For those of you who don’t know, I live in South Daytona, Florida, directly in the head-on path of category 4 Hurricane Matthew. Last night, I was forced to evacuate my home. My dad helped me try to quickly prepare my home as best as we could before fleeing for safety. Both time and funds were insufficient to board up my windows with plywood, but we were able to get the sandbags in front of the doors to help prevent flooding damage. I’m currently safe, staying with some family in The Villages, Florida, which is located in central Florida.
A total of 180 shelters have been opened. 23,000 people are in shelters now.
All of the bridges in St. Johns Counties are closed. All of the bridges in Flagler and Volusia counties are also closed.
Flagler County and Coastal Volusia Counties have gotten the worst of the hurricane so far with storm surges, flooding, and wind gusts of about 100 miles per hour.
There are a lot of downed trees, power lines, and .
Three people in Florida have lost their lives and this is the most updated information available. Two in Port St. Lucie and one in Volusia county: a woman died when a tree fell on her.
So far, there’s been two in Port St. Lucie and one in Volusia county. The Volusian woman died when a tree fell on her.
It’s still really bad in Daytona Beach and Daytona Beach Shores. I don’t know if my house is still standing, but I’m physically okay. Right now, our area doesn’t have any power. The majority of Volusia County does not have power right now.
The delivery guy’s expression was incredulous as he handed me my order–an order, which, I’d used compromising means of obtaining, so desperate and pathological the means of my destruction had devolved.
I paused, immediately conjured a plausible lie, dismissed it and admitted, “Yes.”
“Whaaat?” He assessed my frame in disbelief. “But…how?”
I had no energy for shame or mortification.
“I’m going to throw it all up when I’m done.”
Caught off guard by my candidness, his speech faltered, “Oh! OhmyGod. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s not your problem.” I pause. “Only, if you don’t ask your customers so many personal questions, you might not have to deal with so many personal answers.”
He nodded, reaching for the signed receipt.
Now, he is finally walking away, and I think he is going to let me be.
Still, not put off, he’s got one more for me.
“So…you’re like, Anorexic or somethin’”?
Yeah, buddy. Or somethin’.
They don’t understand. It isn’t gluttony. And isn’t hedonism.
This is not about pleasure. This is all about pain.
Credit: Pixabay
Near or distant, it’s likely that nearly every family has at least one “mad” relation. You know who I’m talking about; the one who’s responsible for the legendary tales of insane behavior, collective embarrassment, and general familial strife? Chances are if you’re reading this essay, you either love a “mad” person or are one of them. Well, you’re in good company my friend.
As late as the 1970’s, those “affected” were institutionalized in barbaric versions of asylums and hospitals, a la One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Strides made in modern medicine and mental health care ought to reduce the destructive ripple effect these individuals wield upon their respective families, but, in my estimation, it hasn’t done much to help.
At best, positive changes have been minimal; mental illness poisons entire families. The reality of mental illness is that there is no cure, only strategies of maintenance and coping. The management of mood disorders is largely guesswork: trial and error requiring time, patience, resources and information.
And step one is diagnosis.
Correct diagnosis, that is.
From childhood into my early 30’s, I’ve been the unwilling passenger of a perpetual rollercoaster, with violent emotional waves dictating my behavior, decisions, and interactions.
I felt (and still feel) so wrong in the head, not understanding the constant intensity of emotion, the internal turmoil always clutching at my insides.
I’ve been confused by the behavior of those around me. Everyone else seems so relaxed, so unaffected, so very, very even.
When I was younger, in elementary, middle and even high school, it frustrated me to no end that, when I was in a manic rage or sobbing desperately, my parents didn’t seem to take me seriously, dammit. In fact, they often appeared amused.
Outrageous! How dare you! This is life and death we are talking about here!
I was quite indignant.
Talking to my dad about it now, he tells me: “I didn’t realize anything was really wrong. I just assumed the fighting with your mother, the emotional outbursts, the dramatics…that it was all part of being a girl.”
Sexist, maybe. Understandable? Absolutely.
Most of the time, I covered up the illness. I desperately wanted (and still want) to fit in, be accepted, appear normal, be liked and admired.
And still, to this day, I seek external validation. My 20+ years of Anorexia and Bulimia can certainly attest to that.
But of course, an Eating Disorder is not ever about just one thing. Yes, a significant part of me wants to appear attractive, controlled, on top of things, and strong (ha ha…ha), BUT the main role of my Anorexia and Bulimia has been a homemade mood stabilizer, only I never realized its true function until 2014, when I was finally diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder.
For years, family, doctors, psychologists, and therapists attempted to treat only the presenting symptoms: the starving, bingeing, purging, over-exercising, self-harming behaviors.
