I have decided that I have had it with the Social Security Administration. This denial of benefits and subsequent appeal situation has gone on long enough. This was started in July of 2014, and it is now 2015 and going on June. That is a year that this has been occupying my time and effort and thoughts. I have finally been informed that my face to face hearing has been set…finally. I figure I have a 50/50 chance. I will either win the appeal or I won’t. If I do not win the appeal, I have decided that this has taken up enough of my time and emotional resources which could be placed elsewhere where they may actually produce something other than a feeling of spinning wheels. I will not appeal a 2nd time because that would likely result in the need for legal services which I cannot pay for, and would never ask my mother or father to do so either.
I may be guilty of grandiose thinking, but I have bipolar disorder so that does happen, but I have started job hunting because I used to work as a payroll assistant or whatever title they gave it. The duties are almost the same from company to company. I enjoyed the interaction with people, I liked the structure of the position, I enjoyed training backups albeit sometimes frustrating, but, in general, I really liked to work at something other than trying to keep my apartment clean, and the laundry done. Besides that, I worked out how much I “make” per hour on Disability and it is $6.80 per “hour”. That’s not even minimum wage. It is scandalous. I paid my taxes just like everyone else when I was working, and that included a 6.25% bi-weekly contribution to Social Security.
However, now I have a dilemma. I have a pretty decent resume that could use some rewriting and formatting, but my last position ended quite badly in 2007 which is right before the economy tanked. Now I find myself in my 40’s looking for a position that will pay me what I am actually worth based on experience and skill level. I mean, I use Linux as my home operating system, and have managed to make the Windows programs I need to run on it, and Windows does not play well with Linux and Apple, forget it. So, I have an employment gap the size of a Mack truck in my work history, not to mention the fact that I cannot easily explain it away by saying I was raising a family or something equally acceptable. No, I have to have a “severe” psychiatric illness that took about 5 or maybe more years to stabilize. Employers say they abide by the ADA, but in many cases this simply isn’t true.
Adderall
What does one say when the reason for their employment gap is illness, particularly mental health issues? “Hi, my name is blah blah, and the reason for the employment gap is convalecense from a personal illness”. The the recruiter asks if you are cleared to work, and even if you answer in the affirmative, you have just lost that job before you possibly even secured an interview. Another question I have received recently is “Is there any reason that you would not pass a pre-employment drug test”? Yes, there is. I take Adderall for ADD, and it is 4 amphetamines bound by a HCl salt. I have no idea if the metabolites from that medication will show up as a positive for meth or if they will show up as metabolites of amphetamines. I also take Klonopin; yet another positive test.
Klonopin 2mg
I am screwed, or so it feels. I am so accustomed to both drugs that I have an addiction to Klonopin, and the Adderall that helps me focus has little to no effect except to wake me up a bit. I have been on these medications for so long that I have become attenuated to them. I feel very few, if any, side effects from them. I do not get “high” off of them. I have worked while on them. But, believe me, being on medication designed to treat mental health issues are a real game changer, especially if the recruiter can identify it as such in the initial interview. And then there’s the whole problem of not being quite up to snuff on some of my work skills. I can still use Office with a good degree of proficiency, I can run a Linux machine, Windows is not a problem as I started with Windows 3.1 way back in the 90’s. I just have to find a way to say that the absence was due to illness without saying it was from illness. Seems a catch-22 to me.
Full-color image of from first MESSENGER flyby (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I have this muddle going on in my mind. My husband said the other night that I can be very self-centered, and he did not mean it nicely. He said it the way he did because he knew that I would run home to mommy. I was so upset by his comment that I had to put the question to someone who knows me really well. He wrote me back saying it was dangerous territory and he apologized in advance if he offends me. He started by saying that I am an “exceedingly self-centered” person. But he finished the letter encouraging me to find the kind of love and respect that I deserve and he knows that I do not get it at home.So, the definition of “self-centered” is according to Merriam Webster, be patient here. I have to go look up the true definition of the word not just my explanation.
“Self-Centered” means 1) independent of outside force or influence (the role of the self-sufficient). It also means 2) concerned solely with one’s own desires, needs or interests. (This would be the description of me) 3) these are interesting: narcissistic, egotistical, self-involved, selfish, self-seeking, etc.
