clinic. I opted to go to the campus psych clinic because the county's therapists are hard to get appointments with and they are more for crisis-riddled, 100% damaged people (like I used to be until I got adjusted to medication and my grad school life).

We talked about my classmate and how it brought back my memories from my cousin's suicide. I was close to my cousin and we lived in the same house for a few years. It all came rushing back, the closeness we had, the way his life crumbled in a matter of years, the sudden news of his suicide, the viewing, the sight of my dead cousin's brother sitting by himself in the corner of a park, strumming his guitar, while the rest of his family sat around sadly holding pictures of my lost cousin.

My therapist brought up the fact that it seemed like I was hiding from issues with suicide and self-harm in my life by ducking into my academics. I have to agree. What is worse is that failing classes makes me feel not only incompetent and dumb, but it hits harder because the only thing holding me together is my success in my college life.

I sometimes feel that I am also doomed to a life of self-harm, be it through cutting or drugs. I have to reframe my attitude. I have done not too bad the past 3 years. I got my Bachelor's degree in the arts/humanities, and got through my first year in a Master's program. Instead of thinking, "most people with schizo-affective disorder who come from a financially deprived past don't complete college but I did," I think "I don't have any practical work experience! I'm already 30! I'm doomed to poverty and poorly paying jobs!" That might be true, but I could at least focus on the positive parts of my life and personality.

Hopefully, I can work on these issues with my therapist. Also, she pointed out that it seems like I have issues holding a steady relationship and feeling like a complete person on my own. I agree. I think my insecurities are visible and that men with damaged egos seeking an easy lay prey on me, and I let them because I've never known anything else.

I have known that I have daddy issues, or rather never-had-a-daddy issues, but the fact that I feel like I am incomplete without a male sex partner is kind of news to me. I thought I was more whole than that. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. In the time since I started this blog, I have had 3 lovers and 1 one-night stand. I don't know how often other people change partners, but maybe 4 partners in 2-3 years is too much for someone who wants to settle down and be a good Catholic daughter.

My therapist said I was normal, in terms of my behavior, and this was mind-boggling to me. She said it seemed like I had a good handle on social skills except for when I analyze them for hours afterwards. I really want to be normal. I want to be confident, successful, a good role model, but I don't think I am and I have no idea how to be successful. Also, I have major issues with food and eating.

I have been binge eating as soon as the clock reads 5 pm. I have been exercising every other day for at least 30 minutes (either running or boxing), but I still feel like I am being lazy. If it wasn't nearly 100 degrees outside, I would probably spent the majority of my day walking off calories, running along the canal banks in my neighborhood, and doing burpees until I can't stand up.

Maybe one day I will have the ability to look at an ice cream come and not feel like I am about to have a panic attack, a flight or binge eat response, but for now I will settle for just avoiding ice cream cones completely. 

I Am Dead Doll

It is all over the media in the next town from me. My friend committed suicide in a public manner. So far, my county has yet to pick up the story. I only found the story by digging through the internet. I don't think anybody else knows. I don't think any of my classmates know how our friend died. His name and mode of suicide is plastered on the internet. Animals, barbarians, hiding behind aliases, debate about his mangled corpse in the comments of their town's online newspaper. One slandered him by saying he traumatized the bystanders (with no mention about how he is DEAD now while they get to LIVE and that his grieving friend is reading every gory, ugly, callous comment they are making...). Ugh. Normal People are so incomprehensible to me. They think us mentally ill are the sick ones?! We are genetically different. THEY are jerks and dogs. They have all the normal mental health and what do they do? They joke about my classmate's suicide like so much Jimmy Fallon fodder. I sent a complaint about the comments to the online newspaper. They never responded.

I cannot believe I missed the signs of suicide. I had more than 4 classes with him this past year...if not past 2 years. We saw each other every day. We greeted each other every day. He would approach me and ask me how I was, what did we do in class, how was my work going. I would make chit chat with him. I was very fond of him. He was tall, handsome, quiet. Withdrawn--I should have known. He has always been a little aloof, I thought maybe it was a cultural thing. No, it was his psychological wound not a personality trait.

This is hell. I drove around in shell-shock, trying to get an emergency session with a therapist. Next week, said the campus health clinic. I went to the county out-patient center where I am a consumer (I am bipolar but currently I have/had no symptoms). Next week, they said. Next week, next week, where will I be next week? I might take my student loan and flee this country. Forget finishing the Masters program. Forget everything. I just want a new start in a country that does not despise the mentally ill or laugh when we end our lives.

I previously wrote that I did not want any anger inside me, but when I read those callous and cruel comments on the article about my friend's suicide, I felt rage. Rage, wrath, hatred, deep-seated anger. I wanted to tell them exactly what I thought of them and their pathetic little personalities. I wanted to cross the line with the people who wrote those comments. I wanted to hurt them psychologically. Hence, the sudden drive to find a crisis therapist. I do not want to be that barbarian that these people are. I want to be able to snub my nose at them. I did not want to cut my wrist like I used to. I did not want to go screaming my anger over the internet like they do. Instead, I sat under the fluorescent lights of the out-patient treatment center and waited. "Next week," the counselor said. "Fine," I said. I left.

