Well, I feel a bit daft.

(this post has been edited a million times)

Hello chaps.  Feel I owe you all an explanation.  I am, as you can see, alive.  This account isn’t that reliable because I was totally out of it.  Rob has filled me in a lot of it.

Firstly, thanks for all your comments and concern.  Special thanks to Neil and Laura for keeping everyone updated and Cathy for sending an ambulance and Angel, Ed, Miriam, Rob, Dan, Jo, Francesca and Sarah (for hoover lendage, my floor looks class), and my friends have been amazing, though I do expect that some people will be angry at me, an that’s okay and I totally understand.  I’m back home already.  My blood tests came back clear which surprised me as it was a pretty massive dose. That means no lasting damage although I feel like total crap today!  Four hours elapsed before anyone (well, Rob) found me and I was vomiting an awful lot so I think that helped.

So, this is what happened.

I had been depressed for months and suddenly, I got the energy.

I wrote the previous post completely out of my mind, it wasn’t for attention or for help.  Luckily my friend Francesca read it and updated Rob.  Rob had been planning on going to the pub and I often don’t answer my phone so he would have gone to the pub anyway.  Please understand that this wasn’t an attention thing.  Hence pulling the phone out of the wall.

As you know, I have been really battling intrusive thoughts recently, along the lines of killing myself, mostly with the pills I had in my shoebox.  Like I’ve said, it’s an itch you want to scratch, just to make it stop.

I lost it yesterday.  Completely lost it and I couldn’t bear it anymore; couldn’t bear the voice in my head telling me to die, telling me I wouldn’t die if I took the pills, I’d be fine, but die, but take the pills, be fine.

I had handfuls of pills and I took them in quick succession.  I was considering getting some alcohol too but I don’t really like the taste of it and I would have been really out of it.  I didn’t see any of your comments yesterday.

As I said, I took Lamictal.  Most of my Lamictal is 50mg, but there was a lot of 100mg so that was about sixty five pills, or thereabouts, and I took quite a lot more after I wrote the post.  30mg of Risperidone was fifteen, but again I think I took more and the forty Zopiclone was earlier in the day.  To be honest, I’m hazy on the doses because I was in a weird place when I wrote that entry.  The dose was “a lot”. I vomited most of it and am used to Lamictal an Zopiclone so hence my not being dead.  I’ve taken two overdoses in the past but this was the worst.

Pretty much as soon as I wrote the post on my blog I started vomiting, all over the place.  Then I collapsed off my chair, smacked my face on the table and onto the floor, where I vomited some more.  At this point, my eyesight and co-ordination went and I could barely move, and couldn’t see.  I had a few spasms and a mini fit and kept vomiting.  I couldn’t stand up, couldn’t really move at all.  I did try to phone an ambulance (I was really sick and in a lot of pain) but I’ve pulled the phone out of the wall and had turned off my mobile.  My co-ordination was completely gone and I couldn’t see properly, so couldn’t plug the phone in.  I started just hitting numbers, none of which were 999.  I was crawling about but couldn’t stand up.  I started shouting for my mum (who is in Belfast) and I have a slight memory of calling out for my daddy, too, then I think I fell unconscious because it didn’t feel like four hours.

Apparently Neil got through on the phone and I was incoherant and he was shouting at me because I went silent (must have passed out again) and thought I had died.  Then he couldn’t get through so I must have knocked the phone out accidentally.  That must have been traumatic as fuck for him.  I feel awful about it and don’t remember it all (he told me about it).  To be honest, I thought I was dying too.  I hope Brendan’s family don’t find out.

When I came to, I shouted for Rob but he wasn’t here yet.  He had found out from my friend Francesca so he got here quickly after work.  I was curled up on the floor so he thought I was dead and was drifting in and out of awakeness.  I had woken up a few times to vomit and was still vomiting when he got here.  I was out of it so didn’t know what was happening and my clothes and room were covered in sick.

Rob rang an ambulance straight away and was trying to comfort me.  They arrived very quickly but I wasn’t really sure what was going on.  I kept being sick and they took my clothes off (mortifying! they saw me in the buff) and Rob grabbed new clothes for me to wear.  I don’t remember the ambulance journey but I think Rob and the paramedics were jokey to calm me down.  I do remember the blonde woman paramedic asking me why I did it, because I was a “beautiful girl”.  Don’t know why she thought that since I was covered in puke!  I think I was lying down or maybe sitting up so I didn’t choke and I know that they cleaned my face. I remember that she was allergic to cats. When we were going into hospital she said, “This is your fault” (to another paramedic about cats) but I thought that she was referring to me.  They had their sirens on.