After the email I got from my friend, and I had asked him because I know he has a personality like Comet cleanser (the powder kind) sometimes, and I knew he would tell me the absolute, no holds barred, unflinching truth even if he did run the risk of making me really angry. Because he is a very longtime friend of mine, he knew he risked telling me something I did not want to hear, but he would tell me because he does love me in his own twisted way. And I love him in my own twisted way. i love him because he does not play games with you. He shoots from the hip, and says what he means. He rarely will say something he doesn’t mean. Its like Mozart but different. It is as if everything he was going to have to say in his life time was predetermined. Its creepy sometimes. Anyway, seeing as how I am so extraordinarily self-centered, it is time to talk about me 🙂
I think to a certain extent when one is ill mentally or physically, you have to be a little self-centered so that you can take care of you. In the end, all we have is ourselves, and the aged bodies that we arrived in. Especially if the illness is chronic and progressive. Vigilance over one’s self is necessary to lead a fairly functional life. When this vigilance starts to crack and you sprout wings and fly, I am pretty certain you have gone manic/mad. So, no, I disagree with both his and my husband’s assessments of me. I am not an all consuming egotist that chews up everything I run across. I will admit that, yes, I do sometimes put myself ahead of others, and I admit this behavior doesn’t lend itself well to lasting relationships (unless both parties are nuts). I feel that a certain amount of self-centeredness is acceptable for everyone, sick or not, Vampire or not. We need it to survive sometimes. It can be our intuition telling us that we need to get the heck out of dodge like yesterday.
But, yes, I will admit that since I finally developed this lovely disorder instead of just being depressed all the time, I have become more self-oriented, more self-centered than I was a few years ago because I had to become that way or the head doctors would still be testing their medications on me like I was some kind of lab rat. I had no idea that when you check into a mental hospital, you are their hostage guinea pig for at least 72 hours. That’s three days of brain damage they could inflict. I didn’t know. I wasn’t ready for it. And the doctors walked all over me. I left with 6 or 7 prescriptions; some for the morning and some for the evening. I was so messed up. We couldn’t even tell what worked because of the number of medications. So, yeah, I had to get a little self-centered and try to advocate for myself, and I have never had a voice. Maybe I took it too far.
Maybe I became everything I used to loathe about people; I had problems and still have problems with people who speak before they think, and act before they think it through. I see a lot of that type of behavior in my own life. And, in my relationship, although he may not understand that I am doing the best I can; I am trying to think of him more ahead of myself, but since he never says thank you, and accepts his gift with an air of entitlement, like he has given so much to this relationship and I have contributed nothing. Well, I can tell you he brought one thing to the relationship that sends me over the edge is his addiction to Internet porn. his realistically longest lasting impression that he will leave on this relationship is that I walked out because I do not need to be taken for granted, and I sure as hell do not deserve a husband who spends 12-24 hours on the net collecting pictures of nude women. Hello! I am screaming over here, and you turn a deaf ear. Continue reading →
I cannot sleep. My medication doctor put me back on Adderall, but at a 20 mg increase. So I am tweaking on what a lot of people go to jail for. Except mine is a pure combination of four different amphetamines and bound with a salt. Because your doctor prescribed it for a learning disability (I have “over focussed Attention Deficit Disorder, and all this time people thought some of my grades were low, and here it was that I was just bored out of my skull so i couldn’t concentrate), and some anxiety disorders
( know I am a lot more social when I am on it, and I can’t type apparently, but I am one hell of an organized term paper writer, and oddly enough, a damn good waitress, provided I have some form of amphetamine in my blood). That’s how I worked my way through school. 50 hours a week working about 6 days a week, with a double shift on my day off from school and work. Between school and work, something had to go….. oooh, oooh, I know it was sleep. Sleep was what I gave up quite voluntarily back then before the BIG DIAGNOSIS; now I would gladly donate a kidney to be able to sleep like normal people do. I mean I have always had problems with sleeping, But I chalked it up to genetics: my father is an insomniac. Now with hindsight being 20/20 and all, maybe I shouldn’t have done some of the things I did which would mess up my sleep cycle.