Outside in the parking lot I started to cry. I wept tears but I kept walking. I was a robot, a walking dead doll. Crying, floating outside of myself, feeling everything, feeling nothing. Limbo, then hell, then limbo, then emptiness, then over and over and over again, that endless cycle of grief and pain. I drove aimlessly for ten minutes.

I could see my life as endless opportunities. Death was not one. Neither was admitting myself to a psychiatric ward. There are many ways to self-destruct, to erupt like a volcano. I decided to binge eat. Off I went to the pizza joint for a large pizza and a bottle of diet Pepsi. I wanted nothing wicked to come out of my mouth so instead I stuffed it full of carbs and grease, swallow, repeat, until the heaven of sleep comes again, where I can pretend like all this is a nightmare. It is too bad, I ate 1200 calories yesterday and I even exercised. Then I found out exactly how my friend died and I went into a frenzied binge eating, remorse-ridden, tear-stained rollercoaster ride. I still feel like a dead doll. I put make-up on. I stare at myself in the mirror. I see large, oversized, kohl outlined eyes with a look in them like somebody vacuumed out the life out of them. I am dead doll. Hopefully, this will pass. Until then, I am going to eat my pain away.

Not So Paranoid Now, Am I?!

That last post made me a little depressed. I want to delete that post, but I guess I should not based on the fact that that would undermine the beautiful gesture made by the TEDtalks guy, Dr. Katz.

*******************************************************************

I was just reading this story on Associated Press about government wiretapping, google search datamining, etc...I had to giggle. How is this not a given?! Where have these readers been the past 12 years, if not longer?

They laughed at me, those silly social workers, psychiatrists, and mental health techs. They said nobody cared what I said over the phone, that Americans were not spied on. I eventually just started rolling my eyes and agreeing with them in order to get released from the psych ward earlier. I have had "delusions" of federally approved domestic-based spies, eavesdroppers, constitutional rights violations, and warrantless searches and arrests since 2001. I learned to accept this. I grew to feel a certain fondness for the Man who listened, an omnipresent God-like entity to my paranoid schizo-affective mind. The Satellite Ears and Eyes became my new deity. I have become submissive to this system. It has always been there, at least now this new non-privacy system is slightly more transparent. I accept and love this model of government. It protects us, listens to us, watches us, saves us. I am honestly sincere in my unquestioning devotion to this Leviathan model of government. I have no issues with it. I have grown accustomed to it this past decade while everyone else thought I was 100% insane. Turns out, I was only 80% insane and 20% right! Ha ha! Take that social-worker-guy who spent 30 minutes trying to convince me my beliefs were false and delusional!

To VALIS! [reference to Philip Dick's book entitled VALIS about an all-seeing satellite].

President Obama Holds Mental Health Conference

Below is a link to a conference held by President Obama discussing the need to end the stigmatization of mental illness.

It feels like a relief to see this in the headlines. Of course, this is necessary because recent random acts of violence have inspired hatred, distrust, and suspicion of the mentally ill. I see a lot of comments like this on yahoo "So what if it's 'just one'? All it takes is one nutcase to kill a bunch of innocent people, I say put them all away." --->not constitutional, or logical, or civil. This, however, is the current ignorant, pathetic and anti-constitutional belief held by a lot of Americans (or at least by people who comment on yahoo news articles). To them I say: traitor.

To the rest of you, I say: please watch the video attached to the link. It is a happy day when the struggle of the mentally ill is finally acknowledged.


http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/white-house-hosts-hollywood-actors-experts-mental-health-133406228.html

Mental Health Book List

Over the years, I have felt inspired, educated, and intrigued by the following books listed below. Each one is related to mental health. Some books are memoirs, others are novels. I hope there is at least one of these books available at your public or campus library.

~ The Center Cannot Hold by Elyn R. Saks = A true, often witty, more often harrowing story of the author's experiences as a schizophrenic attending law school at some of the most prestigious universities in the world. She is also on TedTalks discussing her illness. Also, she is on UCTelevision's youtube channel talking about her experiences and her knowledge of mental health and the law.

~ An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison = A lively true story written in flowing prose. Dr. Jamison was diagnosed with bipolar disorder while holding prestigious research positions at top medical universities. Quite the prolific writer, Dr. Jamison has written a number of books that are important reads (see, "Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide", and "Touched by Fire").

~ Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Except More So by Mark Vonnegut = A memoir by a doctor slash writer slash schizophrenic who overcomes his diagnosis, completes medical school, and becomes a brilliant, witty, and charming doctor slash writer slash person with bipolar disorder with psychosis.

~ Madness by Marya Hornbacher = A memoir of bipolarity, eating disorders, and the creation of multiple wonderful memoirs by a woman whose talented writing surpasses the difficulties she suffered due to numerous diagnoses. Her book, "Wasted", is another amazing literary achievement.

~Wasted by Marya Hornbacher = A memoir of a talented writer hounded by the demons of food obsession and restriction. She focuses this autobiography on her personal experiences as an anorexic slash bulimic and the ways in which her illnesses ruined her relationships and nearly destroyed her health.

