Sanity Pills - Crawling Back to Reality #HAWMC

I used to be shy about who knew about my Bi-Polar / Manic depression. Ever since I was a teen my step-father stated it was a declaration that made you different and made you a cast out of society. Like a scarlet letter or a sign that stated that I had some type of contiguous sickness that could be caught if people came close. I felt that way until I realized (around 17) that it made me who I was and wasn't shy about who knew I was taking medication. As I grew older and out of my mother's house, some in my life used to say that my problems could be handled with out medication and feeling depressed was a state of mind. I thought it was too so I stopped and for a month or two felt fine then crash and burn.

The medication made me more level. Though they did have a sedating effect that one would notice if you knew me pre medication intake. The dramatic me would become more level and quiet. It would calm me and when I felt the depression go away, I would stop taking them, going back to the dramatic me until I crashed and felt my way back to the bottle of pills that sat dormant on the computer desk. Feeling shame that I let myself get back to the places I hated about myself.

When I was pregnant for the first time I knew I couldn't take my harsh medication. I wasn't on it anyway because in the time from having a temp job to having a job with benefits, in the lapse I didn't have a prescription and I felt fine. Then after I had my eldest the floor went from under me.

The MD that prescribed the medication stated that I should be on the lowest dose the first day post par-tum. Unfortunately the nurses thought other wise and I ended up getting the full dose. Boy did I feel like I was a Zombie. I couldn't describe to you how I felt but it put my paranoia up to 100. When I got home it was made worse. I would cry and cry. I think there were a few points where I stopped crying when my eldest slept I didn't cry but when she cry I felt like some one was stabbing me in the heart. My husband also saw the Zombie in me. He would comment that the only time I was myself was when the medication wore off at night just before I took my pill again.

I took myself off those pills. I felt 200 times better, almost "normal" even though there were a lot of rough patches. More than a few times I went out side the apartment and decided never to go back in. The arguments my husband and I had in the rain with my young daughter clinging to his side. The guilt I felt when I saw her face.

I tried to go back on to Lithium. I really did. But I thought it would take a few months to get into it and then when I wanted to have another little one, it would take a few months detoxing my body and that wouldn't be pretty.

When I got pregnant with my youngest I promised my husband that I would go see the Therapist and get the medication issue straighten out. Again I was fine during my pregnancy, but lurking was the Amanda of old, the paranoid, anxiety filled person that was going to cause more damage to my eldest girls mind. I needed to change that. So I changed my doctors. And it was a lifesaver.

 

Not only did the fresh perspective help me, it helped my family. I am now on medication that helps me through the rough patches, and a tot that actually isn't so afraid that when mommy leaves out of the door, she'll know that I will be back.

Dear 16 year old Bella #HAWMC

I wrote to my sixteen year old self a month ago, however I wanted to write something for my eldest daughter Bella for this exercise.

Bella "Age 16" future

Dear Bella,

My have you grown. I am writing this in 2012 when you are just shy of your 3rd birthday, I know its too early in your life to comprehend a subject like depression and I hope you never will. When I was 16 my mental health wasn't the greatest. I had major issues with my brain that I couldn't figure out. I also wanted to talk about it with my mother, your grandmother about, but she would not listen. I hope our relationship is better and we can talk about everything you want me to know about.

When I was 15 years old, my biological father sent me a packet of information about a metal issue called Bi-Polar Manic Depression. I like the analogy of a roll-a-coaster. Some days you can be very, very happy, and the next very, very sad. Sometimes the days can last for weeks. I didn't know why this was important to me at this age and you are probably wondering why this is important to you. It is important because its something that can be controlled and with out medication, therapy and a lot of support, it can control your life without a care and feeling of failure that you are doing something wrong. And you are not. Its hard to grasp when you have hormonal changes going through your body, yet another thing to think about. At first I thought I was a hormonal mess and thought my brain was going to explode.

When the doctor talked to me about the treatment of this condition, I was very overwhelmed. I figured that I was living in a world where I created chaos, my mother (your grandmother) added to it and and I felt I never could get out of the pit of darkness.

He told me about medication, two pills, Lithium and Prozac that could make my mood a bit more stable, a clam I never knew. When I first took them I didn't realize the effect that it was happening to me. I didn't feel different. I still felt like screaming in my pillow at night and the lack of support from your grand mother was very apparent.