I have gone through ‘spells’ like this before but they were not medication based. Seroquel has a lovely way of making you gain weight. Adderall is dual purpose: 1) it helps unscramble the omelet that is my brain, and it helps to curb appetite so you do not eat as much, you lose weight. Big Benefit. Small problem: I will need to sleep sometime today at some point, and it will most likely be the most inconvenient time like when I have doctor’s appointment. Gotta love doctor prescribed speed. That’s all it is is pure speed combined with a salt (Hcl). Being a former speed freak, I have very mixed feelings about this medication. On the one hand, it does make it easier for me to focus on things, but on the other hand, I feel like I am on speed. It is a catch-22. The Adderall controls weight and appetite, and treats the Adult ADD. But it is still speed which was my drug of choice for a long time. I have been free of street drugs for nearly 20 years, so you can see my ambivalence regarding this medication. It does what I want it to do, and it makes the omelet of thoughts that is normally my brain talking to itself, and periodically losing. Now that is sad. Losing an argument to yourself.
Maybe if I had wised up earlier, my life would be on a completely different track right now. There you go: coulda, shoulda, woulda. Too many “ifs” in life. In fact it is smack dab in the middle of the word life. ‘if”.
English: WPA era Roosevelt Park in Southeast Albuquerque, New Mexico (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I am quiet does NOT mean I am depressed. It does NOT mean I am even getting depressed. Sometimes I am just quiet.
And, I really wish my husband would stop assuming that I have taken something or that I have been drinking just because my words are slurred. I had major dental surgery about 2 months ago, and have not yet healed enough to create the dental appliance. I have no F&*&^%$ front teeth! Of course my words are going to come out a little funny sounding. He needs to stop with all of his “pop” psychology and thinking that he understands this disorder. It is beginning to really, really, really piss me off.
It may mean I am having a bad day. I have my medication doses set so I can have bad days and good days just like everyone else. I do not want to be a medication junkie, or a walking zombie. I WANT to be able to feel like a normal person, and that means that, yes, I am going to have a bad day every now and then! Just like every other person including him.
And, I am really tired of him telling me that I complain all the time about everything. Maybe I am being quiet because I do not feel like putting up with his Buddhist shit about not complaining about anything and every thing. He has been complaining non-stop about the moving crews that moved our whole house full of stuff from Los Lunas back to Albuquerque. It is only a 45 minute drive, and they unloaded everything where they could find space. So, upstairs stuff ended up downstairs and vice versa. He hasn’t shut up about that for three days now. And, I am tired of listening to his whining.
Perhaps I am quiet because I do not want him to speak to me like a small child or in a condescending manner. Maybe I just do not want him to talk to me at all. Maybe I just do not want to hear about how many times he’s been “around the block.” Maybe I just do not feel like being pissed off by something he said, so I do not talk to avoid arguments.
Not everything is about Bipolar, and he just doesn’t get that. I am not always sick. It comes and goes like a cold or the flu. I know when I am sick. I have been sick for the last two or three weeks. However, because of moving and getting rid of most of my pets, I did not have time to be sick. And, now, he won’t even let me recuperate. He won’t let me wind down from the manic state I had to be in to accomplish this move. He won’t let me mourn my lost friends.
I do not know if he is just a cold person, or if he really just doesn’t get it. Mania sucks after a few days, and anyone who has had a pet for a period of time would understand what it is like to have it die in your arms, or to take it to Animal Control (which is a near certain death sentence). He thinks I am getting depressed and “we have only been in this house for 3 day. Why are you depressed?” Exact words. I am NOT depressed; just really tired both mentally and physically. All of which makes me quiet. Quiet does not equal depressed. Quiet equals quiet.
I wonder if he’s ever considered that I am not speaking because I am content in that particular moment and happy about it? It doesn’t always have to be about the illness.