~ The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath = A novel based on Plath's real life, this book delves into the tunnel vision of a depressive woman who cannot see how talented she is because she feels only sadness and pain. The tragedy of Sylvia Plath's real life throws a darkness across the pages, but the prose is raw, candid, genuine, and sadly, very prophetic.

~ A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar = A deep, well-researched biography of Dr. John Nash, a mathematical genius who developed paranoid schizophrenia around the time when he was revolutionizing the field of math and science. The movie is excellent as well, but this book deserves special praise for Nasar's in-depth look at the personality of a prodigy whose mind gave birth to both groundbreaking theories and unreal conspiracies.

This is an incomplete list. I have not read every book out there so this list is not comprehensive. The more books I read, the more books I will list here. Have a great night! Thanks for reading.

Grad School Finals Week and my 30th birthday

Dear public, online diary,

today I woke up and realized I am about to turn 30 this week. I woke up and thought, "why am I still in school? Why have I only had cashier and customer service jobs? Why am I still living with my family? Why aren't I married?" I guess I had an early mid-life crisis this morning.

Here is the answer to most of the questions above: I have a major mental illness and it is very difficult to get the medication to treat my symptoms. My mental illness froze my progress. I spent so many weeks lying in bed, in a catatonic depression. I spent more weeks huddled in the kitchen, in my "safe spot" by the fridge, hearing voices and trying to breathe through my fear.

I parted ways with my former outpatient treatment center. I am now back with the county's main outpatient center. My former treatment center released me because I have had no major symptoms the past 2-3 years and they are intended for people who are fairly non-functional. Now, I am with the more lax system that treats people who are not on the verge of total self-destruction. It is less "intensive" as my former therapist put it. Sadly, it is also more apathetic. If I miss an appointment I have to wait another 3 months to see a doctor, without medication. Thankfully, I have a cell phone app to remind me what my schedule is like.

Thirty years old and I still feel like that 18 year old girl starting college for the first time. One year later, at age 19, I became floridly psychotic, my life spiraled up and down, jobs came and went, I dropped out of school, then returned again, and now here I am, 30, with my head kind of screwed on straight and about 35 years left for working full-time.

It is finals week. For me, that means a last ditch effort to get a C in my math and programming classes. I started so promising, but then I slipped into a depression and started sleeping through the night and half the day, missing my classes and falling behind. Still, I have hope that I will not crumble into another depression. My new doctor at the county is putting me on Prozac and taking me off Zoloft. I told him I had totally built up a tolerance to the Zoloft the past half a decade and he agreed it had lost its efficacy. I am being weaned off Zoloft this week, taking half my dose with the other half being Prozac. I have felt a difference in that I am awake before noon. That is usually the sign that my depression is receding. Luckily, I saw my doctor before finals week, so I have been patched up the past few weeks and now I am prepared to study hard, study long, and write programs like my life depends on it.

My graduate program is going well and I'm 90% finished with my graduate class term papers. I just need to pass my elective classes, which have nothing to do with my field, but I am enrolled in them and the grades still count on my GPA. After next week, I will be done with finals. I will be thirty years old. I will be healthy for a solid 4 years.A toast to you, dear reader! A toast to you and to good mental health and a strong GPA!!

Psychiatric Facilities

I have never instigated any sort of violence. One time, a woman who looked high on hard drugs came up to me on the street and hit me in the chest as I was walking to Starbucks. I had to push her away several times as she continued to attempt to attack me. Eventually, she ran away. I reported her to the police, like a good citizen is supposed to. Other than that, I have never been in any kind of altercation.

I am a former mental patient, but I assure you that I have not and will not use any violence or weapons against a person in my life. In my times at the psychiatric facilities, I have been sexually victimized by other patients, mistreated by the staff who allowed male patients to roam into my room while I was sleeping, received numerous death threats from men, and I  had to resort to making phone calls to my patient's rights advocates and administration to report the ridiculous negligent attitudes of staff. Since I last was hospitalized about 3-4 years ago, the psychiatric facility has since been taken over by a private company, and many of the staff were replaced. Regardless, I have horrible memories of abuse and restraints, and I have no desire to ever be confined to a space where my safety rests in the hands of underpaid, unsympathetic staff.

The hospitals are a breeding ground for neglect. Unlike elderly homes, mental asylums are possibly more vulnerable to hidden abuse because it is expected that patients are delirious and imagining things that are not happening.

The psychological wounds I received from my schizo-affective disorder are nowhere near the sort of emotional injuries I received from the treatment of this illness. These are not hospitals but asylums and the patients are not patients so much as captives.

I usually get told my doctors that I am pretending to be better when in fact I am still too sick to leave the hospital. Of course I am!! Anywhere, ANYWHERE, is better than the hospital. One would expect constant monitoring of patient activity, but that is usually not the case except at medication dispensing time. Staff is fully aware that a 280 pound guy who wants into my room might be resistant to being told no, so they ignore him.

The safest I felt in the psychiatric hospital, to be totally frank, is when the murderers and rapists from the nearby prison were on our ward. Why?? Because the police came with them to make sure they didn't escape. There would be two guards sitting near their beds (which were always in the middle of the main TV room) at all times. During their stays, everybody else behaved, including the visiting criminals. Ironic, right?

