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Today, at AA, we were reading a story from the Big Book. The part that jumped out to me was this:
"It was here that I realized for the first time that as a practicing alcoholic, I had no rights. Society can do anything it chooses to do with me when I am drunk, and I can't lift a finger to stop it, for I forfeit my rights through the simple expedient of becoming a menace to myself and to the people around me."
It made me think about AA sayings that apply to people with borderline personality disorder (BPD).
A normal life is something I’m not very familiar with. I’ve never really had one. From the time I was a kid with an alcoholic father, to the teenage years I spent depressed, to my adult years dealing with psychiatrists, symptoms and medication side effects, I’ve never really enjoyed anything termed normalcy.
But the question is, does anyone with bipolar enjoy a normal life?
According to a recent survey, 90% of surveys referenced on the Internet are entirely fictitious.
According to an entirely different, completely credible, survey, 87% of all information posted on the Internet is “useless, stupid, false, and/or toxic.”
Survey author, Chumley Entwhistle, Dean Of Psychology at Basingstoke University, expanded. When he was finished expanding, he explained.
“All of us remember the first time our parents caught us shooting heroin. We said, ‘But all the kids are doing it.’ To which our parents replied, ‘If all the kids were setting fire to their hair, would you do that too?’ After a considerable amount of soul searching we realized that we would.
Initially, the title of this blog was "A Recipe For Disaster..." But I used to really (stress this) enjoy a few cocktails. Or an entire bottle of cocktail mix. And that nearly killed me.
That aside, in this blog I want to focus on why those living with mental illness may abuse substances, what some of these substances are, and the impact this can have when we are working to recover from mental illness.
Why Might People With Mental Illness Abuse Substances?
Last week, I shared with you some of my tips for managing eating disorder triggers when attending social events. This week, I’d like to continue by discussing eating disorder triggers related to food anxiety and how to avoid and cope.
Bipolar and school or university! For some, it can be like oil and water; they just don't mix.
School and university is, without a doubt, an incredibly stressful thing for adolescents and young adults to live through. There are exams and deadlines, papers and presentations, early mornings and all-nighters. These years can be especially tough for those living with bipolar disorder. The stress of school can not only trigger urges to use drugs and alcohol, but it can also trigger other things such as the urge to self-injure and to over-work oneself, which can sometimes lead to severe depression or mania, hospitalizations, and even suicide.
It is terrifying to talk about your self-harm if you are having difficulty coming to terms with it yourself. It is even scarier to talk to loved ones about your self-harm issues because it can be just as scary for them too. Not many people understand why self-injurers do what they do and where the need to cut or burn drives from. Sometimes, even the self-harmer doesn't know why or how they started to do what they do. Distraction? Accident? Boredom? No matter what the trigger was and how it started, self-injury becomes an addiction and it can be terrifying to try to make others understand it.
'I need mental health help.'
When you are suffering from a mental illness, these are often the three most difficult words to say. But the real question is 'why?'
When you have chronic depression, a depressive episode can rear its ugly head unexpectedly. You’re just going through your days, living your life, managing your depression as best you can and then . . . you feel the decline. This happened to me this week, surprising me because I had just survived a brief dip in my mood in early May. I wasn’t expecting this depressive episode so soon after the last.
First I need to clarify something. There are no domestic abuse victims reading this post. I know that because if you are an abuse victim, you're online researching troubled relationships and self-help information aimed at fixing a frazzled marriage. You certainly are not searching for information about any "abuse victim". In my mind, abuse victims do not know they are abuse victims. Abuse victims truly do not recognize the abuse as abuse.
If you know and admit that you're in an abusive relationship, then you are no longer a victim. You are a survivor of domestic abuse. Only survivors read this blog, pure and simple. That said, you may wonder why I am writing an article for an abuse victim who will never read it. Because I want to remind you, the survivor, just how far you've come in your efforts to end abuse in your life.
Thank you for your comment. I'm sorry you're in that situation. I know how hard it is for parents to watch a child with mental illness struggle. Know this: you are not alone. Many parents are in this untenable situation.
Your options are very limited for the reasons you have listed. Your son is an adult and get to make his own decisions -- even when those decisions are heavily influenced by an illness. And while some might disagree, the US tends to fall on the side of personal rights, regardless of illness.
If your son is a risk to himself or others, you can see about getting him treated without his consent. (In some States, this is also possible when a person is at a grave threat of decompensation [getting sicker].) I know this is a hard thing to do, but sometimes the only thing that will help someone is the treatment they refuse.
I recommend you check out the Treatment Advocacy Center. They have a hotline and a lot of information online about serious mental illness and treatment of those illnesses: https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/
I also wrote this piece about the situation when help is refused (not associated with HealthyPlace) and it lists some additional resources: https://natashatracy.com/bipolar-blog/person-mental-illness-accept-illness/?swcfpc=1
Finally, I recommend you reach out to other parents in the same situation. You may be able to find these people through groups like NAMI (just Google them). Knowing others facing the same issues can help.
I hope your son is able to get help.
-- Natasha Tracy