I think I was lying down or maybe sitting up so I didn’t choke and I know that they cleaned my face. There were straps on my arm and stomach which I think is why my ribs hurt.  I feel like I’ve been beaten up.  Rob explained to them and the doctors that I had severe manic depression, that I wasn’t thinking straight, that I’d been having intrusive thoughts and that my moods are largely beyond my control.  I’m just sick.  If I wasn’t sick, I wouldn’t have done it. I sometimes don’t take it seriously and make too many jokes and drink when I shouldn’t but I’ve realised it is a life or death thing and I need to get well.  When I’m not experiencing severe mood swings (beyond hypomania, beyond depression) I am not like that, I’m a naturally giggly, enthusiastic person which is why this illness is so devastating to me.  It is the illness, it is not me. Sometimes it takes over and it is terrifying for and for Rob. It doesn’t mean that I don’t do everything I can to get better but I really underestimated how unwell I was.

I don’t remember being admitted but I did get a bed straight away.  I was out of it.  They didn’t pump my stomach because it had been a while since I had taken the pills so they were absorbed by then.  I had a mad craving for a Snickers.  After a few hours they said I could eat but I threw up straight away and had been throwing up since I was admitted.  They took my blood and I was hooked up to a drip thing and blood pressure thing and a heart monitor.

Angel and Ed, two of my friends, came pretty much straight away, but I don’t remember much of Ed being there as I was still out of it.  Angel was brilliant and stayed the whole time, stroking my hair, helping me stand up when I had to (I was very, very dizzy and would have fallen over otherwise) and she stayed with us until two in the morning.

My friends came and visited too.  Again, I’m a bit foggy on the details but was very embarrased, lying in the hospital be feeling like a dick for what I’d done.  I was so grateful, though.  They offered-and did- clean the flat so Rob didn’t have to face it.  It was probably one of the most lovely things anyone has ever done for me, and they did it for Rob, too.  They didn’t go to the pub (kinda ruined their night, there) and they all went as a group, with Sarah lending a hoover.  I guess all my paranoia that people didn’t like me was wrong. Neil and Laura rang too from Belfast.  I’m not sure how people knew I was in the hospital because as far as I know, Rob didn’t tell them.  Today I got a new keyboard and phone because they were a write off from sick.  I’m a bit pissed at the expense!   Could have spent it on new clothes as I ruined my hoodie!  Arf.  Or barf in this case.

The doctors and psychiatrist came.  I am foggy on that, too, but I did bullshit a bit because I was desperate to get out of there.  I had pretty much vomited my body weight but couldn’t keep water down and managed to chuck up outside.

Another psychiatrist had to be called but I saw him much later. I asked Angel to leave the room because I was quite embarrassed.  Rob’s used to my mentals, though.  Again I bullshitted (not really about my mental state. I told him I was seeing someone. I just needed to get out of there) a little bit, especially when it came to food and eating.  I don’t know if you know this but I haven’t been eating properly (lost my appetite due to Effexor) and I have a laxative addiction that replaced vomiting bulimia, which I’m trying to kick (thank god I didn’t, er, evacuate when I was sick). I wasn’t sure what day it was (and wasn’t thinking straight) so I said I was seeing my CPN today when I had actually missed my appointment yesterday).

He said he wasn’t going to admit me to hospital but said that I should be with the Crisis Team and asked Rob to look after me.  I told him that I saw my CPN every week, which is true.

They let me go, although I was unsteady and foggy and also exhausted.  Ed had come back with Rob’s keys and lent us enough money to get a taxi.  We got home, had a fag, had some water and fell asleep.  The place was completely clean, even the bathroom and kitchen.  I nearly cried.  I can’t believe they did for us and put so much effort in, I don’t know how I can repay then.  “Thank you” doesn’t do it justice.

I had a very fitful sleep and Rob didn’t really sleep at all.  I didn’t chuck up again but felt very, very sick and disorientated.  Today I feel a better, have got my balance back and am keeping water and bland food down.  I am still quite foggy, bruised and for some reason, in quite a lot of pain over my body.  Rob is napping on the sofa.

Anyway, this post may sound quite robotic but it’s because I am still a bit out of it.  I’m not sure if I would have survived if I’d drank because I would’ve passed out quickly and probably choked on my vomit.  But vomiting my body weight probably saved me.

Effexor is bad for me.

