I’m sorry for disappearing for 1.5+ years and not speaking with anyone. I’ve been struggling a lot with my mental health issues, but am now seeing a Psych D. (therapist) and a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I am also now on meds (hence my reappearance lol) that are helping me and improving my every day life.
But, before I begin I would like to express that I am not bringing up my mental illness for pity, sympathy or attention. But rather, because it is a huge part of my life, even though I wish it wasn’t. I’m speaking up because I wish to 1] let others who live with mental illness know that they are not alone; and 2]attempt to break the stigma associated with mental illness by creating a dialogue.
Speaking about my mental health issues can be quite challenging. Writing about it is easier. I’ve been scared, ashamed and embarrassed of speaking about my mental health issues. And all because of the stigma associated with mental illness. At 6 yrs. old I was already aware of such stigma. At 6 yrs. old I thought of mental illness as a no-go-bro conversation. One rarely spoke of mental illness and if so, in low whispers only. At 6 yrs. old I had already learned to fear mental illness and those living with it.
Now, I understand why a stigma exists [it doesn’t make it right, though]– people fear that which they do not understand. Mental illness isn’t always visible. Mental illness exists upon a spectrum, varying in the manifestation of symptoms from person-to-person. You may not know a persons triggers or exactly how their symptoms manifest themselves. And sometimes, those with mental illness can be unpredictable, aggressive, even violent. So I understand why some people may fear those with mental health issues. However, part of this stigma exists due to misinformation or perception. This misinformation is, in part, due to the lack of dialogue regarding mental illness. Which makes me wonder, which came first? The stigma or lack of dialogue?
I’m tired of the stigma. I’m tired of feeling ashamed and embarrassed. Mental health is JUST AS IMPORTANT as physical health and it’s time people regarded it as such. In 2016, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIH), 44.7 million (18.3%) US adults lived with AMI (Any Mental Illness, including Serious Mental Illness, SMI). That’s just those who were surveyed, think of how many more have gone unnoticed or have not received help.
If so many of us are affected by mental illness, why is there such a stigma? Why are we afraid to speak of it?
Also, I wish to add that no one chooses to live with mental illness. Mental illness knows no bounds; affecting all socio-economic classes and all ethnicities. Getting better is not as simple as “keeping a positive attitude!” or “just try a little harder!” or “just be happy!”. If it was, I would be one mentally healthy and stable person. So many of us would, if that was the case. But it’s not. It’s brain chemistry. Mental health issues are hard, excruciatingly hard. They can affect your every day life, even the simplest of tasks. They can be debilitating. Every day is a struggle. Every day is a fight. The most difficult of fights–the invisible enemy–the fight within yourself.
I live every day with mental illness. Multiple mental illnesses, actually. I’ve lived with mental health issues from a young age. The first time I remember the dark cloud of overwhelming sadness and pain was when I was 6 yrs. old. But I fell in and believed in the stigma associated with mental illness. I hid my feelings, not telling anyone about how I truly felt. Faking it till I made it, as they say. I was terrified of how others would view me. I was terrified I would be sent away. I’ve never told anyone before, but my first suicide attempt was at 8 yrs. old. I swallowed 16 Tylenol (all that was left in the bottle) thinking, at the time, that that was enough to kill me. I wrote a suicide letter to my family beforehand. In it, I wrote about the pain and sadness I felt, but could not name. I apologized for being different from everyone else. For not always being happy. For being a burden. I wrote of how dark it felt in my head. How alone I felt. I told them I loved them. Apologized for the pain I would cause them, but that pain would ease with time, until one day, they forgot about me. At 8 yrs. old I felt this way. At 8 yrs. old… My second suicide attempt was at 17 yrs. old. The pain and sadness had only increased tenfold, paired with serious personal life events/situations. Becoming wholly unbearable. Again I wrote letters. I wrote many letters. To my family, to my friends. I swallowed three different bottles of pills and spent about a week in the Cleveland Clinic’s pediatric psych ward.
I live every day with an overwhelming pain and sadness, from both a chemical imbalance in my head, and past life experiences and trauma. In the past, I have been diagnosed with Major Depression, Anxiety (general, social, specific), Bipolar Disorder, Paranoia, and PTSD with psychotic features (meaning I experience audio and visual hallucinations stemming from my trauma). My new psychiatric nurse practitioner and therapist are beginning with a clean slate. Observing me with an objective eye and perspective, while keeping previous diagnoses in the back of their heads.
