**This is a long post.  I apologize but after editing it and editing it, this is as concise as I can be**

I used to work with a guy who was prone to fits of rage.  If he’d been around 3-4 years old, we would have called them temper tantrums.  He’d get so mad at a client, he’d scream obscenities and slam his door so hard the ceiling tiles would fly out of place. 

I found out a few months into that job that he suffered from diabetes, and didn’t do a very good job managing his condition.  When his blood sugar would drop, he’d become irritable to an extreme.  Unfortunately, some of his clients got the brunt of it and equally unfortunate that his coworkers got more than their fair share. 

Many of us excused his behavior because oh, he had diabetes.  And he did.  When he managed his condition properly, he was a normal human being. 

So I wonder how different mental illness is from his diabetes. 

I myself have tired of hearing professionals and those of us who suffer from various forms of it say, “_____(insert condition here) is the same as diabetes or hypothyroidism or any other kind of medical problem.  It needs to be treated, and no one looks down on someone taking medication for a heart problem.” 

This is true, but the words sound hollow to me because let’s face it, telling someone I suffer from high cholesterol and take meds to manage it is very different than telling someone I’m bipolar II (always important to stress the ‘II’ part!  Because that means I’m half as crazy! It’s SOFT bipolar, dammit!) and “need” medication to “be normal”. 

The fact is, for many years I was misdiagnosed with simple depression.  No one, and there were plenty of people who knew, connected my eating disorder with my true issue.  An even bigger fact:  most people who knew me would have never known I was sick or suffering. I became a master at keeping my crazy all to myself.  It helped that back then, I was a “writer” and I was “artsy” because hell, all of us creative types were prone to moodiness and tears.  My eating disorder was also an excellent form of medication to keep the true symptoms buried deep. Some people compulsively shop, gamble, or engage in very unhealthy behaviors.  These are the regular types of self-medication. Mine worked very well for many years. 

It is not an understatement to express how grateful I am that I came undone at the end of my marriage.  It took me being able to realize how bizarre my internal thoughts were to also make me realize that something much bigger was going on.  Although I would rather poke hot needles into my nail beds than go through those things again, I am truly the healthiest I have been because of them. 

I’ve said all of this before. Why say it again? 

Because when I first decided to come forward publicly with my story, I spent a lot of time analyzing the pros and cons of it.  I knew that someday someone might try to use my words against me, call me crazy, fling insults, and just simply feel superior to me.  More than that, I worried my kids would somehow suffer from other people knowing about it.  At the end of my deliberations, I decided to write as openly as I could about it while still maintaining some semblance of privacy and hopefully, dignity.  All the others before me who had written honestly about their own journey had helped me so much on my own.  I felt I owed it to the people in my life and, in a weird way, people that didn’t know me, an insider’s guide to living with mental illness.  I still don’t regret that decision.

Honestly, my fears about coming out with it have come true on a number of occasions.  I’ve had to accept the fact that I can’t explain myself to those unwilling to listen.  I can’t control how others view me.  I just have to be okay with myself and the steps I’ve taken (and there have been many!) to be the person I am today. 

I think what’s frustrated me the most is that it’s so much more taboo to discuss mental illness and own it than it is to just live with depression or other things silently, all the while pretending you’re okay.  Because I’ve had years of therapy, a great psychiatrist and done tons of personally agonizing and difficult work on myself, I’m somehow “less than” a person who just chooses to ignore their poor life decisions, erratic behavior, self-destructive personality, etc. 

WARNING to FAMILY MEMBERS who FREAK OUT THAT I POSTED ABOUT IT IN THE FIRST PLACE:  You MIGHT want to STOP READING because OMG SOMETHING POTENTIALLY NEGATIVE HAS HAPPENED!  SOMEONE HAS JUDGED ME!  WARNING!!!!

(I do get the fact that those in my family who were concerned about me acknowledging what happened just can’t stand the thought of others judging me or potentially penalizing me)

It happened recently that someone found out about my (gasp) illness and was questioning Running Boy about it.  Did he know?  Was he aware? Was I on medication?  In a way, I was amused.  Did he know?  Come on, seriously? I may not wear a t-shirt that says “Kiss me, I’m Soft Bipolar”, but everyone close to me knows the truth and also knows how hard I work to be the best person I can. 