More than anything, I just feel daft! I feel absolutely fucking awful for what I put them and Rob though.  I’m not sure how to face people but I’ve had overwhelming support and love from my friends and this blog, so really, really thank you so much.  And thank you Anna for dropping fags off! Sorry we weren’t in, had gone get a replacement phone and keyboard.

Anyway, so that’s it.  Hopefully the nausea, dizziness and pain will go away and I’ll be back to my old self again. Rob is with me, so I’m safe.  I have no more extra medication and I’m on weekly prescriptions.

Hilariously, this happened near my two year anniversary of leaving the mental hospital.  I can’t get the bracelet off my wrist, nor find the scissors.  I hope at least posting this on this blog might help people realise the reality of it and not do it themselves.

The crappiest thing about yesterday is that I lost the eBay auction for the camera that broke on me. I miss it so much!  Ah well, I couldn’t afford it anyway.

(rest assured I will be making jokes about this)

The Sane Guide to Living with Mental Illness: Medications

I was watching cigarette advertising from the 1950s onwards on Youtube today. It’s all very aspirational, grand cars billowing Camels smoke from the driver’s window, doctor extolling the virtues of Chesterfields and such like. So I made my own non-aspirational cigarette advert.

Anyway…

Here is another one of my more sensible guides to mental illness, this time, medication, from someone who’s been on most of them and suddenly packed in nearly all of them. (Although I am on 50mg Lamictal with Seroquel now to see if it dents my mixed episode). I guess a lot of you who are already on medications won’t find this helpful, but some other people might.

So!

The Psychiatrist has decided that you’re mental. Well done! By now you’ve probably been told what flavour of mental you have. The flavour favoured by most is bipolar disorder but you may have been told you have schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, a personality disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder or an eating disorder. Or even more than one of those things! That’s good, it means you’re extra special.

What will happen now is that they’ll hold a little conference behind your back to determine whether you’re going to be prescribed medication, going to be referred for therapy or whether you’re going to be kicked out of their office.

Chances are, you’ll be prescribed medication. It’s likely that they’ll be an antidepressant, antipsychotic, anti anxiety drug or mood stabiliser. Or pick and mix from all of the above.

So, here is the guide to medication.

1. You’re taking them because…?

Psychiatrists sometimes have a habit of thinking that their patients won’t understand clinical terms like “psychosis” or, “you’re flipping the fuck out”. So they might use helpful little phrases to explain to you why you’re being prescribed a certain medication, and they try to avoid frightening you by implying that your behaviour is a little…let’s say, off?

“This will calm you down”- “You are vibrating like a badly drawn cartoon”.

“This will help….even you out”- “You have burst into tears six times and then burst out laughing another ten for the thirty minutes you’ve been said here”.

“These should help lift your mood”- “You tried to kill yourself with my stapler”.

“These will help alleviate your compulsive behaviour”- “I’ve noticed that you’ve been counting the vowels I use in my sentences” (That was twenty three).

“These will help with your strange beliefs”- “You’ve referred to yourself as The Queen for the duration of this discussion”.

2. Know your enemy

Occasionally, a doctor will withhold a diagnosis from you or whoever bought you to the psychiatrist in the first place. Generally, you can guess what’s up with you via your medication. Antipsychotics, like Risperidone, Quetiapine, Amisulpride, Haloperidol and Olanzapine are generally used for psychotic disorders like schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorder, manic depression, some types of personality disorders, some sleep, anxiety and compulsive disorders and occasionally, depression. Antidepressants like Prozac, Citalopram and Effexor are used for depression, some personality disorders, panic and anxiety. Anti anxiety drugs (the ones that are benzos, not antidepressants like Paxil) like Valium are for anxiety and panic and mood stabilisers, usually anticonvulsants, like Lithium (which is an antimanic), Depakote, Carbamazepine and Lamictal are used for some types of depression, personality disorders and manic depression.

If you have the interweb, and you do, since you’re reading this, research your medication. But be prepared to find out some things you didn’t want to know about…

3. Side Effects

Psychiatric medications are notoriously awful to take for some people and chances are you’ll have side effects. In short:

Get used to drooling. Antipsychotics and anti anxiety drugs can be really sedating and make your body go a little bit floppy, though it probably feels as though your limbs are made of lead. They can also cause you to slur your words, so, a little bit of spit might make a dash for freedom.

You will feel weird for a few weeks. Lots of medications take a while to work on the illness they’ve been prescribed for. In the wilderness of waiting, you might feel weird. You might feel blunted, spaced out, anxious, irritable or you might be having some odd thoughts. Tell your doctor.