All the while, not seeing the forest from the trees.
At my sickest, I felt angry at them. Patronized.
My problems were chalked up to the trivial pursuit of beauty. Thinness. Perfection. Attaining the unattainable, blah, blah, blah.
My parents theorized it was a preoccupation with vanity; a hyperbolic representation of societal standards for the aesthetic ideal.
The times when I veered toward the danger zone, more dead than alive, they realized it had become an obsession over which I’d lost control; a set of destructive behaviors so addictive and necessary that I was willing to die for them.
And I may, still.
My parents tried to understand, but they did not have all the information.
Credit: Pixabay
Wanting very much to keep me alive, they’ve attempted all conceivable ways to help: spending tens of thousands of dollars on treatment, hospitals, rehab, therapists, doctors, and dentists. Arguing with insurance companies on my behalf, fighting for more comprehensive care. Seeing me through divorce and bankruptcy. Moving me back home and opening their own homes to me, all the while providing financial and emotional support. Straining their own relationships, prioritizing my needs at the expense of my siblings.
I am a living, breathing investment.
And then.
Then, the true and full extent of my family’s unconditional love, support and patience was tested when I had my first psychotic manic episode. I had initially not been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder because, for years, doctors, psychologists, therapists, and counselors had been focused on the presenting symptoms of my eating disorder. Forest…trees…you get it.
Around the time of my divorce, my family had helped moved me back home, at their time and expense, I might add, but I’d already been relapsing into Anorexia once again. Historically my anorexia has always manifested as sub-type 2: purging type. What this means is, that I primarily restrict my calorie intake, but if I do binge, or even eat normal portion sizes, I will purge through vomiting. During anorectic relapses, this behavior is always accompanied by excessive exercise. I normally run 45 minutes to an hour, but during a relapse, a two to three-hour workout would be about average for me. OCD behaviors always intensify during these times as well.
Having refused to go to inpatient eating disorder treatment during this relapse, I was seeing both a medical doctor and an outpatient therapist regularly, at my family’s behest. The doctor, in an attempt to treat my “depression and anxiety” prescribed me anti-depressants, which promptly sent me into full blown mania.
Starvation-and not in the hyperbolic sense, mind you-combined with, well, basically speed for Bipolar people, made me a fucking lunatic.
Credit: Pixabay
Compounding that, a Bipolar person, having a mixed-manic episode, I was readily and enthusiastically putting myself in peril. There’s that impulsive, risky element that’s so magnetically attractive in this state; even suicidal thoughts are idealized and appealing.
When it comes to emotional navigation, August and September are historically very difficult times of the year for me. I typically cycle through major depression at this time. Last year, I was passively suicidal. One year later, I am relatively better due to the trial and error guesswork of nearly 20 different medications, but I’m still not well. Moreover, my moods are not stable and I’m profoundly depressed relative to where I was about a month ago. I started feeling bad right around the time that August began. Much to my objection, my medication had been changed about halfway through the month, which sent me into a depressive freefall—but still, I kept living.
It is unfair of me to expect someone who does not share my illness (or one like it) to completely understand. If you have never stood on the shore and looked at the ocean, you don’t know what that feels like. If you have never flown on an airplane, you don’t know the sensation of take-off or ascension.
Mental illness = same thing.
It must be experiences to be understood. Don’t get me wrong, people can be there for you. They can try to put themselves in your place. They can read about your illness. Attend NAMI meetings. But when you are laying in your bed, unbathed for days, cell phone battery dead, thinking of the easiest ways to die – that, dear reader, can be hard for them to comprehend. Because, after all, “You have so much to live for,” “Nothing’s that bad,” etc.-bbb
Today, on , I felt deeply depressed and profoundly hopeless. My personal life in shambles, I’m an emotional wreck. My thoughts are constantly disorganized and I’m nowhere near where I thought I’d be at this time a few months ago. I’d expected to have certain matters settled that still remain up in the air. I feel like I have actual, VISIBLE question marks floating above my head. I can almost feel an electrical crackle of anxiety cascading from each shoulder down my arms to my fingertips.
To make matters worse, I have no food in my house. I am hungry which makes me even more emotional. Sharp hunger pangs are, ironically, caused by eating normally, instead of restricting, or bingeing and purging. Not purging does that to my metabolism. It’s a cruel trick, isn’t it? Ha! Eat and keep it down and you will feel absolutely famished. It’s my metabolism repairing itself. 🙁
And I have no money to buy more food. I have to wait on a measly, slow paycheck to come in the mail. It will be for less than a hundred dollars and I will have to budget it out. I hate my life. I’m tired of begging my family for handouts. I’m so pathetic. Is this all I have to look forward to? Living like this for the rest of my life? I’m trapped in a hell I can’t escape. How could anyone on the outside understand? I am drowning.