Actually, maybe I DO wear a t-shirt that says this!

I was okay with that part, but the niggling fear under my conversation with RB was, “Is this going to be used against me? Or him?  Is my presence in his life going to cause him more trouble than he deserves?”  The answer is yes, we could go through some crap.  However, I have people lined up to talk about who I am today – including the aforementioned therapy/psych people – and at the end of the day, I’d venture to say I’m more self-aware and stable than the majority of people at the grocery store in any given day. 

What’s truly sad is that you’d think from what I’ve said that I was some raving lunatic in my previous life.  I wasn’t.  Unfortunately, by being so “normal”, I went undiagnosed for years and years and years – which meant that by outsider’s standards, I was fine – but internally I suffered in various ways. 

I have a medical condition.  I am on two medications, at low doses, to manage it.  I spent many years looking at my internal thought processes and my various crutches that enabled me to live with it.  As I hiked Sunday with a good friend, she said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy.”  I’m not sure I’d call it happiness as I don’t trust that word.  I would say I feel the strongest and most calm I’ve ever felt in my life, and this feeling has been with me for the last two years.  I still have good days and bad days like the rest of the population, and I still have to really manage my sleep patterns and make sure the people in my life are healthy people themselves.  But honestly?  Judging me because I’ve taken major steps to be a better mother, a better person?  That thought process makes me tired. 

I’m curious.  Delurk, even if anonymously.  Tell me how many people in your life have suffered from mental illness. Share what you can.  Have I helped you?  Hurt you?  What do you think the best way to combat this stigma is? 

(source)

Whooo-boy, I’m officially tired.  The last week has felt like that annoying commercial of the person trying to swim in a pool filled with caramel.  Everything is going so very fast, yet it seems to take forever.  My brain works overtime during the day, trying to comprehend the many new things I’m trying to cram into it.  I attempt to cram a run into my body in the 40 minutes I have after work and before kid pick up.  Pick ups have me on edge; I take deep breaths before getting the girls from their after-school care.  They are necessary, the girding of the loins so to speak, because Arden is usually angry about something and Lily is usually sulking about something.  Both of them place the blame squarely on the school, but only because they are kind enough to not hurt my feelings by reminding me once again how I screwed up their lives going back to work full time.  Then it’s time to rush home, cram dinner in their tiny bodies that are trying to grow (but not fast enough, according to the pediatrician), and make it to whatever class they are signed up for.  By the end of the night, I’m wiped out and wondering if this is ever going to get easier.

And it will.  Right now certain activities are being dictated to me, and for right now, I’m going along with it.  Once this week is over, I will be able to impose more calm to the current chaos, and I think both of the girls will respond well to having some downtime and perhaps be less grumpy.  I don’t really blame them; this anti-superwoman is pretty cranky herself. 

The positives:  I do love my job.  On a conference call today, all my old coaching skills came back and I found myself leading a discussion with an attorney about how best to position the firm in this particular situation.  It was natural to me, and it wasn’t until after, when my boss commented on it, that I realized I still have most of my brain cells and can occasionally leverage them for other people’s benefit. 

I LOVE working downtown.  I know many people think it’s a drag - the drive, the tolls, the homeless bugging you for your spare pennies . . . but I love all of it.  Well, not the tolls.  I love getting out of the suburbs every day.  I love learning the names of the security guards on the bottom floor of my building.  I love rapidly changing out of my uncomfortable 2.5” heels into my running shoes, and heading out across one of the many bridges spanning the James River, just 2 blocks up from my office.  Or I’ll run up to Broad Street and distract myself with the amazing people watching; the runs go by quickly and my steaming brain, cooked beyond recognition, begins to reset and still in the sweating cage of my skull. 

The honest truth is that yes, I made the right decision, and no, it hasn’t been easy.  There are things going on with the ex that really bother me, but I’m not able to discuss them here and I’m certainly not able to discuss them with him.  At least not now.  Things that bothered me about him during the marriage are now quite huge and ugly; I’m sure he feels the same way about me.  And sometimes the idea that we are tied together, trying to coparent and raise children together for another decade plus, feels overwhelming. 

Add Running Boy’s ex who is still legally his wife and all of their issues and the mixing and melding of our combined four children and you start to get the picture of why, on random nights like tonight, I just want to tell everyone to go pound salt and drink a martini while lounging in bed. 