You will sleep forever. If you’re taking antipsychotics, anyway.

Avoid the scales. It’s a shitter but psychiatric medication can make you gain weight. Antipsychotics are worst, anticonvulsants like Lithium and Depakote are pretty much wank too, antidepressants can be tricky and anti anxiety drugs, well, the benzo type, aren’t meant to be used for more than a week or two, so you shouldn’t gain weight from them.

Shake, shake, shake. The anticonvulsants will give you the shakes, listed on the PI sheet as “tremors”. It can be a bit embarrassing as people might assume, like they did me, that you’re an alcoholic. Try not to take sugar in your tea as it just causes confetti.

You might not think as clearly as you used to. Most drugs affect how your mind works. Even caffeine does, so psychiatric medications will. Well, they’re designed to. For the first while taking them, your head might be a bit foggy and…

I had a point here, but I don’t remember what it was… because I’m taking antipsychotics.

4. Don’t expect miracles.

Some drugs work on some aspects of illness very quickly. Antipsychotics are good for getting people out of psychotic and manic episodes pretty fast. Antidepressants can lift your mood within a fortnight.

You have to take drugs in order for them to work. If you’re not taking the medication as prescribed, the medication isn’t “not working”. You’re just not taking them.

There is more to mental illness than direct symptoms and medication isn’t a cure for them. The chances of you being suddenly completely better are slim, and because of this, medications will be changed, doses will be adjusted and other treatments will be drafted in alongside them.

You don’t actually have to take medication if you don’t want to. There will be times when you will have to- i.e if you’re under section, but aside from that, you can choose. Of course, if you’re under the care of a psychiatrist or mental health team, you will be strongly advised to take what they’ve prescribed you.

But, you can weigh up the pros and cons of medications. If the side effects are too much, say so, because another medication can be tried. If you hate the way they make you feel, say so, same applies. The decision is ultimately yours, though.

In reality, it’s best if the decision is ultimately yours and someone elses’ because getting ill again- relapsing into mania or psychosis, for example- means that you won’t be in the place to decide if you should be taking them because you might feel that nothing is wrong. It’s always good to have someone else tell you that you’re mental when you don’t believe it yourself.

5. The medication Hissy Fit.

Yeah, chances are you hate your medication, even if it is helping. You’ll want to flush them down the toilet, chuck them into the Thames, strap them to a rocket, etc etc etc. Have your hissy publically with the doctor before you decide to do the above, as they will be only too happy to tell you what a pain in the arse you were when you weren’t taking medication.

6. If you’re going to continue medication, DON’T:

Drink. Alcohol and psychiatric medications are a ridiculous mix. They make you a lightweight and you’ll be drunk a lot quicker, but be less inhibited so you’ll drink more. That way lies making a total dick of yourself in front of your friends, passing out in the street and pissing yourself or ending up in hospital.

It can be dangerous to drink alcohol while on certain medications like Lithium and Depakote.

And alcohol is a CNS depressant and it will generally make any mood unstable. There’s no point in taking an antidepressant to make you feel better, only to get wasted and feel like shit.

Take drugs. Because you’re already pumping powerful chemicals into your body and you don’t need more.

Drive. Don’t even attempt to drive if you’ve just taken an antipsychotic as it will result in a DUI and probably the end of your car. Don’t cycle either, because, like me, you might find that you’ve forgotten how to steer and career into the pavement of the Seven Sisters Road.

and DO:

Get a pill organiser. One of those cheap plasticky things you can get from chemists for the princely sum of £4.99. They sort your pills out by day so you can’t forget or take too many.

Keep tabs on them. By recording how you feel every day. Or ask someone else to do it for you if you don’t trust your own insight.

Drink lots of water. Because they can piss about in your blood stream, liver and kidneys.

7. And if you’re not going to continue taking medication:

Do it slowly. Don’t come off medications suddenly. They are drugs, and like any drug, they might have withdrawal. Do it slowly.

Look into other treatments. Like therapy, for example. For some people therapy works as well as or better than medication.

Tell someone. If you’re in the right frame of mind to. Quitting medication can cause a relapse that you might not notice but other people will. Subtle things, like stripping to your knickers and running into traffic.

Anyway, that’s my Sane Guide to Medication. Anything you want to add?

Labels and language

Bipolar disorder is “just a label”.

Not to me.

I know mental illness is culturally and personally complicated. A faction, a rather large vocal faction, don’t believe in the existence of mental illness. There’s another debate about this over at Mental Nurse. I stayed out of it.

