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vampyrechick · 4 years

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My Mental Health Story

*****WARNING: This post contains self harm and suicide attempts and ideation*****

When I finally accepted my diagnosis of bipolar II, it sounds cheesy, but my whole life made sense. Me as a little girl isolating, being paranoid, getting fixated on things, moods changing quick, the self harm. The self harm... first it was digging my long fingernails into the back of my hands till it bled, banging my head against the wall, pulling out my hair. Later as i grew up, the self harm turned into punching large bruises into my legs, raking my nails down my forehead, and eventually cutting my wrists. It was punishment. Punishment for being me.

I was picked on all through school- too fat, too skinny, fake boobs, etc. None of which was true. I was right in my BMI and there was nothing in my bras but my boobs. I got made fun of for having freckles and moles and I even got picked on for needing a rolling backpack when I broke my clavicle and was unable to lift heavy things.

I started college and started dating my now husband. I’d had a few huge panic attacks here and there, but never really knew what they were. He knew something was wrong with me, but didn’t quite know what. He had a suspicion on bipolar and after working with a bipolar person, so did my dad.

I’d been working at a well known lingerie store for 7 years when my boyfriend and I got married, had a kid, and bought a house with my brother. Having a baby was hard especially not knowing she was lactose intolerant so my moods were everywhere. We fixed up the house for a year and finally moved in in late 2013. I’d been getting mentally abused at that store the whole time- getting passed up for promotions, blamed for things getting stolen, yelled at, etc. It was time for a new job and more money. My brother was out a job for a while, so we needed to pay for the house somehow. I got a job at a well known insurance company. I didn’t know it, but I’d been having panic attacks all through 6 months of training. It felt like I was being crushed and I couldn’t breathe and I’d been throwing up every morning while getting ready. At the age of 4, my daughter even came in to comfort me while I was nauseous and said I’d be ok and just needed food and brought me a bucket to throw up in. Being on the phones was the worst for me. I did get my promotion and moved out of training though. I was there almost a whole year and almost to my next promotion and I had the biggest panic attack I’d ever had. It was the start of my shift and I couldn’t get on the phone. All those mornings of throwing up in the shower getting ready for this job blew up into this huge 2 hour long panic attack. My friend had to talk to managers over the phone after trying to calm me down, I had to talk to the nurse, my brother and husband had to come pick up me and my car. That was the last day in the office for me. HR was horrible. The lady I got didn’t care about mental heath and constantly needed dr notes. I eventually had to quit. A lot of people quit that job because of the stress.

I had been going to the dr while at the insurance job trying to find out why I was throwing up every morning and why I couldn’t breathe. I got checked for gall stone, ulcers, crohns, everything. Ultra sounds, endoscopy, colonoscopy, etc. My dr finally told me it was mental. I refused to believe it, but I went up a floor to psych anyway. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. I was put on so many different combinations and saw so many different doctors and none were working. After I quit, I of course lost health insurance and had to go through the state. Again many different pills, but less often as the dr wanted to slowly try combos. My husband somewhere in there lost his job, my brother got one, and then my husband found one making road signs. I got insurance again.

My friends mom got me a job filing paperwork at a well known car dealership. I did well filing, but I started having to greet customers in service and move cars into the smallest of parking spots. I started fixating on things, arguing with my boss, and getting lonely in the back room. I even tried to open a vein in my wrist in the bathroom at work with a wire hanger. I got really depressed in the back and the anxiety while moving cars was great. I crashed 1,2,3 cars and I was out. I was put on a 3 day suspension (which afterward turned into being fired). That day I went home and took over a full bottle of prescribed medication. I wanted to sleep. I didn’t want to exist. Just sleep forever. I was tired. Tired of my brain and stress and not knowing how to fix what i was going through. Just so tired. I text my husband to pick up our daughter from school and said goodbye. He called 911 and they came in and walked me downstairs, strapped me to the bed in the ambulance and took me to the nearest hospital in late September 2017.