The silver lining in all this is that after the last two years, I’ve become an expert on myself and my limits.  When I begin to feel like I’m doing and doing and doing for everyone else, I need to reel it back in, back down, sleep more, be kind, be relaxed.  I know that I’ve hit the wall mentally, at least for a little while, and I need to just chill on worrying about everyone else.  This kind of behavior is ingrained in me, so it’s going to be a life-long struggle.  The best I can do for others is to simply state what is bothering me, and what I am able to offer, and move on.  It’s ironic that I was just telling someone I run with to stop fighting so hard and just “be the rock in the stream”.  In other words, instead of walking against the current, trying to envision yourself as a polished stone with everything just flowing around you.  You can observe the water, but it doesn’t affect your position or life.  This kind of new-age crap talk really works well for me, except I can never remember to do it.  It seemed to help the person I was running with, but I promptly forgot it and by the time I got home tonight I was wound so tightly you could have used me as a slingshot. 

I’m ready for better, less chaotic times.  The financial pressure easing from me has been a huge source of peace, but it’s going to take a couple of months for me to catch up and really start saving for a house.  I’m ready to stop finding new ways that my divorce has damaged me or my kids.  I want to make amends and move on, instead of just saying the words outloud and hoping they come true. 

I’m struggling today, but not because of my own problems. 

I have a close friend who has their own issues with mental health, coping, stress, and living a life without pushing the self-destruct button just to see what happens. 

When I got out of the hospital nearly two years ago, my friend was there for me.  They told me all about their own issues, their own experiences with hospitalization and fighting depression.  Sometimes it feels like a huge uphill battle, and frankly, it’s a very tiring battle.  At that time, it was very helpful talking to someone who’d been inside the same walls I’d been, even though I knew it was incredibly difficult for my friend to share it with me. 

I’ve seen some warning signs in my friend’s behavior over the past few months.  On the outside, everything looks pretty. However, I’m too well-versed in how things look as opposed to how things are - and I can generally see through that facade without much difficulty.  I saw my friend recently and there are chinks in the armor.  Most people wouldn’t notice, but I did - and I was scared. 

Inevitably, people will ask my friend “WHY” be depressed, why now, when things are so good?  I got asked that question incessantly.  The fact is:  there is no WHY and no TIME that depression doesn’t find its way in.  That’s the difference between clinical and situational depression.  My friend’s life is great right now - really, better than I’ve ever seen it - but still the struggle continues and the depression is actually worse right now.  My theory is that because life can present itself as “great”, when your feelings don’t match your surroundings it’s almost worse.  I see my friend contemplating self-destruction.  I see my friend starting to expand the isolation; pushing people away has always been a skill. 

I remember the brilliant peak before I began my rapid descent into the rocks below.  I wasn’t sleeping much; when I was, it was at odd times of the day or a couple of hours here and there.  I wasn’t eating properly, or at all.  I was abusing exercise and people.  I couldn’t formulate a coherent thought to save my life, yet you couldn’t shut me up.  I know others around me, like my friend, could see it coming.  I have a new appreciation and sympathy for them now.  I don’t know what to do.  I’ve talked to my friend.  I’ve been direct, and gentle, and I’ve pleaded a bit too.  Their significant other has done the same thing.  My need to rescue others has been activated in a big way, even though I know I can’t save anyone and I certainly can’t save my friend. 

All I can do is hang on, and let my friend know I’m there with them.  I will give my opinion when I feel it’s necessary or that I am being heard.  I will let my friend know that their perception isn’t clear anymore.  When you are in the grips of depression, sometimes you forget to ask for help.  Down there at the bottom, it doesn’t really feel worth asking for it anyway.  I need to keep reminding my friend that we are here, and we all have our hands extended. Right now, my friend doesn’t care for themselves half as much as the people who love my friend do, and we need to keep reminding my friend we are here and we are present.

Depression and mental illness are still so stigmatized.  One is “weak” if they suffer from it.  Pull yourself up by the bootstraps.  Suck it up.  Man up.  Deal with it.  Just be happy.  I need my friend to remember that what is going on is chemical.  Just like any other condition, it requires treatment.  In my opinion, treatment is two-fold:  treating the chemical imbalance with medication, and treating the internal workings with therapy and support to learn how to best manage the condition.