A lot of times, some of the patients would be in the hospital because they made murder threats and were put on a "threat to others" hold. Between jail and the mental hospital, the volatile people feigned mental illness to avoid a cell. Other times, the patients would be in the hospital after mixing alcohol with meth or cocaine. These drugs can look like violent psychosis and the cops were just as likely to stick them in the wards with genuine mentally ill people than put them in jail or into rehab.

You know those stories about how prisons are the new mental hospital? I am not sure I believe that. Personality disordered people are quick to figure out who gets cool mind-altering drugs, time in co-ed hospitals versus jail cells, and a quick release. They fake illness. I know there are criminals who are genuinely mentally ill, but trust me, 90% of homeless people are genuinely mentally ill and at least 50% of criminally insane people are faking their insanity. If you really want to see a cluster of mentally ill people go to your local homeless shelter. That's where they are. Not in jail cells. People like John Hinkley are exceptions, not the rule. 

Depression Despite 200 mg of Zoloft

I have been in a depressive state since the end of spring break back in March.

When I get depressed I sleep excessively. I have been known to sleep for 10-12 hours when I am depressed. It's not exactly laziness. I just cannot get out of bed. I feel fatigue, lethargy, and emotionally exhausted when I do roll out of bed. I often wake up at 6 in the morning, make an effort to brew some coffee, but I somehow find my way back under the covers of my bed. I then black out until around 10 or 11 am. It is ridiculous.

I am taking a mood stabilizer twice a day and 200 mg of Zoloft once a day. I have been on that dose of Zoloft for about 4 years now. I think my brain has built up a tolerance to that drug and it now barely makes a dent. Still, if I were to suddenly go off of it, I would go into a depressive withdrawal. People generally don't think that anti-depressants can cause withdrawal, but it does. The withdrawal isn't as bad as barbiturates or hard-core drugs, but there are major mood disruptions caused when you go off of anti-depressants.

Right now, I am restless and feeling low and pretty crummy. I tend to escape into cyber-space and miss class when I go into severe depression. I have been managing to to make it to class lately but I am so behind in my programming class I intentionally skipped the lab class because I fear being scolded by my professor (she would totally tell me I don't understand the data structure chapter because I haven't come to class). When I am in a depressive state I get really sensitive about comments and body language. I always feel like I am not doing good enough, that I am a failure, that people think I'm wasting their time.

I have to enact my WRAP plan. That is short for "wellness recovery action plan," which was invented by mental health counselors to get patients from relapsing into severe mental illness. Basically, it's a booklet you create outlining warning signs that indicate you are going into a period of mental illness. Accompanying this list is a set of actions and thoughts that help you re-ground yourself so you don't go into a downward spiral. I have a WRAP plan for mania and paranoia but I totally neglected to make one for depression.

I will give you an example of my WRAP plan for mania

> I get insomnia when I feel manic // --> Go to bed even earlier and just lie there instead of surfing the web until I feel sleepy.
> I start thinking that people know I'm nuts // --> Remember that the constitution protects me from discrimination based on mental disability. Write a list of arguments for and against proof that people know I'm nuts.
> I can't concentrate to do my homework // ---> go to the library, get a private study room where there is no noise and distractions, and work for as long as I can. Leave. Walk around for an hour. Come back, study.

This works pretty well for me. I cannot believe I forgot to make one for depression! I think I will do that today. Then off to the library to lock myself in a room to study programming.

I feel sad. Today is 4/20. That is national marijuana day (not a federally sanctioned holiday, but still). I cannot smoke marijuana because I am broke and also because I live with family who do not allow marijuana in their house. I have been clean 90% of the time for at least 3 years. I tend to go back to smoking pot every summer for a month or so, but I really feel that pot would be beneficial to my major depression right now. Yes, you can disagree with me. You have the right to think that pot should be illegal (it's not in California due to majority vote, but federally it's a shady area), but I have the right to disagree and yearn for the plant.

Sigh**

Recovered Mental Patient: I was not sane but I am now--can i have a cookie?

I am a former mental patient (a female schizo-affective) who recovered thanks to a regimen of medicine treatment mixed with cognitive behavioral therapy. I got healthy enough to return to college, finish my Bachelor's degree, and currently I have been in a Master's program for nearly a year. I also volunteer on the side and I am a leader of an organization on campus as well. Originally, I had wanted to follow up with my PhD after completing the Masters, but now I feel (as my therapist so bluntly put it) that achieving a doctorate was nothing but a pipe-dream.

I  have kind of given up on my dream of achieving a PhD. I am doing above average in my field, but my mother and the Department of Rehabilitation counselor both told me to go get a job instead.

"We're not funding PhD's," said my DOR counselor. "Our goal is to get you guys to pay taxes." Tact might not be his forte, but I guess he has a point. I am supposed to earn money, not just grants.

Humorously, the DOR counselor asked me what made me think I was schizo-affective. He seemed skeptical of this diagnosis. I almost started to giggle.