Chemical structure of clonazepam. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
So, I ran out of my clonazepam (for anxiety). The main problem with running out is that it is a controlled substance, and they have cracked down on early refills. Which just bites, in my opinion. My insurance does not cover the medication so I see no reason why if my doctor authorizes the refill, I cannot just pick it up and pay for it my self. I pay for it anyway. I guess why I am so chappy about the matter is that i have been taking it so long that I am physically addicted to it, and my brain operated in weird ways when I do not have it. In my humble opinion, there ought to be non-addictive, non-narcotic ways to sufficiently control anxiety. It is not like I still get a high from taking it. That time is long past. I do not sell my prescriptions the way I have known people to do. So, if I am not doing anything to break the law, except having taken one too many pills here and there, why do I have go through withdrawals? I also ran out of Adderall this month so my brain is bouncing from this to that and everything in between. I hate addiction. I spent a lot of time and effort in my late teens freeing myself from it, and more recently, freeing myself from going on drinking benders. But here I am 20 years later addicted to stuff that is supposed to make me better. That is kind of depressing. But, I did it to myself, so, I can’t say anyone forced me. it was poor medication management on my part. Sigh…
English: Wavelength for sine wave (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Quite possibly, the one single thing that has really begun to bug me about this having Bipolar Disorder thing that causes me to have to put caustic chemicals in my body and ultimately my brain, is the constant stream of doctor’s appointments to assess how I am doing. If it isn’t the psychiatrist (today) checking to see how well a dosage change is affecting mania or depression, it is the therapist next Tuesday to assess my emotional status. I mean, do not get me wrong, I owe a deep debt of gratitude to both them and my parents for paying for them, but sometimes I just like to be left alone to ride my sine wave, and have a good or bad day without it becoming part of a medical chart, or part of my diagnosis. If I am having a sort of bad day when I see the psychiatrist, I get labeled Bipolar Type 1 ~ “low mood”. Of course it is “low”, I am having a bad day. That doesn’t mean I am depressed or about to jump off a bridge! It means I having a bad day, not week, not month, but one single day. If I am happy and effusive then I am Bipolar Type 1 ~ “manic”. No, not manic, just happy and content. It once again is a one day thing.
I just get tired of all the notes taking down every word I say for further review. All the writing and prescriptions that have created a medical chart that is thicker than a PhD. thesis. Or my therapist listening for “key” words in our sessions that might be significant in some way that I do not know about. I have no idea when one thing I say prompts a flurry of handwriting or something that I consider to be pretty significant does not. It’s like I just do not know the rules of the game that I am playing and the Doctors all have the upper hand. And then there are the appointments that I go to where I have nothing to report or just do not feel like talking. Those are the most fun. I do not feel like talking and yet, there they are, pens poised in anticipation of the next “great” thing to come out of my mouth/brain. Quite honestly, I do not have something to say all the time. Sometimes, I have no thought pattern whatsoever, yet, there they sit waiting for me to say I am depressed, I feel manic, I feel suicidal….all those things they are expecting.
Most of the time I just feel pretty normal, except I do not handle stress or irritation well. But that is something that is common to a lot of people, not just those of us blessed with Bipolar Disorder. And, I do mean blessed. I would not be as strong as I am without this disorder. If I were one of those people who seem like they just glide through life, I would be at a serious loss as to what to do when the glider came to a screeching halt. I would fly due to forward momentum straight into a crisis that I would not be able to handle. People who have been tested by life seem to handle things better than those who have not. Life is not “Leave it to Beaver” land. It is difficult, testy, irritable, irrational. It is not a Toll House cookie. And, I am sick of being poked and prodded. The meds work. I am fine. I am surfing my own little sine wave, and enjoying it. If you want to knock me off, make me an appointment with a doctor so I can be poked and prodded at. My cage doesn’t even have a Hamster wheel. One of those might be nice. At least I would get some exercise.
Maybe I just do not want to go out and drive a 70 mile round trip because it has been incredibly hot here, and even though our air conditioner is set to cycle down during the hottest part of the day, it is still at least 20 degrees cooler inside. Heat makes me chappy. I am a Fall/Winter person. I like cold. I hate hot. Now, a nice 70 degrees would be blissful. But, alas, where I live that doesn’t happen until November, and we aren’t even out of June. That’s definitely it. I do not want to drive 70 miles today. I have to attend a meeting after the appointment so I won’t even be home until 9:30 or 10:00. I just do not want to go. I am being peevish.
is like being clubbed with a small rubber mallet. Your head hurts slightly, your legs don’t want to work, and you stumble into things like the wall that just moved. It is amazing how many things become animate when you are trying to walk while still asleep on this stuff, plants, walls, doorways, all kinds of stuff. Seriously, though, even though this is one whopper of an atypical anti-psychotic, it has been my “magic pill.”
I learned the hard way that I am not supposed to mess around with this medication. It started as a gentle slide, the slope so miniscule that I could not even see the train wreck that was coming. It is notorious for helping people gain weight as well as controlling mania. So, my doctor and I dropped the dose from 600 mg at night to 400 mg at night, and added Adderall to my daily regimen of medications (I do actually have ADD, so Adderall wasn’t an arbitrary addition to help me lose weight.) Adderall, on the other hand, taken with a cup of joe, will wake you up faster that being smacked upside the face with the same rubber mallet. Anyway , thus began the slow, ever so slow descent in the rabbit hole otherwise known as major depressive episode, madness whatever you wan to call it, and I ended up in bed for a week not bathing, not eating, and a big one for me, not washing my hair. I have this thing about clean hair. I have given my self excruciating headaches washinc it in mountain rivers. It was the not washing my hair that clued me into what had happened; depression had snuck on me. Another thing you apparently can’t do without caffeine while hungover from Seroquel is type. At any rate, that depression landed me in the hospital for a week with a bunch of other people some of whom had much worse problems than I hope to ever have. More coffee….
