How does one manage? Mental illness, Family and Maintaining a Job?
ChrisC
Stretched. I'm only 29 and I feel as though my life is over now. Not
in the way of taking my own life. Just that I have experienced all
that I can. I now berry my head in Books and Play Computer games.
Escapism with out drugs now.
When I look back on my life I find that is how I have always been. I
don't know how to get out of it, is it bad, is it?
Sometimes my attempts at escape through what ever means has a
detrimental effect on my life and it's responsibilities. I don't know
if I can take it. When will the suffering end. Yes the anti-
depressants and anti-psychotics certainly help me function. Underneath
though is a very depressed and sad, borderline psychotic person.
I have made it my quest in life to find a cure. The meds are not a
cure, they are a raft that's all and not a very well built one at
that. I'm still looking for that cure. I'm reading The Great and
Secret Show by Clive Barker. I feel like the Jaff searching for The
Art. And Fletcher trying to find the light in this dark and bleak
world.
Is anyone close to finding the cure. Has anyone ever really, ever,
recovered from mental illness! Or is it an affliction I need to deal
with for the rest of my life?
Where do I look, where to next? Psychiatrists? No they just fill the
prescription. CBT? Tried that, my mind is too stubborn. Religion don't
get me started, to much choice, to much crap. I have just taken my
beliefs from a little of every religion.
Alternative health? Diets? I'm currently trying to detox from
cigarettes. Is this causing my feelings of depression and despair?
Having an arsehole of a father-in-law doesn't help. Now my job is
getting me down.
All in all I feel like retreating back into my own head. Back to the
UK and my parents who after 15 years of denying my schizophrenia
illness have accepted it.
Here's the rub, I now have kids and my emotional attachment to them
keeps me where I am, but suffering. I feel they need a Dad. Although
another rub is I sometimes don't think I'm good enough.
Where oh where is the cure? There must be one. I shall find it one day
and share it with all. Although I think that perhaps we all require
our own individual cure. When I find it? Who knows.
Stephanie
Chris this requires a much more thoughtful and reflective answer than
I can give right now. I'll be back though. I just want you to know
that you are not alone.
((((((Chris)))))))
Stephanie
Inky
<gentle snip>
Quitting smoking was the best I did. For depression, PD and PTSD.. So
ya, it is a lot harder to quit being schizophrenic, because you need
to be monitored and your medication needs to be ajusted as you
progress. There is no cure, no magic pill. Just finding ways to make
the best of it and you have to keep fighting.
It is harder, but not impossible. A psychiatrist would be a good place
to start, and let him/her know you (want to) quit smoking, that you
need to be monitored. A good psychiatrist will know this. Feeling a
sense of loss, anxiety, even despair, all comes with trying to quit.
But the physical changes in your brain, along with the schizofrenia,
amplify this and that is why you probably will need to have your meds
ajusted.
I've come to terms with the fact that I'll need meds for the rest of
my life, probably. It's out of my control. But I can make my life
better and quitting smoking was one of the few things I _could_
control. It did not cure my mental disorders, but sure made them a
heck of a lot easyer to deal with.
Inky,
Free since 22/06/07. No nicotine for 10 months, 3 weeks, 3 days, 13
hours, 27 minutes and 4 seconds. That's 9886 stinkers not smoked,
saving € 1.048,00. Reclaiming 4 weeks, 6 days, 7 hours, 50 minutes.
DavidL
Hey man. You keep seeking those answers.
The seeking may be a large part of the answer.
Yeah, your kids need a Dad.
You keep building them the best dad you can.
DavidL
Rock on, Inky.
Good answer.
10,000 cigs, coming up.
Gracenote
Hi Chris,
I had a spell of depression after quitting. I felt grief over losing
my constant companion, and the usual tiredness that comes from
quitting the nicotine. My mood eventually lifted, and I hope that
yours does, too. You deserve to feel better.
Annette
Stephanie
OK Chris, I can really feel your despair. You are not likely to agree
with my answer, but I'll give it to you.