"Nothing, nothing at all. In fact, I think I am totally sane, with no mental illness. It is total fact that I am being psychically driven by hostile countries through long-range, low-wave frequencies. The voices I heard are totally a part of the psychic warfare techniques used against me to discredit me and get me to commit suicide. I can, in fact, read minds, and the minds I read are always plotting against me. It is an injustice that I have been involuntary committed into psychiatric facilities on a dozen separate occasions and 5250'd each time. I demand lawsuits! Lawsuits and a UN stipulation barring psychic driving!!!" I really wanted to say all that. I really did. Instead, I just sighed.

"I have been hospitalized a dozen times and the psychiatrists all diagnosed me with the same illness--schizo-affective disorder. I used to get audio and visual hallucinations, grandiose delusions, and extreme anxiety. I am on medicine and the symptoms have all gone away. To me, this tells me I was really sick because the medicine made such a huge difference." ----That's what I actually said to the guy. It really bemuses and frustrates me that I have to assert myself to others and state "yes, actually I am a schizophrenic, no kidding," and the whole time they're like, "why is she faking?" I guess it is difficult for society to accept that a person who can be non-functional one year can be a high-functioning student/volunteer/organizer with no hint of positive or negative schizophrenic symptoms. But it's true!

It is tough being a recovered mental patient. Often, it is very tempting to agree with people who never met you before but who judge you based on how you are at that very moment (perfectly socially acceptable), and who decide maybe you were never sick, you were just mishandled by the system.

I was mishandled by the system; I experienced sexual abuse in the wards, death threats, cruelty by staff, use of restraints without having made any threats or suggestions that I was going to be violent or a flight risk----but I can honestly say they didn't misdiagnose me. They just horribly traumatized me.

Now I am getting so irritable. Every time I talk about the stuff I went through in the psych wards, I get a migraine headache.

I change subject now.

******************************************************************
Currently, I am the president of a campus organization. I did not start the club but I was recently nominated to be president and so I am president now. I  have a meeting with the administration today to discuss our upcoming event, which I am now in charge of, as the last president just left with the paperwork for the event incomplete and not approved by the administration. I like the last president. I am just a little nervous because the choice to switch officer positions was not her choice. I think she might be a tad bit bitter. I must use my diplomatic skills to win her over. I will then use the diplomatic skills to win over the administration and to hold this event, which is coming up next month.

I must go make promotional materials for the event, that is not approved to take place yet. Better to be over-prepared than to come empty-handed.

Usually, I don't wake up at 2 am, but today I did, so I might as well make some promotional materials. Thanks for reading!!

Comments on Mark Vonnegut's memoirs

I grew up on Kurt Vonnegut's literature, having stumbled upon "God Bless You Mr. Rosewater" at the age of 13. To this day, I still possess 10 Kurt Vonnegut books and an additional 2 copies of Welcome to the Monkey House. What does this have to do with his son, the illustrious Mark Vonnegut? Well, just imagine how much I admired Kurt Vonnegut...now transfer that feeling to his son, a man towards whom I feel a particularly kinship to due to his bipolar/quasi-schizophrenia disorder. Now, multiply that mushy Hallmark feeling times 10 and that's how I feel about his newest memoir, "Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So."

My favorite sentence thus far has been where he states that you can tell who has the mental illness in his family by pointing at the people who look ten or more years younger than their actual ages. I had to crack up. All of my classmates originally thought I was mid-twenties or younger until I laughingly confessed I was pushing thirty. "Must be all the laughing and crying...it keeps the facial muscles toned," says Mark Vonnegut on the subject.

I also had to crack up at the part where he states his new, post-psychosis goal of becoming a doctor: he had all of a 1.8 GPA in the math and science field going into college again. "It seemed natural," he said, then cited the optimism of mania. Thankfully for his patients, Mark Vonnegut was stable for the period during his medical schooling (take THAT Stanford professor who thinks no mentally ill person should bother to apply to med school because we shouldn't be allowed to be in the medical field in the first place~!! Ha ha, counter-evidence to your biased discrimination!). He is now an M.D. That's right, M.D. Capital letters and everything!

If Mark Vonnegut MD had typed up a bland, melodramatic memoir, I still would have been inspired. But his memoir is littered with wit, charm, self-deprecating moments, and a tendency to organize paragraphs slightly more loosely than one of those Normal writers (if there exists such a thing as a Normal writer, aren't writers generally moody? See "Touched by Fire" by Kay Redfield Jamison for a psychology study on the prevalence of depression and mania in successful writers). This turns his book into a mental playground where the swings are sentences, the monkey bars, paragraphs, and the sandbox, whole chapters! I love this book.

It is not enough that he has accomplished so much---this is something he says---but what came in between all those accomplishments that is really the soul of Mark Vonnegut. I agree. Was it really my "intelligence" or "aptitude" that got me into graduate school despite my mental illness, or was it those years I spent lugging trash bags to the dumpster outside the pizza joint I worked at, delusional and convinced that my boss was plotting to kill me after everyone else clocked out? Horrifying, yes, but it helped put things in perspective. No injustice in academia is as bad as lugging restaurant trash into the night rain, checking behind me for the angry boss who probably really did hate me, wondering if there was anything in life outside of a pizza joint. There is, not that there is anything wrong with working in a pizza joint...I just prefer to write essays, I guess. 