Okay, have more coffee, yea! Once the doctors raised the Seroquel back to its normal 600 mg, I had no more problems except we increased the Adderall. Adderall is speed. For some reason people with ADD respond differently to stimulants than their normal counterparts. Back to Seoquel and the little mallet. Seroquel seems to have eproved to something of a wonder drug for those in the Bipolar community, it can stop a mania that is happening, and it can prevent occurrences of mania. If it were for those shifting objects, and the little rubber mallet, i would agree. But, seriously, it has far fewer side effects than anything I have been prescribed.
I would like another diagnosis, please. I absolutely hate having manic depression. I never know how I am going to feel when I wake up in the morning. Some days I just want to stay in bed for days. I forget to bathe, wash my hair, and the thought of even attempting household chores is overwhelming. I never know when I am going to say something hurtful, or inappropriate given the nature of the situation. I feel as if I overreact to simple problems. Quite frankly, this illness scares me. I never know when an episode, either manic or, more often, depressive is going to occur. I am usually well into the episode before I recognize it for what it is.
I think too much about how my emotions would go away if I were just able to build up the cowardice to end my life. But, I can’t do that. I have seen firsthand the effects that death by suicide cause in a family. When I was about 25, my then fiance’s sister committed suicide. The family was never the same. Everyone blamed someone else for not recognizing the warning signs. They were all there, mental illness, anorexia, alcoholism. But none the less, her father blamed her mother, her mother secretly blamed herself, her brother blamed both his parents and his dead sister. Everyone felt guilty that they hadn’t been able to stop her, but she had taken all the pills she took in the early morning while she was drunk and everyone was asleep. She said nothing until around noon, and by then it was too late, her mother and I took her to the nearest ER, and she couldn’t walk, stand alone, or function. She could not breathe on her own and was put on a respirator. She died around 8:30 that night when the aspirin she took finally stopped her heart. So, that option is a non-option even with the issues I have had as of late.
So, yes, I would like a new diagnosis. This bipolar thing does not work for me. It makes me angry that I am set apart from so-called normal people just because my emotions fluctuate differently, and often, irrationally. It makes me sad because I used to be so functional, or so I thought. I probably was just stuck in delusion of efficacy in my life. Now, I have to have structure in my life: sleep at the same time every night, regular feedings, stable people (who can tolerate me). I have to be able to tolerate myself. When I was a teenager, it was much easier, I could chalk the mood swings up to hormonal changes. Now, I have no excuse. I have been labeled mentally ill, and it is up to me to manage my illness.
Being labeled pisses me off too. It is not like am Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: then I would have a completely different label. Honestly the whole thing about being labeled mentally ill just creates a bunch of misconceptions: you have to walk on eggshells around me (no you don’t, just give it to me straight, am going to like or dislike what you say regardless of bipolar), everything I do stems from illness (no, it does not. Sometimes I am happy or sad or angry or whatever because that is how I am feeling at the moment), the illness runs my life (no, it does not normally run my life except when I am experiencing an episode). So may misconceptions. They make me angry, sad that people shy away from me, lonely, feeling abandoned, neglected, and truly unwanted.
Having a “mental” illness is so much different than having a “physical” illness like heart disease, or renal failure. For some reason people are less afraid of people suffering with medical problems. But, often, mental illness is medical and lies in a chemical imbalance in the brain. Once the right combinations of medications are found, and the person afflicted has a good therapist, and, in my opinion, a firm grounding in a faith that suits them, symptoms often fade and do not recur as often.