It took me hitting rock bottom to finally get me to admit that I needed medication, and therapy, and healthy friends, and normal sleep patterns, and stability, and confidence, to truly live with what I have.  I would work a part-time job sweeping the streets if that was the only way I could afford my medication.  It is no longer a choice; it is something that has changed my life for the better and I try not to forget that.  It is something I have to live with the rest of my life, just like my friend John lives with diabetes - and it requires the same kind of vigilance. 

I’m hopeful that the people who love my friend can move my friend in the direction they need to go.  For me, it was a combination of gentle force and knowing that unless I did something drastic, I wasn’t going to make it for any length of time.  My friend might actually be more stubborn than me, which makes things interesting.  I guess I’m just holding out hope that I can be there for my friend like they were for me, and I can help before the pieces fall apart. 

My friend deserves so much more happiness and peace than what they are currently receiving. 

A short, incomplete, and not well-thought-out list of areas I need to improve.  Or could improve. 

1. I suck at asking for what I want.  I expect people to read my mind.  When they are incapable of penetrating the dark, smoggy forests of my brain, I dislike them for their inability to figure me out.  I mean, REALLY.  Why are things that are so obvious to me so difficult for others to discern?  If it’s clear in my head, it should be clear in others.  Unfortunately, I’m deluded, and the things that are clear to me are almost never clear to others.  I think this is because my brain is wired backwards.  If I were a car, I’d go sideways instead of forward or back. 

2.  When I do ask for what I want, I suck at dealing with the response.  See, here’s the rub in asking.  When I drop all pretense of coolness or humility, and I ask for what I want or need, the end result is usually the same as if I hadn’t asked in the first place.  We are all sort of selfish, and we do what we want and what makes us feel good.  It is not other people’s fault that I give more than I have to give or put my personal needs aside because theirs seem suddenly so much more important.  My reaction to being turned down is disproportionate in their mind because really, I asked them, they answered, and now I’m having a full-blown hissy fit.  Hey man.  Don’t ask the question if you fear the answer. 

3.  Staying upright on my bike.  I may just bite the bullet and invest in the egg beater thingies that Julie recommended.  I think I might have figured out my problem with the clips on my bike but I’ve been too nervous to ride on my own lest I fall in front of a Mac truck again. 

4.  Time management.  Now that I have a GIN-YEW-WHINE job, I’m trying to find time to train for a triathlon, run my normal amount of miles, be a good mother, stay on top of the laundry (normally impossible anyway), attempt to have a relationship with someone, and not lose my patience every 5 seconds. 

5.  Friendship. I hate talking on the phone.  This is problematic when 85% of my friends are not within a day’s driving distance of Richmond. 

6.  Being patient.  I find the thinner I am stretched, the crankier I become.  My crappy refrigerator doesn’t like being opened without something inside breaking.  Tonight, one of the shelves fell open onto my foot.  This is the same foot that is going to carry me 8 miles tomorrow morning.  Grape jelly and an old bottle of wine landed on me.  I cursed and tried not to scream.  Simultaneously Lily started chanting “Mommy!!!! Mommy!!! Mommy!”  Turns out she just wanted to inform me that she’d put something in my room, but at that moment, I needed everything quiet to prevent myself from losing it.  Poor thing.  I apologized later. Patience, it is a virtue.  It is one I do not possess.

7.  Properly medicating.  I’m starting to think I’m way under-medicated.  I hate taking medication so the least amount I can get away with is what I take.  Perhaps I should start listening to my doctor and taking what she says I should take. 

8.  Letting go.  When things don’t go my way, no matter how much that may suck, I really need to learn to how look for the chocolate-lining in that cloud.  I’m really, really bad at this.  It’s almost as if letting go of the disappointment means I’m cool with being disappointed.  Yeah, it makes no sense because I’m the only one suffering. 

9.  Taking Care.  Some people in my life love to think I’m selfish because I do things for myself occasionally (like hiring babysitters so I can run on Saturday mornings).  In some ways, I’m good at taking care of myself.  In important ways, though, I totally miss the mark.  See item number 1. 