I have lived with depression and anxiety since I was young. I have also lived with suicidal ideation for just as long. However, I began living with more than just depression, anxiety, and suicidality after May 20th, 2015. I was raped that night, by a man I thought truly cared for and respected me. A man I had been seeing on and off for a year. A man who had promised, after me telling him of the other men who had hurt me mentally, physically, and sexually, that he would never cause me pain. Never do what they had done. But that was a lie. Something in my brain snapped that night. My brain broke. My psychiatric nurse practitioner, Shay, asks me why this rape was different from the ones before. Why my brain broke after this rape and not the other ones. The answer, I think is due to me finding and understanding my worth the summer before, in Indonesia. For the first time in my life I valued myself, I knew and acknowledged my worth. And by this man–who had been so gentle, so kind, so respectful, before– hurting me in the manner in which he did, I lost all my worth. Or so I thought. I felt dehumanized, tainted, sullied, dirty. I felt as though my worth was stolen from me. Part of me was taken by this man.
It’s difficult to fully explain what I mean by part of my brain broke, but I’m going to try my best.
I experience what I call “freak outs”. A “freak out” for me is when my brain becomes overwhelmed, shuts down and I lash out. After that night in 2015, my brain has been working a bit slower and a bit different. It takes longer for me to process information, often having to rework sentences and information into a way in which my brain can process it. My brain easily becomes overwhelmed, these days. When a lot of information comes at me at once or too quickly my brain scrambles. Thoughts race; unable to land on a concrete, rational, logical thought, I quickly downward spiral. I become anxious. Not being able to hold onto a single thought for more than .5 seconds, my brain freaks out. It begins to yell profanities, “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! why can’t I think of anything? Work, brain, work, damn it!”. Quickly the profanities fade and my mind goes blank. Completely blank. A black void, if you will. I’m embarrassed by this. Though it is worse when others are around, I am still embarrassed by this even when I am alone. My embarrassment quickly evolves into anger. Angry that a man has hurt me so, that this is the result. I’m angry that my brain doesn’t work as it once did. Before I know it, I lash out. I don’t mean to. I wish I didn’t. I try not to. But sometimes I don’t even realize what is going on; I am unaware that I am lashing out. Other times, when I recognize that I am lashing out, or as I put it, “being an unwarranted bitch,” I try to stop myself. I tell myself to stop, I tell myself that I am being an unwarranted bitch, that the person I am lashing out at doesn’t deserve it. That I need to stop. But it’s as though a switch has been flipped and then broken. No matter how much I try to stop, how much I tell myself to get my shit together, I can’t.
I have difficulty controlling my emotions, controlling my mood swings. I also lash out due to my mood swings. I experience intense mood swings, where I will be okay one second, 1 minute later and I’m full of anger, full of sadness. Full of emotions that I may not always be able to explain or label. Similar to my “freak-outs,” when my mood switches I may or may not be aware of it. I may or may not be aware that I’m screaming, that I’ve thrown something at someone, that I’ve lashed out. But, when I am aware, I try my hardest to switch my mood back to being good, but it never happens. It seems, to me, that there are few triggers that set my mood swings into motion; they just happen. And when they do, I need to be on my own because I am unable to control them. Often when my mood shifts, I see red until my vision tunnels and everything turns black. I also lash out and my have “freak-outs” due to my anxiety.
I’ve lived with anxiety my whole life. But, like many other things, it has intensified and amplified since that night. I’ve become even more skeptical and weary of people, trusting few. My heart begins beating extremely fast. I begin to perspire. My thoughts begin to race. I over think EVERYTHING. Everything from a conversation or situation earlier that day to a conversation or situation from 18 yrs. ago. And there is no difference to how much I over-analyze or how much my heart hurts or quickens. Nor is there a difference in the immense fear that fills my mind and heart. I’m prescribed a sleep aid now because otherwise I lay awake for hours, typically getting less than 3 hours of sleep a night, full of anxiety and fear. I over-analyze the simplest of interactions, wondering if I said too much or too little, if I over shared. My anxiety makes going to the grocery store difficult. The thought of making a phone call to someone or someplace and my heart races, my legs become numb. I’ve flown over 10,000 miles, lived in another country, but yet that does not cause me to be anxious. It’s the everyday life and simple things that make me anxious. I also am now very weary of men, often terrified of them. When a man is too near or is walking past me I cannot breathe and my heart thumps so hard until it freezes. I cross the street when I see a man walking in the opposite direction towards me. I am uneasy and sometimes fearful of my male friends, though it is unwarranted. My anxiety makes me worry about the future, may that be an hour into the future or 20 years. It makes me feel that I am not productive enough and need to do more. However, that anxiety is matched by my depression.
When anxiety and depression meet, a war ensues. It’s like a fight to the death. A constant battle. Everyday I receive conflicting messages from my brain. I once read something that I believe somewhat depicts what having anxiety and depression at the same time feels like,
“Having anxiety and depression is like being scared and tired at the same time. It’s the fear of failure, but no urge to be productive. It’s wanting friends, but hate socializing. It’s wanting to be alone, but not wanting to be lonely. It’s caring about everything, then caring about nothing. It’s feeling everything at once, then feeling paralyzingly numb.”
