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I believe people with schizophrenia can achieve great things. I know of three women who have schizophrenia who started and run non-profit organizations. I know of three women who are parents to young children. I know several people with schizophrenia who have jobs as writers or artists and others who work as marketing professionals and content creators. Elyn Saks, one of the most well-known people with schizophrenia, is a doctor and professor. These are examples from the two to three dozen people I follow on social media or who I have become friends with in my years of advocacy. If I knew more people with schizophrenia, I assumed I would find people with the illness in every role/identity/profession.
There are so many things I took for granted before I had bipolar disorder. Just like many people, I was living a normal-ish life. I was 18 years old; I was at university; I was living with my boyfriend; the stats on my life were definitely in the meaty part of the bell curve. And as such, I certainly never thought about mental illness. I wouldn't have been able to correctly define bipolar disorder for you for a million dollars. Those are certainly days I miss. And looking back, so many things were different before I had bipolar disorder.
Last year, I realized that it was time for me to change therapits. While my former therapist helped me in many ways, I began to feel like I would connect better with another female closer to my age. I was placed on a waiting list for several months before I got connected with a new doctor. However, it was well worth the wait. I started seeing my current therapist a few months ago. So far, she has been a great fit for me. To learn about the five attributes that make her a wonderful therapist, continue reading this post.
If the title didn’t give it away, I’m a millennial, and mental health is important to me. In the same way millennials are a generation within a space of pre- and growing technology, I see us as existing in the space of pre- and growing mental health conversations. I’ve been thinking about what that looks like and what that means for me.
Last week my coworker said she believes addiction is a choice. Her exact words were, "At the end of the day, each person always has the choice to pick up or put down drugs." In response to her comment, I had a full-body, physical reaction. My armpits got sweaty, my heart rate skyrocketed, my shoulders tensed, my jaw tightened, and my neck broke out in red blotchy hives.
My name is Adam M., and this is my story about using negative coping strategies after experiencing a trauma.
Finding a therapist for verbal abuse recovery can be challenging. The mental health industry has numerous professionals that can help support individuals through many circumstances. However, not every certified psychologist or designated therapy professional may be right for you. Not every therapist is the verbal abuse therapist for you.
I have schizoaffective disorder and take birth control pills for my premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). But lately, I have been having a problem with my birth control. Here’s what’s been going on.
Anxiety, I've learned, is not only something I experience while under stress, but it is also something I experience in times that are not necessarily stressful, such as anxiety during traveling. Just recently, my family and I went on vacation, and I realized, before the trip, that travel anxiety is something that I often experience before traveling away from home.
I've been writing about bipolar for 20 years. Yes, this is my 20th anniversary. And since 2000, I have been writing about bipolar disorder professionally. I suppose that means I'm old. It also means that I have written a lot. I've written over 700 blog articles for HealthyPlace in the last 13 years. I've done about the same on my own blog. On top of those 1400 posts, I've written hundreds and hundreds of articles on the main part of HealthyPlace and elsewhere (not all about bipolar disorder). The grand total is unknown, but it's at least 2000, anyway. And the question I get asked a lot is, how can you write about bipolar disorder so much? How can you do that for 20 years?
I still have a long way to go to change my behaviors, but I connect with my alters as much as I can each day. It's hard, as sometimes I gaslight myself into thinking I'm lying about the alters. Looking at the symptoms, I had them all. Even now, I feel like I'm in a command center, looking at life through multiple lenses. Some of us love our life, some want more money so we can move with our love to a more rural place since we fear stalkers. (When multiples come out, our "I" turns to "We").
We still get the urge to call Mom, especially Micra (my inner child that's 5 years old). Mitra is 13-17 (My inner Teenager) and rebels, preferring reading and disappearing into fantasy worlds instead of reality, where she's forced to accept that she'd be a sex object when she wanted to be an author. Lalah speaks Darglish, which is a combination of Persian-Dari and English. She fears loud noises, especially mortars, and wants to build a pillow fort on the fourth of July, with Mitra who wants to play in cherry-scented bubbles like she did when her family went to Fourth of July parties at the park thirty minutes away from her house. As I'm healing, all these "characters" come out randomly, sometimes through my writing process.
When I wrote "The Scarring of the Roshanra," I learned I could escape from the prison in my mind. I self-published it just to say I did, after 16 rounds of edits. It took us six years to write the book, and we've been working on the second one for two years. We also started the third book in my Capstone for my Creative Writing AFA, and started a YA Fantasy that links to the same world this week. It's hard to stay on one journey, but we feel great combining our efforts to do what comes naturally to us. We're learning we're awesome. Just need to evolve a little more.
Having a compassionate, protective husband has helped us, though we tend to fear people in general. We think he does, too. But one of my alters is a version of him, since we broke up for a while in 2017. I'm writing a memoir based on one of the times he came out to protect me when I didn't protect myself. Cutting ourselves off from Mom has been one of the best (and most painful) things we have done. We love her. We also love ourselves enough to not accept torture, whether physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual.
One of the more painful things: my brother cut me off a few years ago and I had to accept that he either hated me, he was groomed to distrust me, I was toxic to him, or he had shame after bringing home a rapist when I was 13 or 14 (right on the cusp, but can't recall what month it happened).
Apologies if we've overshared or rambled. A lot has come up for us today after an emotional breakdown last night, where the suicidal thoughts came up when all hope seemed lost.
It's important to recognize the thoughts aren't who we are. We have the thoughts to tell us what direction we need to take. We hate hurting people, so we people please. But people pleasing hurts us and the people around us, so we're learning to be independent, yet still count on others when we need them.
Argh! I'm a Libra with Scorpio Moon and Scorpio Rising. So many emotions to balance!
Your post brought me hope. Tashakur (thank you in Persian Dari, transliterated)!