I've come to think of mental illness issues as the chronic diseases
that they are, no less so for being in our brains. I think it is the
strange Cartesian duality of mind-brain that somehow makes us render a
brain-disease to be 'all in the mind' and then somehow under our
concious control. This really defies logic. Our pancreases aren't
under our control and someone with diabetes cannot mentally control
the output of the pancreas by 'pulling up one's bootstraps."
The neuroscience of the brain-based diseases (schizophrenia, major
depression and bipolar depression) is constantly evolving. Genetic
markers are being identified and tested. I tell my children that it
is my great hope that I have some kind of scientific proof and
understanding of my bipolar disorder sometime in my lifetime.
One way I deal with this is to think of medicine as my friend. If I
lived 50, 75 years ago I would have been in really bad shape. As
painful as medication transitions are we are in the most progressive
era of psychiatric management. It would a little bit like a diabetic
becoming grateful for the existence of insulin. Despite the trauma of
daily management it is a breeze compared to there being no medical
recourse.
That said I think that adjustments to meds are among the most trying
times we face. Almost 2 years ago I spun into such a profound
depression that I basically couldn't talk, couldn't write ... it was
just horrible. The physical effects of the medication changes were
painful. I busted my quit on these loathsome no-nicotine cigarettes I
found. I almost starting drinking again. I was suicidal. It was
gruesome. At that point dealing with my mental illness seemed to be
more than I could survive.
But then we came up with a workable regime. I FORCED myself to talk
to my friends (John here among them, never left my side) even though I
was afraid that I would be Debbie Downer, and bore and/or distress
them all. My circle of close friends just listened, just stayed
quietly present and let me know that I couldn't get sad enough or
quiet enough that they would leave.
This is a VERY compassionate group. I pretty much explained all of
this when I came back to the group 18 months ago, and was met with
nothing but kindness. I was pretty much able to confess my depression
and talk about it as much as I needed to until I got back on my feet.
I have no doubt that the group will be here just as consistently for
you. With good ideas and a lot of hugs too.
I also know it I am feeling down I can talk about it at anytime. For
some reason this group just doesn't run out of empathy. There is no
finite amount of support we can access here. We can ask for as much
as we need.
Just for today I am focused on being grateful that the medicine keeps
me healthy, and not on despair over the illness itself.
Holding good thoughts for you! Stephanie
Ian
That's a super answer! My late wife suffered from mild depression and
was taking some kind of medicine for it. She convinced me that it is a
physical ailment, which idea I'd heard of but hadn't fully accepted.
I think I came close to understanding what it is to have depression last
February, when I had been eating Chancix for three weeks.
--
Ian
No Smoking In This Message Please!
ChrisC
Thank you for that. Makes me feel slightly better. In response to the
depression. I have taken it upon myself to increase my dosage of
Citalopram to 60mg a day, whilst maintaining my 1mg a day dose of
Respiridone.
DavidL
> Thank you for that. Makes me feel slightly better. In response to the
> depression. I have taken it upon myself to increase my dosage of
> Citalopram to 60mg a day, whilst maintaining my 1mg a day dose of
>
> - Show quoted text -
Don't adjust your meds without consulting your doctor........
Stephanie
>
> - Show quoted text -
I don't know Cialopram. I would be careful to tinker too much without
medical advice.
I hope it made you feel a little better, I sure had intended it that
way. It can be such a painful difficult subject, and when in the
depths of despair it feels like we just won't survive. Please write
if you feel blue and you will get support. All best to you my
friend, Stephanie
Sparky
Chris,
I am so sorry you are hurting.
I wish you the very best.
You are a wonderful contributer here.
I certainly read all of your posts.
Once I told a friend of mine when he was depressed that he was like a
big piece of granite that was sticking up out of the ground in his
back yard. It is too hard, heavy and deep to ever move it so there it
is. You can clean your shoes on it. You can clean out your paint
brushes on it. You can bang your garden tools on it. It just sort of
is always there. It is never really fully appreciated because it is
just there.
