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It's a bit daunting to say the word "never", especially when we are referring to depression. Depression has an element of surprise and the benefit of disguise in it's arsenal, but there is a part of me that believes I never have to go back, that I never will experience the darkest depths of depression ever again.
This week began my new status as an "at home" parent. It's also Bob's first time having me around more than usual and not going to before and after-school care. It wouldn't seem like this would be a situation requiring an adjustment period, but it is.
If anxiety has become your unwanted friend - you may already be familiar with the usual suspects when it comes to the causes of anxiety disorders. We have heredity, brain chemistry, personality and life experiences. But have you taken a moment to consider physical causes of anxiety?
Have you ever felt safe?
Maybe that seems like a stupid question, and if it does, consider yourself lucky is about all I can say. My therapist asked me something like it once, and I ended up triggered, taking a 20 minute tangent via Intellectuals 'R Us to pick up a freakin' clue.
Look hard enough at most things in modern life and they are pretty scary.
Panic: Life = risk?
Life = risk? Is that as good as things get?? Well, catastrophizing ever so slightly less, life = many things but in amongst them, inevitably, is an element of risk.
May is Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) Awareness Month. While there are many sites with excellent clinical descriptions or offer advice for the loved ones of a person with BPD, there is a lack of information on BPD from the point of view of a person with BPD. So, in honor of BPD Awareness Month, here's what BPD is like for me.
In response to some of the comments I see here and elsewhere, here is my response to another ten myths about bipolar disorder.
The signs of verbal abuse are usually invisible to the world outside of your family. Verbal, emotional and mental abuse eats you alive from the inside out. Abuse can do heavy mental damage and cause mental illnesses like depression, anxiety and PTSD. Those illnesses have visible symptoms, but after developing the illness, no one but your closest friends may notice. (If you still have friends after being isolated!)
So, the signs of verbal abuse are often felt instead of seen.
For months, I have felt consumed by anxiety and depression. I would sit down to write something, only to feel that the blank screen was taunting me. I would attempt to read something for graduate school, but could only manage to read a few sentences until my mind wandered off into nothingness. At its worse, I would pace the house and twist my fingers into knots, trying to will away the anxiety and do something, anything, useful.
Today it hit me — anorexia nervosa has stolen key parts of my life and now I must fight to reclaim myself.
Anxiety manifests itself in the everyday, supposedly humdrum of it all, and fear has a way of telling me things which are otherwise impossible to speak; The things I cannot acknowledge must still be expressed, for so long as they are part of me, they will find ways to be.
And so it is that the common cliches that clutter up the mind become the stuff of our most intense anxieties, and preoccupations:
Antipsychotic medications were so named as they were initially used to treat psychosis in disorders like schizophrenia. Antipsychotics include medications like Haldol, Thorazine, Seroquel, Abilify and Zyprexa.
These medications are now being used, more and more, in the treatment of other disorders like bipolar disorder and major depression.
One of the major problems with these medications is a side effect called tardive dyskinesia. Tardive dyskinesia is a disorder involving involuntary muscle spasms and can be (but isn’t always) permanent – even if the medication is discontinued.
How can you and your doctor look for the signs of tardive dyskinesia?
My point being, I'm right there with you. I hate the rollercoaster. I just want to live life without being in a state of constant fight or flight mode, only for his character to change and de-escalate and I fall for the person I fell for all over again.
Exhausting is a horrible word. The understatement of all understatements, if you will.
I wish there were better support groups for this kind of mental health condition.