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I have a long-standing love/hate relationship with Daylight Savings Time. Don't get me wrong--I love having more daytime hours when the weather is on its best behavior, and I love that extra hour of sleep when it's time to Fall Back (if only my children understood that concept). I am not, however, a fan of spending almost all my winter free time in the dark, nor am I a fan of the 2-week grogginess that seems to follow Springing Forward. And as the parent of a child with ADHD and bipolar disorder, I am certainly no fan of how the time change seems to affect his mood.
Yesterday I spent an hour deciding whether to get out of bed. Then another hour deciding if I felt okay to take a shower or eat something, then some considerable time pacing, trying to rid myself of the anxiety standing between me and actually getting dressed (pajamas are seductive, evil, wonderful things).
At first I wasn't going to go to my usual Yoga class but then I was out, and it was round the corner anyway, so with some umming and ahhing and a couple of changes direction, I went.
Left class with my nervous system a lot more chilled. But why all the resistance? It's like I want to live up to all these sayings: Carpe Diem, Own the Day. Only I feel more like a drone.
Gardening requires hope--hope for the right weather, hope for good seed, hope for recovery from any unexpected events. In the same way, recovery from borderline personality disorder (BPD) is an exercise in hope.
I was recently having lunch with a woman who has a series of medical issues, including pain management. One of the medications she is on is oxycodone. She said she would like to get off of the oxycodone but when she has tried, the pain has been unbearable and no other pain medication would touch her pain. So I asked her, "if this medication is working for you and other medications don’t work, then why are you trying to get off of it?"
She said it was because of the stigma attached to that medication.
So I told her something important – you can’t let stigma make your treatment decisions.
"There is no shame in having DID," says one woman living with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Using the pseudonym Pilgrim to protect her family, she says she initially felt shame about her disorder. But with the help of her therapist, she now feels there's nothing wrong with having a Dissociative Identity Disorder diagnosis and wants to pass that message on to others.
I wrote you a story of leaving abuse because sometimes the words of verbal abuse weigh so heavily in our minds and hearts that we no longer hear the good words. Pummeled by negativity, our brains begin to tell us our story of abuse, and in creating it, focusing on the pain, we cannot hear anything else. I call this story of abuse The Foreigners because the kind voices this abused woman hears start as foreign, but become the only voices she wants to hear.
When I say self-inflicted, I don't mean deliberate, nor do I necessarily mean conscious, and I don't mean it in the sense of self-harm, either. I mean it in the sense that anxiety, mental illness, is continuous, forceful injury to the ego - and unavoidably, inextricably linked-in to our idea of self.
If anxiety isn't my fault, then whose fault is it?
The question doesn't help. I'd ban it, if I could. Fault?
I know a forty-something woman who I’ll call Bonnie. For lack of a better adjective, the best way I can describe her is simply “cool.” She’s well-educated (holds multiple degrees), has traveled and lived abroad, is smart, funny, kind, and is an interesting conversationalist. She’s also single as single can be — as in never been married. I’ve often wondered why she’s not in a relationship. I mean, if I were a guy I would probably want to date her.
There is a common refrain that if you looked in the DSM, everyone would have some mental disorder. And in point of fact, many symptoms are fairly generic and can be attributed to many. Fatigue, insomnia, thoughts of death, loss of pleasure and weight loss are part of the depression diagnosis.
But the part no one seems to remember is what’s under that,
The symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
"Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you."*
A picture is, as they say, worth a thousand words. I'm thinking about a picture that actually rendered me speechless.
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