I told him that he was just there, where God had placed him. A
father, hubsand and my work colleague. Like it or not there he was.
I said that whenever I was frustrated at work I came to him because he
was a friend. He was "there" and I knew he always would be. I told
him his wife and children also saw him the same way. He was that
dependable rock that was and always would be there. If anyone ever
took that rock from us we would be devastated. No one could ever fill
that hole that would be left.
Chris, I am so sorry you are feeling down. You make life better for
many people, so hang on. Sometimes that is all we can do is hang on.
It ain't always like that.
Good luck with your medicines.
Fred
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Kathleen
I can only speak for myself. I don't know how people manage, or how other
people do what they do.
I cannot cope without God in my life, {*my* God who is very different from
*religion* but it's a relationship I have with a being that I adore and have
come to believe (He) adores me. I abhor *religion* - which to me is a group
of rules that people make. My relationship with my God is not about
religion.}
I can identify with much of this post, and have felt many of the feelings
and thought many of those thoughts. Drugs are not an option to me either.
I struggle with shopping and food at the moment, and have to have
accountability for both. I have an obsessive personality and have trouble
moderating things. Such as computer time, it seems to be all-or-nothing. I
suspect that in pursuing my various goals I end up obsessed about my goals
and unbalanced or without balance, and I hate that.
I think as a parent I have let a lot of guilt go. I am a damn good Mom, and
there is nothing I wouldn't do different. I've done the best I can do, and
at this time that is good enough for me. I didn't always feel this way, but
I sure did when I was 29yo!
The more I think about it the more I love being almost 40. I feel like I
have gained a lot of (dare I call it wisdom) experience and at this point I
feel fairly good about myself, despite my obvious flaws. I also think that
my being extremely involved in recovery and helping others has helped me far
more than it ever helped anyone else. Balanced between family and others,
of course. I can't spend more time helping others than I spend here at home
with my own family.
One thing I have learned that has been very helpful to me is that "my
feelings always follow my thoughts". Again balance is key - sometimes my
feelings are there to help me change my behavior, and sometimes they are
just a product of my negative thinking. When they are a product of negative
thinking (I usually know in my gut - if my gut is queasy I need to confront
something/relationship in my life) then I can change my thinking and it will
change my feelings. This is really amazing to me how it works, because I
would never say "I am a negative person" but I have found that often my
thinking is negative. And I can change it!! For me, I change it according
to what (my) God says about it. For those who have no beliefs in an HP, you
can change it by thinking anything positive. Happy thoughts. What makes
you happy? You think about those things, and then your feelings change too.
In fact 10 years ago, when I was 29, I did have a low level "mid life
crisis". I felt depressed a lot, and had no sense of my purpose, no
direction for my future. I journaled a lot, meditated a lot, and eventually
found my way to a God that I could believe in and love, and one that
believes in and loves me. But it took a while, some serious introspection
and the help of several friends who had been through similar experiences.
And one day I realized that I hadn't felt depressed in a long time. During
that time I journalled and had little exercises about who I am and what
makes me happy. A lot of it was kind of girly, but I slowly realized little
things about myself. I love roller coasters. I love good smelling candles
and found a cheap Mom-n-Pop company in my state that makes great candles for
a good price and they last forever, and I invest about $100 a year in really
great candles which I burn regularly and ENJOY. Things like that, little
things, that I love, and things that make me me.
I hope some of this was helpful.
With hope and heart,
Kathleen
Kathleen
experience with mental illness, that I know of, as of yet!
DavidL
> I probably should have prefaced what I wrote with the fact that I have *no*
> experience with mental illness, that I know of, as of yet!
Nope, that post didn't need anything. It was perfect.
Sue
Kathleen, your writing is always inspirational. Thank you so much!!!
Sue
Kathleen
regular basis and just don't realize it). lol
With hope and heart,
Kathleen
Kathleen
> Sue
Thank *you* Sue!
Hugs,
Kathleen
ChrisC
Thank you for all your contributions.