They didn’t have to pump my stomach, but I did end up having a seizure. My husband, mom, and dad all came to see me and my aunt and uncle watched my daughter after school. I got put on a 5150 which is a 3 day hold in the psych ward of the hospital. I begged to be let out for the first two days. I was diagnosed bipolar II and placed on a handful of medication to take while there. I eventually gave in and participated so I could go home. The meds they gave me made me hungrier. I got out in 3 days time and still had to take those meds. and 3 months later on those meds I was 60 lbs heavier. I looked and looked for someone to help me lose the weight. Eventually I found a psych at the health insurance place that changed my medication, but after a little, they weren’t cutting it. I’ve changed meds and doses a bit. I kept asking my psych and my regular dr and my therapist for a way to help me lose weight. Nothing. I got into a bipolar group after taking IOP. A handful of them had to get surgery to lose the weight they gained on bipolar meds.

May 2019 I had an episode and landed back in the hospital under 5150 this time just for ideation. I begged again the first 2 days to be let out. My husband came every night to visit and my parents at least once since my dad works out of town. I participated when I could and got out in 3 days. I went into IOP again for 12 weeks. Then last 2 weeks of October come and I’m back in the ideation stage. I need the hospital, but the insurance policy changed and I don’t know if it’s covered. I go like that until mid November. I get put on new medications and have to cold turkey off one drug and slowly go on one and whatnot. In the beginning I can’t tell what’s real and what is a dream. For a week I live like that. Then I have a day or two of being ok, and switch to being angry. Cold turkeying that drug made me lose touch with reality for a whole week then adding that new drug made me angry. I had to stop one of the new drugs (the one that made me angry).

I’ve had trouble sleeping off and on my whole life probably due to episodes. It got worse when my grandma on my dads side passed away and lately seem to have trouble often even on meds to help.

My resting heart rate is always above 100. Often around 120 and has gotten as high as 153 (resting).

On the combo I’m on now I’ve thought about giving myself a labottomy when I used to want to drill open my head and try to fix whatever is wrong with me.

April 2020 and I haven’t had a job since about July of 2018. Before COVID-19, I was getting panic attacks every day having to take my daughter to school. In fact she missed the day school closed (March 16,2020). The panic was bad and I couldn’t get myself to drive. I’ve been fighting to get on social security disability and I have a lawyer. I had a hearing in January 2020, but needed a court ordered psych appt. The appt was scheduled for late March and was canceled because of COVID-19. Since we are a 1 income family in San Diego, it’s hard to afford our house.

I’ve had meds make me talk slow, think slow, fall fast asleep at work, hungry 24/7, thirsty 24/7, have to tinkle every 45 mins, make me tense all my muscles 24/7 for weeks. I’ve had them effect my memory. Even my memory of what everyday words are.

May 2020 I’m so stressed about everything that I’m getting massive heartburn again. I don’t know what medication to help aleviate it because lithium reacts with everything.

July 2020 stress got to me. The stress of possibly not being able to stay in my house, the stress of my backyard being so full of weeds that my husky had to get fully shaved and get over 300 foxtails pulled from his skin (and of course the bill that came with it), the stress of my husband having a kidney stone in each kidney, the stress of my husbands car not having ac and his drive to and from work is 1 hour each way (and of course not being able to afford to fix it), the stress of my car leaking oil (and again not being able to afford fixing it), and I’m sure there is more. I went out with my parents and they asked me to be friends with someone who stopped being my friend because of my disorder in order to make my brother happy. That hurt. I texted them and wanted them to know how that made me feel especially while I’m dealing with all this other stuff and got some crappy replies. I then realized that I was being stigmatized by family and they weren’t the only ones and I lost it. I got put on another 5150 July 1st. I felt like I had lost a huge part of my support team. I wanted to stab myself in the throat and make a special note to my dad as to why he, my mom, and my brother made me kill myself. While in the hospital I realized that my husband and his father (when he is able to visit) are sympathetic to what I am going through and my husband does everything he can to make things easier on me. I am very lucky to have him. Later in July I had another instance where I couldn’t tell what was real and what was not. I hope that isn’t a regular thing again.