It’s fair enough to hold your own opinion but to me, it’s insulting when people refer to bipolar disorder as a label. The same is true of schizophrenia, some people refer to it as a label, but, more often than not, there’s a little get out clause stating that “oh, but schizophrenia, that’s an illness” because it is more obviously destructive and indiscriminating than bipolar disorder. “Learned” types don’t make this distinction but the laymen do.

One of the problems is that bipolar disorder is seen as a middle-class illness. Its famous sufferers are by and large educated, artistic people. Schizophrenia, on the other hand, is an illness that is known for affecting people from working class backgrounds. Its very image is of the mad bag lady, or the unwashed black man gibbering on the bus. This is a stereotype, not from me but from society as a whole. Schizophrenia is the poor man’s disorder, and manic depression is the rich man’s disorder. Because manic depression tends to be publicised as an artistic disease, it’s easy to see it as a label that auguments this image, rather than an illness like schizophrenia.

I can see why some people prefer to see mental illness as a label.

Mental illness, particularly schizophrenia and personality disorders, come with stigma attached to it. The public’s perception of schizophrenia isn’t a sympathetic one. It’s wrongly associated with violence, and people fear those affected by schizophrenia.

Because of the stigma attached to mental illness, it’s better to see it as just a psychiatric label with no real meaning to the individual. Being “a schizophrenic” or being “a manic depressive” says something about you, something that might be seen as negative. Labels you can get rid of. Labels are interchangeable and unreal. The causes of mental illness are unknown, so maybe it isn’t worthy of being called illness at all, and sometimes diagnosis can vary from person to person. There’s no way of proving that somebody has a mental illness. A label that says, “Something is wrong with you” is insulting and unnecessary. Lots of people believe that psychiatric labels are just imposed on someone because society doesn’t know how to cope with them. In my own experiences, some people have considered me to be arrogant because I explained that I had manic depression. Implying that I have a real problem, and am not just a contrary, melodramatic woman.

I see this as real. As real as any other illness.

I think seeing mental illness as being as real as physical illnesses is the way forward in reducing stigma. A lot of people don’t agree with me, though. If mental illness is real, then your diagnosis does mean something. And you can be defined by it. And people are defined by mental illness, far moreso than they are by physical illnesses, because a mental illness lives in your control tower, pulling the switches that make you who you are. But if mental illness is real, then it’s not the fault of the person who has it. They didn’t do anything to make this happen to them.

But if people just dismiss mental illness as a label, it devalues those problems. It implies that any suffering the person is experiencing is not real. It’s all part of a disposable label. If someone kills themselves over a label, well, that’s just stupid. Mental illness can be treated. (Although the actual wanting to be treated for it is another problem altogether). And, although there’s no real scientific evidence of yet that shows that mental illness is hardwired into the brain, there are a lot of physical illness that cause symptoms of mental illness. Dementia, epilepsy, MS. So there is something in the mind that causes hallucinations and mania. People suffering from hallucinations that have been triggered by a physical cause aren’t fashioning coping methods, so why are people with mental illness supposedly doing just that?

I don’t think that I’d be “free” if I thought of manic depression as a label rather than an illness. I don’t think I’d be liberated from all that manic depression implies. This feels like an illness to me. It feels like an infection. It swept through my body eleven years ago, it weighed down my bones and dissolved its sickness through my body and mind. This feels absolutely physical to me. I don’t just become depressed sometimes and manic at others. It’s not an isolated syndrome. It affects everything and it is not a case of “letting it”, no more than a person with cancer can “let” their cancer destroy their body. My energy is affected by it. My perceptions and my abilities are affected by it. Days I can’t sleep, and days I can’t wake, and days I can barely walk more than a few yards, and days when my hands shake so badly that I can’t hold a cigarette, and ash is confetti. It isn’t “all in my head” because it’s not confined to my mind. It’s in my body, too.

There is a theory that people develop mental illness to cope with unbearable stresses in life. There is one illness in which I support this theory: Dissociative Identity Disorder, because, overwhelmingly in those who suffer from it, there has been a massively traumatic event that has happened to them, and I can see and understand why someone would want “alters” in order to escape, in order to cope.

I don’t believe that other mental illnesses are caused by stresses in life. Certainly worsened by them, as any human emotion is affected by the life around them. In my case, I’ve had those traumatic events. A lot of my life was a nightmare. But, in a way, I deal with that well, just like I’m good at dealing with emergencies, I get on with it, and I always have. Nothing “triggered” my first episode, the same way that nothing has triggered all my episodes since. And I did not just “become” manic depressive when I was twelve. I can see its roots stretched back as far as my childhood, which makes me believe even more so that this is just an illness that I was born with.

