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13 Jan 2010 8:41 AM
thanks so much for the encouragement guys. I want to let you all know that this is NOT where my head is- except in relation to what I'm writing. I'm writing where I've been at times and where some other people have been at times. Here goes....
"I went to see the psychiatrist, and she agreed with the other doctor. She says she thinks I may have a thing called Major Depressive Disorder, and she started me on some pills for it. I was afraid they might be addictive. My mother took Valium for a long time, and I think she got hooked because she was a holy terror when she stopped taking them. The psychiatrist told me that it wasn't like that... the medication for depression isn't addictive, it just helps your brain produce the right chemicals. She said it's like taking insulin for diabetes, or hormones if you can't get pregnant. I asked her about how long it took to cure the depression. She looked at me so kindly then, took my hand and said, "Mary, this is not something you get over. It's permanent. It's what we call a managed illness. We treat the symptoms, and, on the right medications, you'll be just fine. But you'll probably have to be on some medication for the rest of your life. Right now, we can't "fix" the way your brain works, but we can make you able to do everything that other people do." I felt like I had been given a terminal cancer diagnosis. The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that this is not going to kill me, and if the medications make me able to function normally, I can live with that. She said it would take about six weeks for me to feel all the effects of the meds, and even then, if it's not the right one, I might not be as well as I can be. That's really hard to take, too- I want it to be like taking aspirin for a headache- 30 minutes and everything is fine. I just have to hang on I guess and try to remember how happy I was when I found out it was treatable. The psychiatrist also gave me the number of a clinic that does counseling on a sliding fee- according to what I can pay. I asked her why, if this was a physical illness, I needed therapy. She said, "Mary, you have been living with this illness and all it's effects for thirty years. I KNOW you have had trouble dealing with it. I KNOW people have treated you differently because of it. These things hurt. They leave scars and even open wounds. The therapy will help you heal- not in the way the medications do- but it will help you heal your heart." What a sweet thing for her to say......
The doctor asked a bunch of questions about my family, too. I didn't want to answer those questions. My family has never been there for me, so what do they matter anyway? She explained that mental illness quite often runs in families. I had to laugh... my family wouldn't allow anyone to be mentally ill.. I'm laughing now as a matter of fact... just at the thought. Then she said- ok- has there been anyone in your family who was cut off from the family for the way they acted or who you have seen act in a way you thought was a bit strange? I chuckled at that... "you mean besides ME?" Yeah, there was my dad's father- he wasn't cut off from the family- I mean- how do you cut off a FATHER? But he'd start ranting and make everyone listen for hours because he said God was telling him to say things. He'd slap my dad and his brothers and sisters when they hadn't done anything, and then he'd say that God had told him his children were sinful and needed to be punished. He was a pretty awful old man, but his brother was even worse. He would disappear sometimes - and the family never knew where he was going, except he'd spend money he didn't have, he would invest in plans to save the world and think he was the key to saving it. Then he'd be back, not say a word to anyone, lock himself in his room and not come out for days. One time I remember, we even wondered if he was coming out to use the bathroom... the smell from the room was so awful. Wait- I just remembered.. there was one other thing I didn't tell the doctor about, but I think.. it was my cousin.. he never was right.. always had behavior problems as a kid... some of the family thought he was retarded, but he seemed intelligent enough.. he just couldn't do school work. He seemed mad all the time, and when the family got together, we kids didn't want to play with him.. as if our parents would have let us.... Everyone said he was lazy. I swear that kid got hit more than anyone I ever saw. They thought punishment would snap him out of it at first I guess. Then they decided he was just a BAD person. It makes me want to cry.. thinking that maybe he had problems no one wanted to see... everyone was so mean to him. Finally he just disappeared. No one ever knew what happened to him. His parents were devastated, but that doesn't make sense to me. From the way they had treated him, you'd think they'd be relieved.
I called my mother to tell her what the doctors had said. She wanted to be kind, I could tell, she wanted to hear what I was saying, but I might as well have been speaking Swahili. She didn't understand, she said, did I have a brain tumor? Oh, mental illness.. well that just couldn't be... I was too normal for that. I was too normal? This is the same mother who had, all my life, defined me as different, or odd, or "artistic" for Christ's sake. She tried, but we just didn't connect. I should have known.. it had never happened before.. why should it happen now? That wasn't the worst, though. The "family meeting" was the worst. Mom, Dad, my siblings, all having a meeting about ME.. with me in the middle of it ... not being allowed to try to explain anything. It was like I wasn't even there.. they were making decisions about me, but I had no input. I was SO angry. Finally, their last word, in no uncertain terms, was that if I wanted to be mentally ill, that was fine, but I wasn't to tell anyone- oh, Christ, Mary, especially not anyone we KNEW, and that if I got hooked on some drug, I would be out of THIS family for good. They all knew it was just another one of my excuses for not wanting to take care of myself, and they were having no part of it. Want to be mentally ill.... what a concept...out of the family I understood, I had been out of the family for all practical purposes for years. I'll be sure and talk to my therapist about this when I see him or her next week. How can I do this by myself, without any support from my family? Ok, no pity parties, Mary. We do what we can do and see how it turns out.