10.  Being nice to myself.  I’m still so harsh on my inner-workings.  Every time I think I’ve stopped abusing myself from the inside out, I find a new way to do it without noticing it.  Maybe I’m worse now because I haven’t had therapy in months and I have no one calling me on my crap besides Running Boy.  Maybe I’m worse now because I’m generally dissatisfied (and concerned) about the direction of my life at the moment.  Whatever the reason, I need to give it a rest already. 

I’ve written a lot about my experience with therapy and in particular, my awesome therapist.  I started seeing her when I hit my first of numerous bottoms.  I distinctly recall sitting down with her the first time saying, “My marriage is falling apart”.  After that I was crying so hard I’m sure I made no sense but, as she continued to be through the time I worked with her, she stayed calm and attentive. 

Over the year plus I’ve known her, small details about her have emerged.  We went through our separations a month apart from each other.  We both have two kids around the same ages.  We are both mildly obsessed with running and are both Weight Watchers advocates and flunkies.  Our social circles overlap - but of course we didn’t know this at the time I started seeing her.  Richmond is a very small town, so it’s hard to find someone who isn’t Kevin Bacon to your 7 degrees of separation. 

Lately, the ongoing joke between us has been about when we are going to fire each other.  We’ve both always been able to turn on the therapist/client relationship as soon as the office door closes.  When it opens, we talk about running or whatever else might be happening.  All of this is to say that we have balanced the fine line between friends and doctor/patient for a longish-time, and this is primarily because she is the master of professionalism and she takes her profession very seriously. 

Today we met at an out-of-office location for a variety of reasons, but primarily because we both have a coffee obsession and like the comfy chairs and white-noise coffee shop vibe.  Having grown up writing and talking and musing in coffee shops, it’s not difficult at all for me to speak about very personal things quietly in a corner. 

While we socialized for a few minutes before the session began, she shared some big things that are happening for her.  And I knew at that point we were going to fire each other, but I didn’t have the strength to do so myself.  Together we agreed to end our professional relationship and grow our personal relationship.  I’m kind of ecstatic because I adore her and have always wished she wasn’t my therapist so we could be friends; now I can do that. 

Is it weird having a friend that wasn’t a “friend” before? Yeah, a little.  She knows things about me that no one else knows.  I have shared some very dark things with her, dark feelings, bad days, the worst moments of my life.  But as she said today, the more I learn about her on a personal level, the more I won’t worry about being judged.  And frankly, I’m not worried about being judged. 

(I laugh about this a little too - apparently I’m so awesome that even my therapist wants to be friends with me . . . heheheheh . . . .)

On the harder note side, I cried in public today because of this discussion.  It wasn’t that I was sad she wasn’t going to be my therapist any more (well, it was, a little).  Mostly I was scared.  I’ve known for a while now that I’m doing much better, after the big road bump that was Christmas.  I have a great support system in place, I’m stable in my house and my finances are working themselves out.  Yes, I have stress, but nothing compared to the non-stop drama and chaos that took place for the better part of 18 months.  I did not accurately assess the damage to mind and body that those kinds of stresses can cause.  I needed her badly, as a sounding board when I was about to make bad decisions, and as a safe place to land and regroup when I made the bad decisions anyway. 

I felt a little untethered with the decision because it means she thinks I’m strong and stable enough to be done with therapy and although I agree with her, I’m still scared.  The only constant since my initial freak out have been my Thursday mornings with her.  Issues and doubts and fears and neuroses I’ve had for years - decades - slowly untangled themselves in the confines of her office and wandered out of her door, never to be seen again.  Even today as we talked about something unrelated to my own life, I had a number of epiphanies or “aha” moments. 

As we were packing up to go our separate ways, she asked me to go ahead and schedule with her for next week.  I was confused for a moment; hadn’t we just said we weren’t scheduling appointments anymore?  Then I realized she was making lunch plans with me - clearing time out of her very busy life - to have lunch with a friend she apparently cares a lot about. 

In the meantime, I’m standing on both feet (although one is very sore from Shamrock) and I’m not wavering much.  I know how to handle my bad days.  I know when to reach out and when to wait it out.  Having those appointments has been a security blanket for me, but I have needed them less and less from a crisis-perspective and more from a gut-check perspective.  I’m going to be just fine.  I know she will be, too.