Ghost in the Machine

I have to admit, I'm not always happy with what I write here. Sometimes, I feel badly about what I wrote while in a bad mood, or while in a manic state. Then again, I try to promote understanding about mental illness by opening up my private thoughts to cyberspace. Not all mentally ill people are all horrible monsters, or incompetent people who cannot be trusted to work. Many of us live and let live, some succeed, others fail, some are only burdened by their illness, others find a special talent in it.

Myself, I love to paint, but I only paint when I am mentally ill. Painting allows me to express myself in a way that relates to my horrifying experience of hearing voices or feeling persecuted. Talking about these things would be deemed as "freakish," "bizarre," or "scary." But when I paint what I want to say rather than say it, I get praise and compliments from even total strangers. Painting allows me to communicate, to escape my mind for a while, and to establish a connection with the outside world, within the "appropriate" parameters. If it were not for my schizo-affective disorder, I really doubt I would have ever picked up a paint brush.

Now that I am "sane," and have been out of the hospital for the last 3-4 years, I find that I am not really compelled to paint as I once was. I find instead that I gravitate towards technical books on science, math, and computer programming. I can no longer tolerate the uncertainty of a blank canvas. Now that my head is clear and some of my personality has returned (note: mental illness can often cause disruptions in one's personality and the development of one's personality), I am more interested in the art of programming rather than the art of Picasso. I am still eternally indebted to the world of art for maintaining me through my ordeals, but now I can go pursue the goals and passions from before my mental illness struck in my late teenage years.

It is tragic that schizophrenia often hits right at the onset of adulthood. Likely, the pre-psychotic symptoms have been in the individual through their adolescence, inhibiting their true personality from proper development.

Sometimes I still feel like I am only 18 years old. That is around the time when my mind started to mutate, to become unbalanced. Sometimes, when I laugh at something hysterically funny, I forget how old I am (29). In that moment, it is like I got my early years back and I'm a new, young adult again. Then, I remember that I'm almost 30, and I have to keep from feeling let down.

Despite this, I can feel proud of myself because I have found some measure of stability in a time when little treatment is available to people like myself. There is no magic wand, no magic fairy that can turn back the clock or make you a success overnight, but the fact that I have accomplished some of my goals on my own without the help of a magic fairy ---like. earning my Bachelor's degree, entering a graduate program, taking science classes, volunteering, and earning financial aid and so forth ---- that is enough to get me through the hard times I know I will have down the line. At some point, my illness will no longer be the "ghost in the machine," the apparition that haunts me while I type into cyberspace, it may very well become a reality, but until then, I am happy. I hope you are happy, too!

Holiday Blues

It is a little hard to write when my personal life (being a former mental patient) bleeds over into the national political hot zones. Bear with me, I'll try to keep it on point.

Christmas is very difficult for me. I think I have emotional issues from my childhood that never quite went away. I struggle with depression during this time of year. I feel so dumb, being 29 years old and still feeling like bursting into tears whenever a Christmas carol plays on the radio, but what can I do? My therapist is away on her holiday vacation.



The thing that sort of fills the void is online shopping. I shop like a new book is the thing that will keep me whole, keep me centered, keep me sane. I must be the only one who thinks that a book on multi-variable calculus is a life-raft.

Two of my five classes have posted grades officially. I have an A and a B. I already know I got 2 more A's that still have to officially post, and the fifth class is a toss up between an A and a B. I didn't fail miserably. I did not have a nervous breakdown. I did not wind up in the hospital corridors, cowering in the corner, mumbling about telepathy and thought projection. Instead, I am a little blue, but sane, nonetheless, sitting in my grandmother's room watching a guy talk about blueberries on PBS.

Blueberries.

Notes on my Personal Life

I am up late, thinking about how unjust the world can be. But why gripe? I have more than many other people do. I have my college degree, I am doing well in the master's program, I am not mentally ill at the moment. I have no criminal record. I don't even have any speeding tickets to my name.

I  have a boyfriend. He is an international student. He cooks for me. I am very lucky.


I got an A on a tough midterm. I now have to write excellent term papers. Then, I can celebrate Christmas.

I need. I need money. I need love. I need hugs and kisses and hundred dollar bills. When I am in my boyfriend's arms it is as though he can never hold me tightly enough. I need too much. Even with my major illness gone, I am still a bit neurotic.

Look at me, typing my private details onto the cyberspace. What is the matter with me? I am ashamed, yet my fingers keep typing. I must need attention. I must need your attention. Thank you, by the way, for your attention. Without it, my life would be a solitary existence, living alone with the secret of my damaged mind, hiding behind a wall of fun-house mirrors, unsure as to which reflection is mine.

Here, I know who I am. Yes, I omit certain details of my life from you, reader. Important things? Not really. Trivial things I do not really bother to type into cyberspace. You know my bare soul. You know the secrets that I can not share, not even with the man whom I share a bed with. He doesn't know the secret of my mental illness.

He doesn't know that I learned how to sleep under bright lights in the psychiatric holding cells. What it was like---the horrible sting of light, the sporadic moments of sleep, the ever-present security guards with attitude problems and billy clubs as extensions of their manhood. He doesn't know what it's like to wake up shattered, literally bruised, with no memory.  I curl up with him and pretend like I have no past. Like nothing existed before him. The silence between our conversations like tiny rain drops that threaten to become a rainstorm. I can never tell anyone the horrible existence that American society puts mental patients through. The physical restraints, the invasive psycho-therapy, the guinea-pig drug regimens, the stigma.....it is all so middle ages.