A FEW YEARS LATER....
I quit writing for a while. Things have been hard. And easy... My illness has been under control for a long time. They found the right medication for me, when I can afford it. There wasn't a generic, and then there was, and then the FDA didn't recognize it as a generic, so I had to pay the same amount either way. I'm basically unemployable now.. not because I can't do the work now, but because I couldn't do it then. One look at my medical records, and I'm an instant leper.. I get benefits. I'm SO ashamed of having to do that, but the docs say I can't help my illness- would I deny benefits to someone with any other disease? Of course I wouldn't, but the only other disease I can see that carries this stigma is AIDS which is just sooo wrong, but there are more support resources for AIDS out there than there are for mental illness, too. I don't feel too good right now... I'm tired of lying.... once the infamous "family meeting" was over, I realized one thing.. that I could never talk to my family about how I really am. I can't tell them I'm out of medications, out of money, and hanging on to every bit of control I have just to get through until I can get the medications. Wow, if I told them that... that sounds like an addict... funny.... Every time I talk to them I'm fine... everything is fine.. just hunky dory- they don't ask the important questions like "How are you living?" "Do you have warm winter clothes?" "Can you afford gas to leave your apartment sometimes just to SEE people?" And I don't volunteer the information, even though I might, on an off chance, get a little help. It would be given with sighs and complaints about how little Johnny's retainers were so expensive, and how my mother's rent went up even though she spends more on her apartment than I MAKE in a month, or that the Lexus was in the shop AGAIN... oh, no- nothing wrong with it- just the maintenance schedule, you know, and how the neighborhood association insists that we rebuild our fence to match the next door neighbors, and you know Mz. Gotrocks lives next door and had her damn fence built out of diamond dust and.. ok I'm getting ridiculous, but it's not far off. Strange that I can still have a sense of humor... as a matter of fact.. here's the Mary version of what I would say.
Well, I DON'T have to deal with retainers because the first medications I was on ruined my teeth, and I now wear dentures. Oh, and add to that, people think dentures mean you just didn't take care of yourself, and you KNOW that NO ONE who IS anyone wears dentures. I'd get dental implants, but you know, they look so false anyway. My rent just went up too, and law, you know, it's difficult when you're spending 1/3 of your total income so you can have the privilege of living in the hood, and it's going up to almost 1/2. Yes, the 8 year old Pontiac with almost 200,000 miles on it is in the shop AGAIN because it is falling apart daily, and the engine fell out just yesterday. You don't even KNOW from neighborhood associations... mine suggests I carry mace on a daily basis and especially if I go out in the evenings, which they don't recommend because every weekend at least three people in our neighborhood decide they don't want to come back.. puzzling problem. Thank you, Mary, thank your healthy self for being able to make yourself laugh.....
Actually, I'm grateful to have a place to live and a car. There are so many people out there with mental illness who have neither....
AND AT LAST
My brother Tim called tonight. He told me my mother was sick and it was all my fault. He said all she does is think of me and worry about whether I'm okay and why I don't call more often. I wonder why she didn't call ME and ask, but I just took it... like I always take it and make it mine and own it and file it where it can be brought up every day to beat myself with. I can't do this anymore.. although the docs say- yes you can- you've been doing it for years... look at how well you do with your illness. Yes, I've been doing it for years. I've been doing it and doing it and doing it and it is like having 100 lb. stones tied to my ankles, and every phone call, every little comment, every little nuance adds another pound to how hard it is for me to keep just f'ing DOING it. Here I sit with the .45 my neighbor Mr. Gotzeveryonehooked van Gotzeveryonesmoney sold me. I'm hoping against hope that my last act will be the ONE I've done right. I'm scared. I don't believe in anything coming after death anymore- and I'm scared that I won't exist anymore on some level. But if I don't, I'll never know will I? That's a comfort. I wish my mother could hold me right now...."
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