Tag Archives: drugs

Facebook Statuses I Would Like To See In 2030

27 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in bipolar, hope, mental illness, schizophrenia, stigma, Uncategorized, writing

≈ 21 Comments

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Facebook status updates I want to see in 2030:

“The state psychiatric facilities are being turned into retirement centers for the elderly. Of course, they’ll add golf, swimming pools, and restaurants.”

“The United States no longer has the highest number of people in prison. Since a cure has been found for so many mental illnesses, the number of inmates has dropped to less than half of previous numbers.”

“Back in 2016, there were thousands of homeless people in the United States. Now all we see are people backpacking around from city to city – travelers have replaced the homeless.”

“Can you imagine what it was like in 2016 when people could buy weapons on the Internet? It must have been terrifying!”

“Can you believe there was a time when some people couldn’t afford their medical treatment? Barbaric!”

“My grandparents had to choose between groceries and medication! How could anyone allow that? Terrible!”

“My parents said when they were younger, that some people didn’t vote! Can you imagine that?”

“It is so nice to see our military rebuilding all our roads and bridges.”

“My mom said the police used to respond to calls regarding the mentally ill. Say what?”

“I heard people used to make fun of mental illness. Wow! Seriously, messed up.”

“There were hate groups in 2016. Damn, I’m glad I live in 2030!”

“Previous generations nearly destroyed our planet. It is a good thing the world came together and made some changes.”

“I read a book today about life in 2016. Man, have we come a long way!”

“I got my shot today. I no longer have schizophrenia.”

 

At Fifty, I Like What I See

05 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by in bipolar, hope, mental illness, schizophrenia, Uncategorized

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At fifty-years-old I have daily aches and pains. My lower back hurts, my shoulder hurts, and I have things happening with my body that I wouldn’t discuss in public. Getting older is tough on the body, but for me, there is something else that is happening – I am more comfortable with myself. I thought that the comfort that I am experiencing was universal for women over fifty. But it isn’t because many of the women my age are now scheduling Botox injections, touching up every picture they post to social media and spending money and time on treatments, tucks, creams, clothing, diets, gyms, etc.

I can understand the desire to be healthy and I can understand the desire to look good, but does looking good have to mean a youthful appearance?

I haven’t lived a very healthy life. I smoked for over twenty years. I have battled depression and schizophrenia. There was a time when I drank to excess. There was a time when I used drugs. All of these things have left their imprint on my face. I have dips, cracks and crevasses that tell a story of a turbulent adolescence and young adult life.

Okay, so I don’t look thirty anymore. I don’t even look forty. It is possible that I look older than I am, but I am happy. In fact, I have never been happier with myself, husband, creative work, my whole life.

I don’t want to be the kind of person that acts like mental illness isn’t tough. It is tough, and not every day is a happy, shiny, positive-feeling-type day.

But when I look at the facts and my face, I can’t help but feel gratitude and a sense of celebration. I have lived to be fifty-years-old. I have been fortunate enough to be alive for a half of a century. I have never been a victim of famine or war. I have enough money to pay my bills. My husband has a job. We both have had the opportunity to go to school. I can sit at my computer (I have a computer!) every day and write, and that is what I love to do.

On the good days, I can see past my illness and my aging body to the far off horizon. On the good days, the landscape is large, and I can see that so many people in the world have more struggles than me. There are people who don’t know where they will get their next meal. There are places where bombs and terrorism are everyday occurrences. There are people living without medical treatment, people living in fear, desperation, and in the cold.

I don’t want to deny people the struggles of a mental illness, but I don’t want to go to a pity party either. Yes, I have social anxiety. Yes, I have panic attacks. Yes, I often suffer from paranoia. Yes, I frequently am bed ridden by fatigue. Yes, I am no longer young. Yes, I look like a middle-aged woman.

All I can say is that I am thankful I am a middle-aged woman because the alternative means I didn’t make it, and the reality is that I did make it. I made it to fifty, and if you don’t think that is beautiful, then you don’t see the battles and demons I had to fight.

Fifty is cause for celebration, not Photoshop. I’m so much more than the folds, wrinkles and the beginning of a double chin.

That’s Entertainment?

28 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by in mental illness, writing

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I have written many times about how people love the sensational side of mental illness – straitjackets, lobotomies, people screaming, asylums, etc. It is easy to point out the sensational side of severe mental illness, but what about other types of mental illness (or not-wellness) that we are only starting to see, and still don’t understand? What about the popularity of shows like Hoarders, or My Strange Addiction? It is as if we love to be voyeurs peeking into the lives of people with mental health issues, and the more bizarre the symptoms, the higher the ratings.

I think this trend of putting people’s illnesses on display for others to be entertained by is disturbing. We are treating mental illness like the old time freak shows at the circus that people bought a ticket to, and attend while never considering that the people who are the “freaks” are real live people, with intelligence, feelings, and dreams.  These people who are on our televisions nightly are struggling with real issues that have taken over their lives.

While people are eating their popcorn and drinking their beers or sodas and watching these shows with curiosity, disgust, or possibly glee, the subjects of these shows are drowning in the symptoms of illnesses they can’t begin to manage.

I understand that people agree to go on these shows, and that no one forces them to, but the lure of fifteen minutes of fame and a paycheck are too much for most Americans to reject. I feel like we are preying on the vulnerable, or those people who would literally do anything for attention.

Two days ago I read about this 35- year-old man, Toby Sheldon, who spent over $100,000 on plastic surgery to look like the pop star, Justin Bieber. Toby Sheldon was on two reality TV shows, Botched and My Strange Addiction.