If mental illness is real, then the people who suffer from it are not just burdens on society who got there on their own volition by being fucked up and reckless. It just happened to them, like cancer happens to other people. Because a lot of people with mental illness drink and do drugs to cope with it, well, the image of mental illness is unfavourable because we’re all alcoholics and druggies, on the bottom rung of society. They didn’t do anything for this to happen to them. It’s not their fault.

If mental illness is real, it can be treated. Maybe one day cured. If I saw this as a label, a label that was destroying my life, not because I let it (believe me, I try, very hard, every single day, to not let it do anything), I’d have no hope. I probably wouldn’t have accepted the diagnosis in the first, probably wouldn’t be treated for it, probably wouldn’t have a CPN, probably would never have spoken to Rob about it, probably never would have started this blog, probably would have killed myself the second I left hospital.

I don’t believe in the “Big Pharma”. All huge businesses are corrupt, and a lot of people shouldn’t be on psychiatric medications. But some people should, and for some people, it does help. Of course, because it’s a label, psychosis, mania, depression, it’s all good, it’s all someone “experiencing” stuff. But those experiences can be so destructive. And sometimes, people need a drug to pull them out of the depths and heights of these experiences. It’s not coercion (although I do agree with detractors that in the past, “inconvenient” people were put into hospitals), there is a need for antipsychotics and hospitals to help stop someone ruining their lives, or taking their lives. Of course people should be allowed to, but it’s unlikely that once you help someone ease back into a more rational frame of mind that they’d want to.

Another thing is that being “ill” grants you a “victim” status that those who espouse the label theory don’t like. I’ve written before about the survivor/victim mentality so I’ll just let you read that instead.

And there is, of course, the language of mental illness. Words that you are not supposed to use, lest you be a “victim”:

• Mental illness, as opposed to mental disorder/mental distress/fantastic thing that makes me so unique
• “Suffering”. You’re not allowed to “suffer” from mental illness because if you do, you’re a victim
• “Medication can be helpful”, no, medication is EVIL.

I understand the reason people refer to mental illness as a label. But it is insulting to me. And it’s insulting to me when people comment here and tell me to take a bit more exercise and eat my greens and do a bit of yoga and I’ll be fine, as if I did this to myself by sitting around, did this to myself by not eating enough leafy vegetables. Over eleven years, I have done all the good stuff, done the exercise, got my vitamins, had a “positive attitude” and it didn’t help. I did not do this to myself. If I did this to myself, I would undo it to myself. Oh, yeah, and if you want to be in my bad books forever, do come here and tell me three things:

1) Pull yourself together, I did, it’s just a label, think positively, your diagnosis doesn’t mean anything, etc etc

2) DIET and EXERCISE? Oh, and YOGA and REIKI and other bollocks? It worked FOR ME. You don’t need ANY OTHER TREATMENT AT ALL. In fact if the above doesn’t work for you, YOU’RE WEAK, AND BEING CONTROLLED BY THE BIG PHARMA!

3) Your illness is an EXCUSE for you not to live a NORMAL LIFE because obviously due to your EXCUSE you must not ever tell anyone that you LOVE them or PLAY WITH YOUR KITTENS or ANYTHING since you spend ALL DAY just being MANIC DEPRESSIVE.

4) How dare you use the words SUFFERING and MENTAL ILLNESS. It is “MENTAL DISTRESS” and saying that people SUFFER from it makes it sound BAD.

For those people, I can use other words, like “fuck” and “off”.

The only thing that my illness is an “excuse” for is for my slurring my words occasionally on medication. I’m not defined by my illness, even if I don’t consider it a label. It’s part of me. Part. It does hold the reigns on my life, but hey, whatcanyoudoaboutit. Not much more than I am doing, really. I think therapeutic exercises like yoga and whatsit are important as supplements to actual medical treatment (indeed, I am getting a prescription to exercise to help my energy), but not the be-all, end-all. I don’t like to be made to feel like a failure just because I’m in psychiatric treatment, and just because, so far, I’m not better yet.

It doesn’t mean that I define myself as “manic depressive”. I don’t. I think of myself as someone with manic depression.

I still don’t feel very well so that may account for the tone of this post, and the fact that it doesn’t make that much sense. Although at least I managed to get out of bed before 4pm today.