But enough remembering about my ugly past. I must think about a future where I am not tied to a gurney, not misunderstood, not perceived as contagiously mentally ill or dangerous. I will apply to doctorate programs this semester. If I am accepted, I will request a deferment of my admission in order to complete the Master's degree. I will complete my Master's degree in two years, possibly earlier. I will take my medicine as prescribed. I will exercise and lose weight. I will apply to PhD programs in my field. I will not break the law. I will not give up the hope of a normal existence, or of a productive career. Maybe I will even have a child. But that would be after I am gainfully employed. I want my child to have a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Moot point, though, I need to earn my degrees first. Wish me luck. I wish you luck.

I Passed the Qualifying Exam

I studied with my friend twice a week for a month in order to prepare for a qualifying exam. The qualifying exam is required to continue in the program as an official graduate student in the Master's program. I took it. I passed it. My friend did not. I am depressed for her, and for me.

I am depressed because I have so many 5250's on my record that I might never be a community college teacher, or have a career at all. I have been "out" for three years without incident. By "out" I mean socially re-integrated and normal enough to avoid the psychiatric in-patient facilities. I can never erase those 5250's though. They appear on my background check. I have NEVER been charged with a crime, yet I feel like a criminal for being schizo-affective. It is not fair that 5250's appear like a felony would on a background check. They should prevent this because 1) being sick is not a crime, and 2) it violates the medical privacy policies that the U.S. has in place.

If I had spare time I would rally the NAMI supporters and propose a law that states that a doctor's note can over-ride an employment disqualification due to 5250's. But I am a graduate student taking 5 classes. I have no time. I  have no life. I might not even have prospects.

It is moments like these when I close my eyes and seek a higher force. Nothing comes. I open my eyes. Tears come to my eyes, not a benevolent, omnipotent being. I feel empty and hopeless. Stigma has killed my joy. Just earlier today I was enthusiastically blathering on about my studies. Now, I feel that I have made a horrible mistake. I shouldn't bother with graduate school since nobody will hire me because they don't want mental patients working. They want us in bed, laying prone for days on end, growing plump like veal, spending our meager disability check on little art supplies so we can create art that nobody will buy.

I write. I write and apparently somebody stops by to read. Why? Who am I? What am I worth in this society? Why do I keep living when others do not?

This was supposed to be a happy post---I passed a difficult exam with flying colors. I am fully admitted to the University. I have already begun research for my term papers. Yet I am filled with ambivalence and sadness. My friend is normal, no 5150's on her record, nothing on her record. Yet she failed and I passed.

Don't worry, I do not have any plans to stop attending school or to slip further into this depression. I just needed to vent. I must accept that this is a risk I am taking---to pay a lot of money for diplomas that I might never use. Fancy, fancy diplomas. An Associate's Degree diploma. A Bachelor's Degree diploma. Soon, perhaps a Master's degree diploma will join the others on top of my tall bookcase, collecting dust, something to show off to the few friends I may have down the road.....

Or maybe I will just run away to Amsterdam and live in the Red Light district, smoking in the cafes, wandering the streets looking for menial jobs, and writing terrible poetry in the back alleys of potshops. 

Adjusting to Grad School

If you had asked me at age 18 where would I be in 4 years I would have answered: I will be a college graduate and I will be securely employed.

Well, I am 29 years old and that little bubble of hope kind of popped around the time I had my first schizo-affective episode at the age of 19. Since that time, I have ridden the turbulent waves of mental illness. I have succeeded and failed at community college, barely managing to transfer with an Associate's degree, almost a decade later. Now, I have a Bachelor's degree. It's officially on my transcripts: Bachelor's degree conferred August, 2012. Some might call me a total failure. A dreg, a former pothead, socially unproductive. Some might call me a tough cookie for managing a severe mental illness while working, going to college, and attending to my family. I call myself a masochist, in a way, for putting up with the tightening deadlines, the boss with the anger management issues, professors with attitude problems, eating myself into a size 16 pant size, dieting myself down to a size 14 (I am still considered overweight by the BMI chart but nowhere near where I used to be), making friends with sleazy womanizers, and juggling all this with the incessant stream of homework, papers, family obligations, financial strains, and (of course) periodic flare-ups of my mental illness. Yes, that little masochist in me wants to feel the pain of juggling life roles, of near epic failures, and deepening despairs concerning my future.

Yet, if it were not for the masochist I would have chosen a fairly easier route: graduate, go to a career placement service, get a job, work below my full capabilities, buy an Ipad. End of life. Despite the urge to be stable financially and professionally, I couldn't let go of the field I am studying. It intrigues me. The promised future paycheck also calls out to me like a siren in a Greek tragedy. So I applied to the same Cal State campus as a graduate student, got accepted, and now I am on a kayak heading down rapids. I do not know how I well fare in graduate school. It is something I want to do, something I am driven to do. I want to be educated. I want to be specialized. I want to feel intelligent.

