My Secret Shame

I have a slight confession to make. I am dealing with a really bad case of mania. I blogged about my insomnia last night but its a little more serious than I let on. I choose not to take the meds that the doctors give me because they effect my moods and make me very suicidal.

It has been seven days, and I haven’t slept, and I haven’t eaten in three days. I took a melatonin about an hour ago and I am feeling a little better.

In the past I have actually really hurt my self while in a state of mania. Mania is almost like a natural high. only, it can become uncontrollable and fast. You feel like you are unstopable, like you are invincible.  I once broke my foot because I jumped out of moving vehicle. I remember people told me I was talking really fast and that I was getting louder and louder.

Doctors often confuse mania with someone that is on drugs. Because Meth is so bad in this area of the country,  doctors OFTEN  immediately come into the room and have a preconception of you and it can make it hard for you to be treated.

The main way my doctors used to treat my mania was with Benzo’s…if you know me then you know that I have suffered from anxiety my entire life. And I say suffer because,  anxiety is the ROOT of my problems, from that root grows problems with compulsion,  obsessive thoughts, RACING THOUGHTS, and so much more.

Inner peace is what I pray for every night, and the people that I know love me, they pray for it too because my anxiety has a way of affecting other people around me.

…..Most Doctors around here won’t prescribe benzo’s anymore because they were finding that people were becoming heavily addicted to them.

But, if you have a real anxiety problem,  and you live around here,  you know that the doctors around here were handing it out to people like candy. It didn’t matter if people didn’t need to be on them.

So, the doctor’s are handing them out left and right and then all of a sudden they are realizing that they have a huge problem on their hands.

So they take them away. They tell people that there are ssri’s and anti psychotics  that can help in the.treatment of anxiety. 

….but the problem is everyone’s brain chemistry is not the same. 

I truly don’t need SSRI’S …they make me manic. And I won’t take anti-psychotics. I have had really bad experiences with doctors trying to experiment with newer medicines on me. And unfortunately it is the newer meds that they start me on because once again, I hand been on all of the older meds because my doctors have been trying to get my anxiety right since I was six.   Anti psychotics  are meant to retard your senses.

There is s secret shame that you carry around with you,  knowing that your brain doesn’t work like everyone else.

The speeding thoughts sometimes turns in to thoughts of paranoia. 

It can make it really hard for you to want to trust anyone.

A few years ago, my anxiety became so bad I was afraid to leave the house. I became a shut in, and I am so sad to think it was the last year my Dad was alive. I hate that the last year of his life he was stuck up in my apartment with me.  Trent was pretty much my care taker instead of my husband. It all came to a head on Fourth of July weekend that year. Trent found me in the bathroom and I had swallowed a whole bottle of Tylenol PM’s. I just wanted to stop thinking, I wanted the peace to come, and I wanted freedom.

I was put in the hospital,  and I remember my dad coming to visit me. Dad had.a stroke back in 2006, and he was not in good health at all. Hr sat next to me. And then he started to cry. “You are not the girl I raised. I want to die knowing you are going to be okay. I don’t have much longer.” He grabbed my arm,  “I. Don’t. Have. Much. Longer.”
He continued, “I need to know that you are going to be financially okay. I need you to be the fourteen year old girl that went out into the world when her mom passed away, and not be afraid to find a job to help your family.”

He started to cry and looked as if he was trying to piece together a puzzle.

“I know you know you think too much. I know you feel what everyone around you is feeling. I do too.  I know because you are my daughter and I have loved you your entire life. I know sometimes, you carry other people’s struggles with you. ” He looked down in shame. ” I know you carry my struggles with you. You can’t. You have got to let me go…I shouldn’t have lived when I had my stroke two years ago. You have got to let me go. I need to die knowing you are my fearless daughter again. The girl that is like Teflon. ”

“Daddy, what if I can’t be that girl How do I get back to where I need to be when I am this far gone?”

I started to cry and he held me as tight as his left arm that had been affected by  the stroke would let him.

“It isn’t going to be easy….we’re going to start off small, and we’re going to grow from there. Every time your mind starts to race you write. Get it on paper. Get it out of your mind. That way your not being held hostage by these thoughts. They won’t be running around in your mind all day.”

I was released from the hospital after seven days. I found a job at KMart immediately after, my marriage slowly was becoming okay again,  I was becoming the old me again.  And because they chose not to prescribe benzo’s, I chose not to take meds at all. When I would have a trigger and I would start to talk in a loop, or think in a loop, I would pinch my kneck three times for good luck and write it in my journal to acknowledge that the thought was there, but I wasn’t going to let it hold me hostage.

Usually my obsessive thoughts don’t get really bad unless I don’t feel like I’m in control. Right now, although my life is better than it has been in a really long time, I still struggle when there is too much of an upset in my environment , when I make a slight mistake, when there is a lot of change. Obviously,  it’s change for the better, but my mind is having a hard time getting settled.

I just want to be completely honest with you. There is so much more to this story, and I promise to be completely honest, (it involves me stabbing someone,) but right now I am actually starting to get tired.

I will end on this note: although benzodiazapines are highly addictive,  the studies show across the board that they are EFFECTIVE and help people that suffer from long term generalized anxiety disorder, (when taken on an as needed basis). Everyone is not the same  and although I have always had problems with anxiety, when I was medicated PROPERLY, I did not have problems with mania, paranoia, and agoraphobia. These are newer problems that are a result from me NOT being on anxiety meds.   It is a shame that there is a medicine out there that can help make my condition easier, and doctors can write prescriptions to make my condition easier, and yet they choose not to…our mental health system is severely flawed.