–Unknown
Depression has been with me since I was young. Depression makes it difficult to get out of bed, difficult to feel anything but negativity or ambivalence. Difficult to see the beauty in the world. Difficult to be productive, because what’s the use, there isn’t any hope. Depression makes me feel worthless, small, defeated, near death. Actually, it makes me feel like I’m already dead. Depression creates doubt within my head. And if that wasn’t bad enough, my paranoia only adds onto those doubts.
I’ve always been an observant person, however, it’s become more than that. As with my anxiety and other mental health issues that have only amplified following that night in 2015, my paranoia has grown. My paranoia makes it difficult to go anywhere because when I walk into a place–be that a bar, a grocery store, the gas station– I immediately feel as though others are watching me. It feels as though every person I pass is staring at me, judging me. This causes me great anxiety. Now, I know that is not the case. But try telling that to a paranoid mind. It doesn’t sink into well. I’m constantly telling myself that no one is looking at me. No one cares or is judging me. That it is all in my head. But, unfortunately, it seems that the paranoia continually defeats reason and logic. I walk around on constant alert. Peeking over my shoulder every 4 steps or so because I’m terrified that someone is going to hurt me. I question every interaction I have. I doubt every good thing in my life; even the love of friends and family. There is no safe space away from my paranoia. My paranoia causes me to sit by the window because I have a need and urge to continually look outside. Hear a noise outside? Look out the window. Hear a noise in the house? Grab something to protect myself and investigate what it was. If I’m unable to find the source of the noise, I sit there fixated on the noise, convinced that there is someone in the house. Someone who aims to hurt me. See someone outside? Watch them with a vigilance so that I know they are not trying to break into my house or car or moped scooter. Every door is locked after I enter. I lock the car at all times, even when I only have to go into the trunk or am pumping gas. Because my mind is telling me that someone is going to hurt me and that I need to protect myself at all times. I’m a nervous wreck. What doesn’t help my paranoia are the auditory and visual hallucinations I have that stem from my PTSD and trauma.
I hear noises that others don’t. One example is sleigh bells. I do not know why–for I have racked my brain about it many times–but for some unknown reason I hear sleigh bells that others don’t. In my house and while out and about, I will hear the sleigh bells, and various other noises, and ask my parents or sister if they heard the noise also. They never hear the noises. I hear a voice that tells me I’m worthless, that I’m nothing. It tells me everyday, multiple times a day, that I should kill myself. It asks what am I waiting for? Just do it. It tells me that others don’t love me, even as they are expressing such love. The voice talks to me. The voice belongs to a dark shadow of a man who follows me everywhere. I call him my dark passenger. He follows me, more like stalks me. Constantly over my shoulder, sitting in a corner. He perches. He stares. He talks to me. My dark passenger is not kind. My dark passenger sucks all the happiness out of me, similar to that of a Dementor. My dark passenger, all too willingly, sucks all the warmth and happiness from me. I become cold and numb.
The dark passenger is not the only visitor I have. I also see a black cat that follows me everywhere I go. I feel it as it rubs up against my legs. I look into its large yellow eyes and my heart stops, my breathing ceases. I hear it purr, hiss, meow. I feel its warmth. I also see and feel ants and bugs crawling on me. They are not there. They are not real. But to me, to my mind, they are. I flick the bugs off, they fall to the ground and begin the trek up my legs and arms again. It’s a perpetual cycle.
But, I’m not crazy. I live with mental illness everyday, but I am not crazy. My doctors assure me of it. It’s just another disease/ disorder of the body. One of which we do not fully understand, therefore others may fear it.
Now, these are just a few examples of what my mental illnesses are like, and how they affect my everyday life. There are many more examples or affects, but it’s difficult for my mind to process them into a way in which they may make sense to others. I also don’t always know or remember my freak-outs, or instances when my symptoms manifest themselves–which is another aspect of my mental health issues.
But, as I said in the beginning, I am now on meds. I’m on a regiment of 5 different meds that help keep me in check, keep my mind in check. That doesn’t mean that I am cured. I will never be cured or free from my mental illnesses. But my meds help make it manageable; enable me to live a more “normal” life (whatever the hell “normal” is).
I hope this helped in creating a dialogue regarding mental health because I’m tired of being afraid or embarrassed. Of having to hide my mental illnesses and symptoms. I hope those of you reading this, that also live every day with mental illness, no longer feel alone, no longer feel ashamed or embarrassed. I hope it gives you the courage to be yourself and to be proud of the human being you are. I hope it gives you hope. You are not alone.
It’s a tough world we live in, everyone is going through something. So, let’s all just be kind and supportive of one another and the world may be a better place.
Won’t you be my neighbor.
*Images by Shawn Cross
#theIndonesiaILove 