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Last Friday, my oldest son experienced verbal and physical abuse at the hands of his father (my soon to be ex husband). The father with whom the court sent him to live, the father he thought he could trust above everyone else - that father cornered him, jerked him, poked his forehead and chest, then put him to the ground and choked him.
It’s been a pretty quiet week on the homefront. No real “Boblems” to speak of. I know it won’t last, but I’m enjoying it to the fullest.
As always, we are left wondering—to what do we owe the pleasure? Is it the recent increase in Bob’s Focalin dose? The extended period of sunshine we’ve been blessed with? Bob’s bipolar disorder just cycling through to a “baseline” state?
Sometimes, those with bipolar disorder can wake up in the middle of the night, their heart is racing, sweating profusely, maybe feeling very dizzy and they're sure they are going to die. They might be shaking all over and don't understand why.
Yesterday, I came across a picture of a sign I’d taken several months ago while out shopping. The sign was under a display of eye shadow applicators that each contained two different colors and it read, “Split Personality – brings out the best in both of you.” Two shades of make-up, one for each personality. I’m sure someone fancied themselves terribly clever when they came up with that. But as much as I loathe the idea of suiting up with the PC police, I have to say that glamorizing Dissociative Identity Disorder to sell beauty products isn’t at all clever. In fact, I think that the pervasive use of mental illnesses as punch lines undermines efforts to promote understanding and support for people living with them.
Many years ago, I took a prescription drug that had an intolerable side-effect: severe anxiety. I couldn't sit still. I couldn't concentrate. I felt like I was coming out of my skin. After about six weeks I couldn't stand it anymore and my doctor prescribed a different drug. Though I live with chronic, problematic anxiety, it rarely rises to the level of what I experienced while on that drug. I wonder about people who struggle all the time with such severe anxiety and panic attacks. I wouldn't have been able to function if I'd had to keep taking that drug. How do other people cope with debilitating anxiety disorders?
The use of restraints--whether metal ones used by police and/or private security or the leather ones used in an inpatient setting--is one of the dirty secrets of mental health. Due to the destructive nature of some symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD), it is something of an open secret for us.
Schema therapy shows considerable potential in treating borderline personality disorder (BPD). In this video, More Than Borderline's, Becky Oberg, explains how schema modes affect the conduct of a person with BPD.
Last November, Jen Selk wrote a blog post titled The Weight. “I wanted to tell the truth about how I'd secretly harbored more than a decade of negative, damaging, unhealthy and untrue thoughts about my body,” says Jen. She voiced the body image and weight struggles so many women live with. Jen says The Weight was the most popular thing she’s ever written.
In my last article on the biological evidence for depression I discussed evidence in genes, hormones, monoamines (like serotonin) and neuroimaging. Today I’ll finish off the research areas for the biological evidence of depression and suggest what I think all this biological evidence means.
Anxiety fills a room, even if it's empty. Uncanny but it manages, almost every time. The claws in my head grow wings, sprout tentacles, take over: my room, the house, the neighbourhood, and soon entire nations... What?! Oh, wait.
Gradually, then all at once. That's how this stuff works because of course at first I am only dimly aware of it. It's not really an issue. The panic isn't big enough I'm tripping over it. Yet.
Beyond black and white thinking
First of all, thank you for sharing your story. You are a very caring person, and I commend you for, as Tammy Wynette sings, "Stand(ing) by your man." That aside, I wholeheartedly agree with you that those living with depression may seem selfish to someone on the outside. Still, in reality, they (me also being one of them) think our loved ones would be better off without us around because of our depression. We think we are doing our loved ones a favor by leaving. Depression causes our brains to work in different ways, causing us to think distortedly -- so no, we are not purposefully being selfish. Thank you for seeing that with your loved one and not allowing someone else to convince you otherwise.