July still and I found out my brother had invited my bipolar best friend over for a bbq and made advances and was shut down. He text her dirty texts and she told me she still shut him down and I was upset because never once did anyone in my family reach out to see if I was ok after getting out of the hospital, but my brother would text my friend he’s hung out with less than 5 times? So I message him and he gets defensive and I decide to cut him from my life. I’m upset the couple days after and my husband tells me my daughter is showing more signs of bipolar (she’s 10 and there’s a 10% chance of passing it down). I get more upset and miscommunication leads to my husband calling my parents who I am still mad at for stigmatizing me. The first thing my dad does when he gets here? Tries to fix the door handle to the bathroom because my mom couldn’t open the door when there was another one she could have used instead of check on me like my husband had asked. Things get heated and I tell them they were the reason I was hospitalized on July 1st and they then said they were calling the police. More things were said about how upset and how they don’t even try to learn or read a book to learn and they said “no book can teach me about bipolar.” And I said the whole family stigmatizes me by not saying anything when I say I can babysit and my dad said “well no wonder they think they are a danger to their kids look at you!” I told them to get out and my mom had to be forced out due to refusing to leave without my child. She then called my daughters phone and tried to talk her into walking outside to them so they could take her from me. A therapist called and deemed me ok to not go to the hospital and wait until my regular appointment (in a few minutes from then). My regular therapist then called and talked to me and came to the same conclusion as the therapist before her. My husband came home to my parents on the porch. My father then told him that I was in rage and that it was just a seizure. I was not. I am hurt and sad and upset and misunderstood. I don’t understand why people don’t get that mental illness is a real thing. Why can’t you learn about bipolar from a book? How do doctors learn? You learn how it works and what the symptoms are and then you learn the specifics of the person you love. How is that a difficult concept?

I have been having seizures at night now though. Multiple a night. Just small few second ones. Haven’t been able to sleep for a few nights unless I get so tired I pass out.

As a kid I’ve never felt like I fit in with my family and it transferred into adulthood even before I found out I was bipolar. I didn’t feel happy when I felt I should have been. I felt left out from the girls group because I didn’t like the same things they did, but I didn’t fit into the boys group either. Then adulthood. I was the first out of all the cousins to have a child and get married and buy a house, but I’m not the oldest. I just never fit. I see how the oldest and second youngest (of the girl group) go out to bingo together and of course the oldest and youngest are sisters so they are close, but me? I had 2 brothers. Where did I fit? They hung with the boy cousins. I didn’t have anything in common with either group. Again adulthood I still don’t fit because I don’t have a job and my kid is over 5 years older than the age of the babies everyone else just had. Now we add bipolar to the group and no one else has a mental disorder. None diagnosed at least.

More about my childhood, but first I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Insomnia due to stress, seizures which I’ve never had before (due to stress), and things I should have grown out of (thanks genetics... due to stress). I’ve never been happy with myself because of it and I’ve always had trouble sleeping. Most of my sleeping issues came after my grandma died. All I could think about was death. Burning alive in a house fire, drowning, being creamated alive, being buried alive, etc. I got more depressed.

Growing up at family functions I would ask to “play in the car” which meant sit and wait to go home. Now looking back I know I was sad and overwhelmed with the loud noises and not fitting in. I’d throw up every Easter. I was told it was because I ate to much candy. Now I see it was anxiety. Anxiety to find all my eggs because my family is competitive. Anxiety because my family is loud. Anxiety because I didn’t fit in.