I sincerely believe that the “de-institutionalization” movement that started in the 1960’s has had an extremely deleterious effect on how people with mental illnesses are
The Madhouse (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
treated and viewed by society. Many of those who were completely stable in the rigidly regulated hospital environment were released to promised community mental health clinics. In most cases, these clinics were never built, so many psychotic people or people predisposed to psychosis were released on to the streets of the communities near the hospitals. They were not being treated at community clinics, and the wonder drug, Thorazine, was proving to be less than wonderful. It made the patient sluggish and had horrible side effects. So, people stopped taking it, and within days were psychotic again. Now that they are psychotic, and out of touch with the reality of their illness, are they going to know to seek treatment? No, because to them, their world is reality. So, they remain psychotic. Many state laws makes it impossible to involuntarily commit a mentally ill person, they have the right to refuse treatment. As a result, when many people think of mental illness, they think of the people who are homeless, and walk around having conversations with themselves (or they could be on their bluetooth, it is hard to distinguish these days 🙂 ).
Any way, enough of my ranting and raving over the state of affairs for the mentally ill in this culture. I do that on a regular basis. But it just seems to me that we, as a culture, are afraid of the term “mental illness,” when in fact when properly treated, most people can live productive lives. This is not to say that symptoms can’t arise, usually as a result of stress, and wreak some havoc. But, for the treated individual, this is far less likely to happen. most people know someone who has a mental illness, and is probably hiding it to avoid the stigma that goes with the label. It is the costume of normalcy that we are forced to wear, and I for one, can’t stand that. I have Manic Depression and that is what I have to deal with daily. I really wish more people would come out of their normalcy suits, and tell the world they have a mental illness, but this is who I really am. I am not my illness. My illness is just one part of me and who I am. Then, stigma would begin to reduce as more and more “normal” people realize they know someone with a mental illness. There are millions of us.
I recently finished a memoir entitled Manic: A Memoir written by a woman named Terrie Cheney. Her experience with mental illness, manic depression to be specific, landed her in jail where she was denied her phone call to her attorney for almost 6 hours, was denied access to her medication (which she carried with her), and she was starting to cycle into full blown mania. So, they kept her locked in a cell for several hours at a time, and finally moved her to a “private” holding cell because she was so disruptive. While in jail, she was badly beaten by a female guard who was trying to “subdue” her, however, she was attempting to subdue her with a nightstick. She was in jail for 14 hours growing more and more manic with each hour. She asked for her meds, they wouldn’t give them to her, they gave her sporadic access to the phone, and basically, treated her as if she were on something. If they had payed any attention at all, they would’ve realized, she wasn’t on something, she was off something; the medications that helped bring her down. She finally reaches her attorney, and is released. She, was very lucky, however. She could afford the high priced attorney. She was a high priced attorney herself.
Another instance of Bipolar mania had her convinced that her car was stronger than the tree in her yard, and so she drove into it. Totaling her car landed her in a psychiatric facility. That was one time. Another included the swallowing of handfuls of benzodiazepines, and stelazine while she was trying to work up the nerve and get rid of the anxiety she felt over telling her father that his cancer had spread; he had only months to live. She overdosed on those pills, and her exterminator found her on the floor barely conscious. When she awoke she was in four point restraints, and had to use the bathroom. A doctor and a bunch of residents came in to her padded room, and tried to convince her that she had attempted suicide. She hadn’t consciously done so, and she told the doctor she really needed to pee. He refused to let her until she admitted that she was suicidal. She did not believe that she was, and the doctor left without providing her with even a bedpan; she ended up peeing on herself. A nurse came in and changed the sheets, but left her on the urine soaked mattress, all the while berating her for doing what she had done. In order to get off that mattress and out of the padded cell, she finally told the doctor what he wanted to hear; yes she had tried to kill herself, but, no she wasn’t currently suicidal. The whole time she was in that room they kept her sedated with the “conventional” anti-psychotic haldol. This was only part of the experience of a manic depressive of means. Can you imagine how the down and out homeless are treated?