He was found dead in a hotel room a few days ago. The cause of death hasn’t been released yet, but there were drugs in his room, and I won’t be at all surprised if his death is ruled an overdose or a suicide (possibly the same thing).

Obviously, this man was not well. A person who is secure inside their own skin doesn’t pay huge amounts of money to look like someone else. Toby even admitted that he was addicted to plastic surgery. An addiction to changing your appearance is a symptom of a much bigger underlying problem.

Why would we pay this man, follow him around with cameras, and broadcast the symptoms of an illness in order to entertain?

Do we lack empathy? Do we lack compassion? Do we lack the ability to reach out to one another and do the right thing? Does watching someone worse off than ourselves make us feel better in some way?

I don’t know the answer to these questions, but as someone who could have easily been “fascinating” to watch while psychotic, I find this circus-like atmosphere inhumane.

Will we sell our hearts to be entertained? And if we will, what price do we pay?

The Beginning of Schizophrenia

16 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by in mental illness, schizophrenia

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I am always learning new things about schizophrenia.

Yesterday, I read on the Mayo Clinic site, that full blown schizophrenia often develops in women in their late twenties. I always thought that my schizophrenia showed up late, but I was wrong. I became psychotic for the first time at twenty eight and that is common for women who develop the illness.

Finding out this piece of information shifts everything that I knew, or thought that I knew.

I thought that I started to show symptoms of schizophrenia in high school and college. I would go through months where I know I was depressed. I didn’t get treated for it at the time, but I am certain I was experiencing it.

When we lived in Denver, during my early high school years, I used to lie on the floor, close my eyes, and wish myself away. I would do this for hours.

When we moved to Cairo Egypt, after my brothers flew back to the United States for college, I stayed in my room for over a month and read many of the books on a list that my new school said that I should have read as a junior. (I went to a college prep school and they actually held me back a year because my previous school record was so pathetic).

To say my adolescent years were turbulent would be an understatement. I was an unhappy kid. I ran away from home. I dated much older men. I didn’t play sports. I didn’t have a hobby. I didn’t have much in terms of success at that age. I didn’t even think or dream of college. I never once had a dream of what I wanted to be when I grew up. I always thought I would be dead by thirty.

The first year of college, I never hung up my clothes. I had so many clothes and I just left them in a pile on my floor. They were like a massive piece of furniture.

My second year of college, I moved in to an apartment by myself. I never unpacked anything. I lived around boxes.

I dropped out of school and ran away from college. I ended up in California. Eventually, the young man I had been dating in college (he had since graduated) drove to California to move me back to Washington.

We lived happily for a number of years. I went back to college, got married, got a degree, and eventually depression hit again. We ended up divorced. I lived on my own, and eventually I broke completely with reality.

Off medication, I have a history of terrible choices. I get depressed easily. I am impulsive. I drink to excess. Honestly, I don’t know where I would be if I never had that first episode of psychosis and received psychiatric treatment and antipsychotics.

It is strange to say, what has almost killed me again and again, may have saved me when it first showed up.

Are There Warning Signs of Mental Illness?

07 Thursday May 2015

Posted by in mental illness, schizophrenia

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People may wonder if there are any warning signs of a future mental illness, and I think in many cases there are.

My first psychotic episode happened when I was around twenty eight years old, but as I think back on my life, I was showing signs and symptoms of schizophrenia at an early age.

I was a very sensitive child. I didn’t need to be disciplined in any way. If my parents corrected me, that was enough to make me cry. I remember coming home from grade school one day and asking my dad what the word, fuck meant. When he told me it was a naughty word, and to never say it, I ended up in my room crying. I don’t think he scolded me or anything. As I remember it, he just said not to say it.

Being a sensitive child meant that my feelings got hurt very easily and they stayed hurt for a long time.

There was also trauma in my childhood. Our home was frequently filled with fighting and violence. My dad was an alcoholic with insecurities, trust issues, and a temper.  I don’t blame my parents for my diagnosis.  There are some studies that tie early trauma to developing a full blown mental illness later in life, but there are plenty of people who never experienced trauma who develop a severe mental illness, so it is okay with me if we throw all this information out.  It’s unreliable.

I ran away from home the first time when I was in fourth grade. I stayed overnight at a friend’s house who lived on a farm, and we packed up food and supplies and at nightfall headed across the field.  Her brother and dogs found us. Her dad spanked her in her bedroom while I was standing in their living room waiting for my parents to pick me up. My parents just asked me why I ran away. I didn’t have an answer.

In junior high I had a friend, Sherrye, who was two grades ahead of me. Her friends used to tease her and say, “Your little friend, Becka, is so weird she is always humming to herself at her locker.”  It was true I had a habit of comforting myself by humming. I did it without noticing. Whenever I was uncomfortable, or if someone was mad at me, I would hum.

Things got way worse when I was a teenager. I started experimenting with drugs. I smoked pot regularly with two of my brothers, drank to excess and even tried harder drugs on a couple of occasions.  I ended up running away with an ex-con who was in his twenties.

As a teen, I was moody, difficult, lost, and making bad decisions constantly. I ran with rough crowds.  I had a very difficult time being involved in anything that would have helped me develop a healthy relationship or self-esteem.

I dropped out of high school, but eventually went back to finish.  The same was true of college, I dropped out of college but later returned to finish.

These are just a few examples of problems that manifested themselves before my first episode. I think I had emotional problems all of my life and when I experienced so much stress, loss and trauma in my late twenties, it was the switch that flipped on my psychosis, and once the switch is flipped you can treat it, but never turn it off again.