This last decade I have felt dumb. I heard things that nobody else did while schizo-affective. I saw things. I believed wild delusions that anyone with normal brain chemistry could clearly see was not real. I have struggled with not trusting my mind at all and now my mind is the only thing I have to keep me afloat for the next two years while I complete my Master's degree.

I just know I want to be like Elyn R. Saks in "The Center Cannot Hold." Psychotic? Yes. Smart? Yes. Educated? Yes. Successful? Yes. She is my role model. Thank you, Elyn R. Saks, for writing your story. A year after I found out about your story I am still inspired to persevere in my life, to prove you right!

So....here I go. I am going to work on a presentation I have to prepare for a class.

Thanks for reading! 

Link to Article on Mental Illness and Violence

http://news.yahoo.com/mass-murder-and-mental-illness--the-interplay-of-stigma--culture-and-disease.html

Above is a link to an article I just read. It debates whether people with schizophrenia are more violent than others. I feel that it is a balanced article. I have, however, read contrary evidence that suggests there is no link between schizophrenia and violence. Despite this, the author points out a vital insight: why do people in other countries who have schizophrenia never commit the crimes that our schizophrenics do? Indeed, schizophrenics in other countries have a much better life-time outcome than American schizophrenics. Why? I believe that it is due to stigma and discrimination against the schizophrenics that is a uniquely American phenomenon. If you persecute any group they are more likely to become angry and volatile. It is undeniable that in American society, schizophrenics are viewed and treated as unpredictable, malignant genetic freaks that need to be removed from the general population. Imagine how that must feel to be told you can never have a job, a family, a normal life, happiness in general; imagine that plus the added burden of being treated like a criminal without even having committed a crime!

It is hard knowing that I am hated without cause. It is hard knowing that I am persecuted (and no, that is not a delusion I hold, I really AM persecuted due to my illness). It is hard knowing that I will never be trusted, respected, or loved as I am; genetic abnormality and all. I would not commit a crime, and this is not a justification for those who commit crimes, but it is something to think about the next time you see a schizophrenic walking in the street and talking to himself.

It is difficult in times of crisis to think clearly about problems. Emotions and the need for vengeance get in the way. Yet, in these times, we must still adhere to the U.S. constitution. I do. I do not discriminate due to race, religion, age, class, sexual orientation, gender, or mental/physical disability. I sincerely hope you will follow the teaching of the constitution as well.

Thank you for reading.

1% of Psychotics Are Violent, I am the 99%

I always hate seeing violence in the news, especially this new massacre in Colorado. Every time there is a random act of violence people start labeling them "psycho," "insane," and lumping all of us law abiding mental cases in with the violent maniacs that take their angst out on innocent people.

It occurred to me that I should quote from a book written by a world renowned criminal profiler. Dr. Hickey has studied serial murderers, mass murderers, sexual deviants, and criminals in general for decades. He has published numerous textbooks on the subjects, including this one, "Serial Murderers and Their Victims," fifth ed., published in 2010. Here is a quote from that textbook:

"...[Souza in 2002] found that although mass murderers will most likely have a history of both childhood trauma and violent behavior, most do not have any significant history of institutionalization (Hickey, p. 59, 2010)."
        ---So, essentially, the bulk of mass murderers have never seen the inside of a psych ward. They appear to be normal, unlike the majority of schizophrenics, who stand out like a sore thumb in society and are constantly admitted into psychiatric facilities for behavioral modification, medication, and confinement.

Later on, the book states, "Henn, Herjanic, and Vanderpearl (1976) examined the psychiatric assessments of nearly 2,000 persons arrested for homicide between 1964 and 1973 and noted that only 1% were considered to be psychotic (Hickey, p. 62, 2010)."

This is not anecdotal stories that I just made up. This is genuine research conducted by PhD's who are at the top of their fields. Maybe this criminal is insane, if so, he is that 1% of mentally ill people who perpetrate crimes. Please do not take your anger out on the law abiding 99%!!

For those of you who do not know this, there is a state mandate that says if you have ever been put on a "5150" hold, meaning that you are judged to be a threat to yourself or to others or you are incapable of caring for yourself, you are prohibited from possessing or purchasing a fire arm for at least five years! The most chronic cases, those of us who are repeat mental patients in psych wards, are fairly likely to NEVER own a hand gun, due to the fact that every couple of years we are hospitalized.

Let us not forget that the bulk of crimes are committed by sociopaths. Sociopathy is a personality disorder, not a neuro-chemical imbalance that is inherited from one's genetics. Sociopaths are cunning, deceitful, sane, and organized (usually organized, there are some that are classified as "disorganized"). Schizophrenics are totally scatterbrained, bewildered, frightened, and busy with their internal worlds of make believe voices and visions.

Just like race, please do not discriminate due to mental disability. We are not gun wielding maniacs. We fear the gun wielding maniacs as much as the next person, even more so, because the after math affects how everyone treats mental patients, which often involves indirect victimization of innocent schizophrenics.

I  urge you to follow the laws set forth by the constitution. I vow to follow the constitution. Please do not violate the constitution.

My sympathies are with the victims of the Colorado massacre. I am glad they apprehended the person responsible. I await his day in court with the rest of the nation.

Thank you for reading. Please have a good day!