This Is How You Freak Out Someone With Mental Issues

 ..…….Send a Bipolar Type I with psychotic features, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Anxiety with and without Agoraphobia a cessation of disability benefits because some bureaucratic idiot determined you had improved medically and were physically able to work. For crying out loud, people at the SSA, I did not file for disability for medical/physical reasons. I applied under the mental health guidelines because my brain does not work the way it should when it comes to anxiety and mood regulation. I also have ADD which makes it really difficult to focus for more than about 45 minutes. 

That is how to freak out someone who already will automatically think: the world is over as far as I know it, and do I have enough medication to end the whole debacle right now. Not that I would do this. I made a vow to myself and all the powers that run the universe that if I got through the last attempt (which damn near killed me) without brain damage or any physical problems that I would never try that again. It came too close to being final, and that scared the living hell out of me. I do not want to die; I want the mood swinging to stop. Not too much to ask or maybe too much to ask.

And the spiral is getting worse the longer I wait. This whole process started in July 2014. It is now nearly April 2015. What’s that? Something like 8 months this has been going on. It is time for them to either approve or deny my appeal. I will appeal to a higher ajudicator on my 2nd appeal, but I am tired. That mental and physical tiredness that can only come from worrying and being on pins and needles for 8 months while the SSA folks cool their heels. It is a tiredness of the mind.

I have just about had it; I am too stressed, I am having major problems with anxiety (upped my dosage back to its original amount), depression (antidepressants do not seem to work on me), and mania to some degree. All this because of a letter; I think the average person might not fight so hard, because physical improvement is visible. Mental health is invisible, intangible so you have to argue twice as hard to prove that you are a walking mental case. None of this is right. Sorry if I seem hostile, but I am pissed off to no end right now.

Why Aren't Shame And Guilt Listed As Common Symptoms Of Manic Depression?

Robert Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My car recently blew a tire while I was on the expressway doing about 75 mph in heavy Easter morning traffic. I was very fortunate not to lose control of the car, and I

made my way off the expressway. I had also been hearing a noise every time I made a turn like you would make backing out of your driveway. I didn’t realize it was the CV joint going out on my axle where it connects with the wheel. The short point of this long story is I needed (in my mind) two things: Four new tires, and new brakes (I assumed the noise I was hearing from the wheel was the brakes.) So, I called my mother and explained the situation (key words called my mother), and she decided to have it towed from where I live in Los Lunas to a mechanic in Albuquerque for an evaluation of the work the car needed. When she sent me a scanned “invoice” estimating the work my car needed, I nearly went off the deep end. I was prepared to just call it quits. I had enough medication to do it (I am a pill popper). So, while I stared at the estimate of roughly $3500 worth of parts and labor, I was harboring in the back of mind that the easiest thing to do would just be to off myself. Nothing has been going very well in my life recently, so I figured I’d just take the easy way out. Instead, I called my mother. I was wondering how much of the work absolutely had to be done to make the car driveable and reliable again. I was looking at the invoice, and I figured the CV joints, the brakes, the tune up, the axles, and the tires. It all came to around $1100 less than the estimate. My mother agreed to pay for all the work it would need to keep it on the road for another 2 – 3 years. She spent $3500 fixing the car she had ended up buying because I had lost my job and could no longer make payments. 

I got the car back yesterday, and ever since, I have been feeling nothing but guilt and shame; which are not exactly foreign feelings for me. I am 41 years old in a month or so, and up until the “diagnosis,” I was completely self sufficient, I had well paying jobs, and I took care of everything from car repair to paying the rent. I had only asked for help from my parents once, and that was when I was fired from my job, rent was due as well as all the other bills, and I had $273 which I spent of groceries. Somehow, imminent eviction is not as scary if you have full cabinets. Don’t ask me. It’s not like you can take the fridge with you when you get thrown out. So, I asked my parents to help me just get through the end of the semester at school, and then I would locate another job. And, that’s exactly how it worked. I was only 23 at the time so I didn’t feel too bad asking for help. Now, it is completely different.

Every time I have to ask for help, it triggers these horrible feelings of guilt and shame. I feel ashamed that I cannot manage on my own, and that I live on Social Security Disability. I feel ashamed that I am not in a position to handle monetary crises, and that my mother generally will bail me out. She shouldn’t have to. There are many examples of manic depressives that have “made it” despite the illness. Then, the guilt sets in. Guilt for being sick in the first place. Guilt that I apparently can not take care of myself financially without help. I have tried to go back to school twice, and flunked out both times. I do not understand that. I was an A student in undergraduate school. I feel guilt and shame about that. It is like the illness has sucked up everything I once was and spat it out again as this financially challenged, ineffectual, jobless, disaster of a person. My marriage is a wreck, and I do not know who to blame for that. I know it takes two people to make it work, and two people to jack it up, but I cannot help but feeling that it is my fault, and that if I weren’t mentally ill, everything would be fine. However, when I think about it, my husband is not the most emotionally stable person either, he just won’t admit to it. He has very dark moods that I personally feel is chronic major depression. But, what do I know, I have only been studying mental illness for ten years.

I just don’t understand why these feelings are listed as common symptoms of Bipolar Disorder. Every bipolar I have ever met, in hospitals and other places, have these feelings. They just manifest differently in people with the illness. Mine manifest as an urge to just go away so people don’t have to be bothered with me, and taking care of a 41 year child. But, I know that would cause great pain to those who still care about me. This seems to be a very isolating disease. The neediness of this disorder pretty much wipes out your social circle, it exhausts the people who love you, and it just takes and takes. It never seems to give back. It is an emotionally exhausting disorder for everyone; the person who has it, and the people who try to understand and support them.