I am now reading a book titled Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness. His son experiences a psychotic break in his senior year of college. His son is in his late teens/early twenties when most mental illness will present in the form of a psychotic episode, a manic episode, or a severe depressive episode. (For my self, it was a severe depressive episode unlike any I had previously experienced; something was very wrong). His son is given the diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder and put on anti-psychotic medication which he refused to take calling it “poison.” His son was convinced there were secret messages hidden in signs and movies, particularly Oliver Stone’s Heaven and Earth. His parents tried to have him held in a psychiatric facility after having taken him to the emergency room. They were told nothing could be done because he was an adult, and he had the right to refuse treatment if he so chose, that that was the law. He couldn’t be forced to take medication, not could he be forced into a mental health facility. It was only after he was arrested for breaking into a neighbor’s house and taking a bubble bath that he was taken to a psychiatric unit on a 72 hour hold. He could, however, still refuse treatment. So, his behavior became more and more odd. His father came up with the idea that since he had been arrested it proved he was not safe; that he was, in fact, a danger to himself and others. The argument worked. His son was being charged with two felonies in relation to the break-in. So, he took his medication for a couple of days, and got sort of right in the head. The idea was that he would be booked on charges but then released to his parents so he could continue the day program he was in. The only stipulation was that he had to continue his medication and the program, and he could plead to one felony count. What was unfortunate about this was that the state Law of Virginia prohibited ex felons to work at specific jobs, and one of them was the occupation his son had just finished school for. So, all his hard work in college was washed away in the blink of the eye known as mental illness.
His parents managed to get him to voluntarily commit himself after being put in a mental hospital following another episode (he still wouldn’t take the medicine that he considered poison; his father even tried hiding it in his food). There was even a commitment hearing which was a joke because the longest they could hold him for as a voluntary patient was five days after which he could walk right back out. His insurance company was after the hospital to release him because once stabilized all their little charts and graphs said that he could continue his recovery at home or in an outpatient program. Don’t even get me going on the HMO’s in this country who play God and Doctor, and decide what the patient needs which commonly overrides the doctor and even plain common sense. I could go on for hours on that subject. His father, a well known journalist called the insurance company that was trying to kick his son out of the hospital, and informed that he used to work for the Washington Post, knew Mike Wallace, and that he would be calling both to do an expose on their company policy regarding mental health. The insurance company backed off.
All of this prompted his father to begin looking into what really happens to the mentally ill in this country, and what he found is not pretty. He began calling around to different courts and jails to find out what the laws were in that state. He finally settled in a section of Miami where there was a judge that was active in the Mental Health reform movement, and met the psychiatrist at the local jail which housed quite a few mentally ill inmates. He states in his book that it took the doctor approximately 19 minutes to do rounds and talk to all the people considered suicide risks. There were 92 people on the psychiatric floor. The author writes: “That was 12.7 seconds per inmate.”
Around the turn of the 20th century, the mentally ill were housed in a similar manner. Naked, or with nothing more than rags for clothes, they were held in the jails and
prisons often with far more people than a cell can hold. A reform movement began after a woman named Dorothea Dix saw this for herself and began a movement to build State Mental Hospitals. The states responded under pressure to do exactly that. However, conditions in the hospitals were not much better than the jails and prisons. The movement continued until some left wingers thought that the conditions in the hospital were so horrific that as long as these patients were stabilized, why couldn’t they be released back into society? Bless the left wingers, they really thought they were doing a good thing by releasing these patients. So began the de-institutionalization movement, and the state hospitals began to shut down. This was in the early 1960’s.
Well, guess what happens when a mentally ill patient forgets to take their medication? The destabilize. They become incapable of holding a job, having a home, taking meds on a regular basis, etc. They do not know they are sick again. This lands them in the streets, homeless and ill, where they are picked up usually for some minor infraction, but sometimes for more serious offenses. We are back where we started; housing the mentally ill in our jails and prisons. And the laws permit this by not requiring more hospitalization, the HMO’s are complicit in that they start asking that people be released after a couple of days on an inpatient ward. They figure using their little graphs and charts that it takes about that long to “stabilize” someone. I know from personal experience, it takes a hell of a lot longer than that. And, that is if the patient is med compliant.
I could go on and on and on about how this country treats the mentally ill. The politicians and HMO’s would never dare deny a heart patient access to medical care, nor would they not allow a diabetic their insulin. So, what the bleep makes mental health such a huge freaking issue? Is it because it involves the brain? Is it because people are inherently afraid of “going nuts?” We are not nuts, crazy, bonkers or any of those lovely terms that are used to describe someone with an organic, medically treatable disease. Manic Depression, Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, all of these are treatable and people who are treated can become functioning members of society. So, we are a little different than the average person. Who gives a flying F&*^! The mentally ill should be treated with the same respect and dignity as everyone else. There are a whole host of people some famous and others not so much who have suffered from or do suffer from some mental illness. This country recognizes alcoholism and drug abuse as treatable diseases, so what’s up with the mentally ill being so scary? I had better stop. I am getting angry.
A Bipolar Journey Through The Rabbit Hole 