I am drowning.
Then I read on Being Beautifully Bipolar, something that resonated with me. She’s attempted suicide three times, but is making the decision not to attempt a fourth time.
Today has been one of those days when I have spent the better part of it in bed. I think I am a loser. I think I am a failure. I compare my life to others’ with jobs and houses and families. I think of all those great boyfriends that didn’t pick me. This isn’t self-pity. This is depression. This is wishing my head would stop hurting, that the anger and frustration I have been feeling for weeks would go away. This is wishing it would all stop.
And there it is – the lie. I don’t want it all to stop. I just want to stop feeling this way. There IS a difference.-bbb
“And there it is – the lie. I don’t want it all to stop. I just want to stop feeling this way. There IS a difference.”
RESOURCES:
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP): www.afsp.org https://afsp.org/find-support/
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI): www.nami.org
Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA): www.dbsa.org
For parents who say they don’t want to administer drugs or chemicals to their child for their ADHD symptoms, a cup of coffee brewed from organically grown coffee beans might be the more attractive alternative. When considering our rising healthcare costs, its ubiquity, affordability, and ease of use are what make caffeine an intriguing option for an adult or child with ADHD. All of those factors make this consideration difficult to pass up.
For a lot of people, too much caffeine can have a negative emotional effect: it can contribute to anxiety, jitteriness, irritability, impulsivity, and insomnia. A moderate amount of caffeine does the opposite for me.
Because many people experience jitteriness and increased anxiety when they consume too much caffeine, my personal experience may seem counterintuitive, but I’m not an anomaly. According to a 2005 study of rats with hyperactivity, impulsivity, poor attention and deficits in learning and memory, a significant improvement was reported in test results when caffeine was administered to the rats beforehand. And in a 10-year study, spanning from 1996 to 2006, researchers found that depression risk in human females decreases with increasing caffeinated coffee consumption. The study included 50,739 women and the clinical depression was “defined as self-reported physician-diagnosed depression and antidepressant use.”
Accordingly, moderate caffeine intake (< 6 cups/day) has been associated with less depressive symptoms, fewer cognitive failures, and lower risk of suicide…READ MORE
Stigma is a mark of disgrace and/or public shunning that sets a person apart.
Stigma can evoke feelings of:
shame
self-blame
hopelessness & distress
reluctance to seek and/or accept necessary help
Families are also affected by stigma, which, in turn, can lead to a lack of support. For mental health professionals, stigma means that they themselves are seen as abnormal, corrupt or evil, and psychiatric treatments are often viewed with suspicion, fear, or disgust.
How is stigma perpetuated?
When a person is labeled by their illness they are seen as part of a stereotyped group. Negative attitudes create prejudice which leads to negative actions and discrimination.
When Star Wars’ Jake Lloyd’s schizophrenia got him into trouble, he received very little media empathy. In fact, there was much parody made of him, not only making light of a very serious illness but publicly shaming him. It made me so furious that so many media outlets could be so irresponsible, cruel, and dangerous in their public messages –some of which went viral– that I wrote the following about how they propagated the stigma of mental illness.
, like any other emotion, falls on a spectrum; there are varying intensities of the feeling, and, depending on the context or situation, it can endure for any given length of time. Everyone feels anxious now and then, say, before an interview or while preparing to go on a . But feeling anxious all the time is another story altogether. Anxious and fearful, that is.
I’ve always been emotionally explosive. Rather, I’m like a raw nerve. I wasn’t diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, (Type I, Severe, Rapid Cycling), until I was 32 years old, but when I finally got the diagnosis, hot damn, did my life-long wild and erratic behavior suddenly begin to make a lot more sense to me.
It was an enormous relief to have some sort of explanation for the rampant mood swings, the overwhelming irritability, the rages, the meltdowns, the all-or-nothing approach to ABSOLUTELY EVERY ASPECT of my life.
Finally, I felt less alien, less alone. There were others out there, just likeme, bouncing off the walls, invincible; out of their head with grandiose plans to achieve this, that and the other…and then, the next week, having to cancel everything because LIFE WAS OVER and there was NOTHING LEFT IN THE WORLD. Therefore, I could not leave my bed, much less myhouse. And this isn’t hyperbolic, to be frank, this is, truly, putting it rather mildly.
I live, primarily, inside of my head; the roar and silence of my mind consumes nearly all my mental and emotional energy. I find it difficult to emerge very often. Although depression and mania are expressed in opposing timbers, they are equally demanding, clamorous in my mind. Because they insist on my undivided attention, the world surrounding me is dimmed.The voices, feelings, and needs of my family, friends, anyone, everyone, are drowned out. In order to hear, engage, converse, react appropriately (in the societal sense) I must concentrate very hard and, even then, I fear I’m not getting it right.