I didn’t fit in at school either. I said earlier I was always made fun of. I forgot about how the kids would always dare different boys to ask me out and then laugh about it. My husband has learned not to tell me I’m pretty or beautiful because it makes me cry. I don’t believe him. I don’t believe any compliments ever and never have. They upset me. I’ve taken lipstick or eyeliner and written “fat, ugly, useless” ect on my mirror. I gave up on wearing make up because to me, it’s not to make you look pretty, it’s to enhance your beauty and i don’t feel I have any. First it was my cystic acne and now it’s my weight. I’ll never be how I want to look again because doctors don’t care. I was literally told “would you rather be alive and fat or dead?” I want to be happy. What’s the point of a life if you aren’t happy?

Growing up I didn’t feel like I got much attention. I tried to come up with ways to break a bone at school 1-5 grade. Lotion on my hands then go on the monkey bars, play the tougher games like red rover where people did try to break your arms while running over, ect. Nothing worked.

It’s been a hell of a ride. Paranoia, obsession, fixation, anger, hypomania, depression. It’s hard. It’s really hard to live this way. I finally got someone to help me with my weight loss early April 2020 after getting to be 110lbs over what I was. I still struggle with mood swings because obviously there is no cure and I can’t remember things and often forget what everyday things are called. Some times I feel like I am putting on a face for others. Like a “happy face”, so they don’t have to ask “what’s wrong”. I do know (when I’m in my wise mind) that I have help and a small amount of people who love me who will be there for me when I need it.

It’s August now and my parents are lying to my husband about what happened just like they lied about why they asked me to be friends with someone for my brothers sake. First it was because the wedding. I pointed out they asked it was after they broke up. They stated it was just to be in the same room. I stated no that’s what was said after I told them why she didn’t want to be my friend anymore. Why am I wrong? Why lie? Why not admit it?! You fucked up! Just because my brain doesn’t produce chemicals to make me happy doesn’t mean it makes me stupid. “We called our granddaughter to come outside to the porch.” Ok. Then what? You were under the impression someone was going to take me away which in turn means you thought you would get my daughter. That’s stealing. I didn’t want her outside and you knew that.

Still beginning of August. I guess July was too rough with me not sleeping that since August came along and I fall asleep all the time and I can’t wake up. You’d think sleep would be a good thing, but the sleep I get is nothing but nightmares that I can’t wake up from. I went to the doctor the other day and found out that a small lump I’ve had on my shoulder since 4th grade is a cyst brought on by stress. I also have psoriasis... brought on by stress. I have been shaking a lot lately due to anxiety and money problems keep getting worse. My stomach won’t stop hurting.

Wow it’s the first Saturday in August. How much has happened. That girl my parents asked if I would be friend with for my brother btw is married. I had asked my friend of like 25 years when the incident happened if she would take her off things like Instagram and Facebook and stuff and she had a fit, but half took her off Instagram. You know where you unfollow them but they still follow you? So yea I was still mad but she claimed she didn’t know how to not have her on Instagram. You know that “block” button. Yea I guess that doesn’t exist. So recently after my parents thing I see she adds the new Facebook page (I blocked one so this is a new one) and I lose me shit). She text me asking me how I am doing and I not word for word say “don’t ask how I am if you don’t give a shit. I see you added that bitch recently and I don’t know if you’ve done reading or not on mental health, but triggers are things that set back forward progress. I don’t get why I fight for you to be in my life when you don’t fight for me to be in yours. Don’t text me again” and I blocked her. She then had her daughter (who’s always grounded from her phone) bombard my daughters phone with “can my brother and I sleep over? Auntie has to answer my moms texts though” like what the fuck?! She’s always been a “user.” And when I say “user” I mean “drive me here and I’ll ignore you the whole concert” “give me money and I’ll say I’ll pay you back and never actually will” “ watch my kids every weekend for like 2 months and I’ll never return the favor.” Shit like that. I’m out. Done. To quote my favorite movie in a time of pain this Katelynn “chick must have beer flavored nipples.”