When I was in school one day, in Spanish class, (I was a few weeks into my new treatment and feeling a little better in my brain), another teen was chewing out the Spanish teacher for not really teaching us a proper Spanish instead of exploring our feelings. A few minutes into this he turns to me and says, 'This is the first time I have ever seen you smile'. I looked at him with astonishment. I was smiling? A few days later he told me that it was very weird to see me smile and at that point he was astonished that I was smiling with out cause.

As that day drew to a close I had a new found thing I thought I could never do. Smile just because.

While you are probably rolling your eyes and saying what does this have to do with me, I'll tell you that it may be genetic and a lot of work is being done, so there might be a pill to better suit your needs with out trial and error, horrid side effects and the feeling of failure that comes with the fact that you don't have to miss a dose of medication and not have to start a day, a week, a month later.

I love you,
Mommy (or Mother)

Keep Calm and Take Your Pills #HAWMC

Today the assignment was to create a "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster about the health issue I am blogging about. I couldn't think of one for me as a Bi-Polar person, so I made the poster on the left hand side.

I thought about the countless pills one has to take for Bi-polar Mania and other diagnoses of depression. How the Medical Community feels like the pills and talking for us about the  past for an hour every week, two weeks or a month are enough to become "normal" and "well adjusted" in society. To me its not good enough.

I feel sometimes that when I walk into my provider's practice, they care more about the time frame that you spend in their office chair than you the person. The random nice questions go in one ear and out the other, the bottom line is what they care about.

"Do you have enough pill to last until the next time I see you in a month?" "Do you feel any of the side effects of that pill(s)?" "Do you feel like you should be on Brand X when Brand Y is better?"

I feel like they are saying to me "Take the Pills and Just be Happy" that you are not in some third world where I would be dead by now. I know over the top drama, but in a way I can hear that in their tone of voice when they are saying "Times up, see you in 4 weeks!".

I knew the pills were working. My step dad commented on how numb to the world I became once I started to take the pills on a full time basis. He said he liked the vibrant person, the one laughing, making jokes, painting expressively (when I did paint). Now I was an observer, the person sitting in the back of the room at a party. Almost dead to the world.

Maybe it did make me numb, maybe I am a quiet person at heart and with the medication I am my true self. Because of the lack of medication my real self got scattered in the noise and caused an alternate universe, an alternate me.

Maybe I am happy by taking my pills?

Time in a Bottle #HAWMC

The time 1:00 PM GMT, April 1, 2112, the place some where in the desert of what was known as the San Francisco Bay Area. The great archaeological find of the year has been unearthed due to construction of a major farm that promises to restore the great valleys of California due to the Cities of San Francisco and Los Angels being moved towards Hawaii in the great earthquake of 2100 dramatically shifting the ecosystem of .

One of the finds that was thought to be an inhabited area; scientists found a Time Capsule from the year 2012. As they took it back to their field lab, the box sprang open and a small note was at the top:

Dear Future,

Please do not judge.

I am a mother, a wife and a woman.

I have many problems.

Please look at this with an open mind,

people in this life look at Bi-Polar/Manic depression as the black death.

We are people just like you.

Yours Truly, Amanda

As they look onward they find sealed gallon zip-lock bags full of Medical journals, papers, finding and other documentation of the definitions and treatments of the condition. Some from the early 20th Century, which document the treatments of shock therapy for this "Bi-Polar/Manic" type of depression. In pill bottles they find little pink pills with the instructions on how to take the pills 3 times a day of a substance called Lithium, another dozen bottles of pills called Zoloft, Wellbutrin and Prozac, to name a few. a journal that documented the struggles of the woman called "Amanda". A USB device that once open, showed a website long forgotten. Reading it they found the struggles this person went through as a woman with depression. Struggling with the stigma and the necessity of keeping it quiet from the people in the "Normal World". And a few photographs of what looks to be a very healthy family of four laughing at what seems to be a park in old San Francisco.

At first the scientific community was baffled about this discovery. Depression was wiped out by the discovery of a genetic trait that could be turned off by the nano-bots given at birth in 2102. So this discovery it showed the lack of medical knowledge of the humans living 100 years ago. It validated a few ideas that the medical community had as they theorized that back then the doctors treated the symptoms and not the root cause of the genetic disorder. They marveled at the information that this capsule provided, a wealth of misinformation, once thought of as the definitive answer by giving harsh medicine to people to alter their thinking and perception of the world to now where a simple DNA test and nano bot correction can wipe out  anything and repair the broken links.