August is the month that just keeps giving. I am non stop nauseous. I threw up the other day and it caused me to have a nose bleed. Mental health drug withdrawals are no joke. Hopefully I’m on a good mix again for another year or whatever. Once the withdrawals stop, I need to stop the stress and anxiety. My husband says my dad is trying to make an effort to learn now, but I don’t know if it’s too late. He and my mom have already triggered me many times by asking me to be friends with that girl who didn’t want to be my friend because my illness to make my brother happy. My dad also told me I’m a danger to children when I’ve only ever hurt myself whereas his oldest has gotten expelled from high school for fighting and has a track record for punching holes in walls and hitting cabinet doors off hinges, but because I have a label, I’m dangerous. There’s just some things you just can’t take back.

I don’t know if I’ve already stated, but I forget what things are called and the stress to get my thoughts and what I’m trying to say out is huge because I don’t want to hear “what?” “I missed that” “I didn’t hear what you said.” It’s cause I didn’t get to finish! I stopped to figure out what the word was now I forgot the whole sentence! Colored pencils are colored sticks. Elote is elbow. Ice is grass. Posture is prosper. I HATE this! I come up with ANY word that will come out to avoid a pause so I can avoid “what?” I truely cannot remember the word either until someone tells me.

It’s the end of August and my parents and I are slowly starting to talk. First about small things like video games, but yesterday I called my mom and told her I was sorry for how I expressed my feeling. I said I never should have acted out in anger and should have come to them calmly (though now thinking about it, I did and it didn’t work, but what’s done is done). My dad is reading the book and really taking it in. The book being from a bipolar persons perspective is nice for him. My mom is also doing internet research. My brother has been asking how I have been doing which is nice though I still don’t know how I feel about him and how he treated my friend. My oldest brother has been silent. We’ve never been close. It hurts, but he’s got two little girls to deal with I guess. I would have been asking about him, but oh well I’ll take what I get. I’ve did the distance thing I realized because I was afraid of losing them again. Afraid the anger and fighting would come back and it would just be a never ending cycle. I hope this book opens eyes. On other notes, I’ve upgraded to nocturnal panic disorder. I’ve been waking up in a panic from sleep. Still having nightmares, but the times I don’t, PANIC!

My parents and I are doing better since my dad is reading the book. I appologized for how I said things in anger to both of them because it wasn’t fair to them for my to have done that even if I did try calmly. I should have kept trying. My dad said the book is really eye opening and he didn’t need the apology, but appreciated it. He said reading it made him realize I couldn’t help it. I can’t explain right now what he meant, but it’s just like loss of control (I posted the book in another post). I text my brother to tell him I love him because I do and I understand why he would ask my friend out, but I’m still upset because I know I was a rebound and he didn’t have good thoughts. I know he knows it was a mistake and in time we will be ok. On another note, I found out why I was having nocturnal panic attacks. I stopped my sleeping pills that is also for anxiety. I started a medication that I haven’t been on for a little and I took my on the spot anxiety med the other day and i had a few psychotic breaks again (a few in one day). So now I won’t take my on the spots anymore.

My primary care doctor has put me on a medication to help with weight loss in addition to the others I am on. Its also supposed to help with full body pain and swelling which I have. In just three days I have already noticed reduced swelling and pain. Dieting is still hard, but less hard. I am couting calories safely to lose 1 pound a week and eating at least 80 grams of protein. Thats it. Thats my diet I am following. Nothing special or fancy or hard to do. Simple.

Took almost 2 years on the dot, but I finally got on SSDI as of early Sept. and early Oct. I got my award letter. I didnt fully win my case (only 16 months out of 2 years, but I will take it). Also, I don’t get paid for the first 5 months of that 16 months which I don’t fully understand, plus I have to pay the lawyers, but still, I won. We also got a notice saying that since I have a child, I can apply to get money to pay for her as well. That was easy to apply for and only takes a month to hear back for, so I should hear back early Nov.

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