My mental illness makes me feel Selfish. Immature. Self-possessed. Self-obsessed. Needy and Greedy as a child– a wretched woman-child; a blight, a leech, a mistake.
A very dominant portion of my genetic make-up is the predisposition for anxiety, engendering considerable fear, self-doubt and rumination. It presents itself most potently during mood fluctuation- usually at the height of a mixed episode when agitation becomes extreme. Thenthe anxiety itself promotes a depressive swing, underscores it.The hopeless, frantic ruminations press in. I am afraid to be alone but desperately averse to the company of others.
This is social anxiety, magnified. Overtaking me. Engulfing me. Controlling me. There is the tiny cross-section of time: intermittent bouts of Hypomania, in which I am hyperverbal, creative, expressive, gregarious, enthusiastic, euphoric. They arefantastic.
A photo posted by Kristen Polito (@) on
And fleeting.
At various points of occurrence, the illness presents a false demeanor. I am caught up in the play acting, the pretending. I am fun, spontaneous, likable.
It is a farce, though, this pleasant and engaging personality, this false congeniality. The more I learn about Bipolar Disorder, the more unbelievable it is that it took well into my 30’s to be properly diagnosed. Furthermore, I think my mood swings might be slightly more complex than I originally thought. My depressive and manic periods can last 3 to 6 months, switching back and forth, tag-teaming me mercilessly.
Compounding that, I’ve already been told I am rapid-cycling, which means that within a Depressive or Manic period, I have shorter, moresubtle mood shifts throughout the day.
Read: My mind is set to spin cycle, and neither delicate nor permanent press settings are options.
I think the patterns in mood-switching are becoming more predictable, but I’m still taken by surprise when I suddenly find myself mired in depression, or consumed by mania. I suppose when one is crazy and going crazier, they are probably too damn crazy to realize it.
The mornings are always the worst. Regardless of whether I am in a manic or depressive period, each morning weighs me down. My eyes open with reluctance as the anxiety kicks up into full-force. My armpits already slick with anxiety sweat, my breath is shallow. My heart speeds up. The dread is overwhelming. The dread, the anxiety, the feelings of worthlessness are almost too much to bear. I take my medication, the pills which are supposed to make me not so unhinged.
But I am. Still. So. unhinged. ..unhinged enough to know that the suicidal ideation isn’t that far behind me. In fact, I can see it rearing its ugly head again. My last trick of the night, folks. The grand finale of the Crazy Kristen Show. After waking, I lay back down. I pull the blanket around me, over my head to block out the light from the cheerfully obnoxious sun.
What. a. bastard.
The sunshine remains unceasingly cruel; mocking me, almost taking pleasure in my suffering. I keep the blanket tucked around my head, even though it is getting hot and uncomfortable. It’s hard to breathe in there. I don’t like that. Sometimes, I think I want to die, but I’m afraid of the suffering. I forget that I will MOST DEFINITELY NOT want to die later in the day, post-mood shift. The afternoons are better, and the evenings are EXCELLENT.
Every morning, I forget that now, since I am taking the pills, I am feeling better. For part of the day. At least the whole day isn’t just one long, drawn-out morning.
Even with that it mind, it takes an hour or more for me to coax myself into an upright position, to put my feet on the ground. To slowly stand. To look in the mirror and quickly look away, hating what I see. I try not to obsess about my fat, the uneasy knowledge that my Body Mass Index now sits squarely in the middle of the “healthy” range. The word healthy sounds fat to me: well-fed, over-nourished, portly. The fact that I am no longer thin sets off the panic.
That reassurance, which would normally calm my frayed nerves, center my thinking, reassure me; the focus around being thin, concentrating on this one goal, dials down the outside world. When I am using this unhealthy coping mechanism, everything else is muted and the complex problems in my life no longer seem so bad, so terribly urgent or troubling. But, this is not an option…sickness, I mean…certain death, I mean. I am in the dreaded state of eating disorder purgatory, where my weight is restored, but the mind (and often behaviors) are still very diseased. I don’t start feeling better until about halfway through my workout when the endorphins kick in. And then the creativity returns, the ideas come, the planning, the small glimmers of hope. These feelings are not steady throughout, but they make enough of a dent in my misery to propel me through the rest of my workout.
Post workout, I am feeling pretty even for a while, just so long as I do not linger in front of the mirror. Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall–Mirrors seem to have magical properties, you know–they are able to transform my mood almost instantaneously. If I can remember to keep away from mirrors and other triggers, to take my medicine on time, and to employ healthy coping strategies, I can get through the day, relatively unscathed.
A photo posted by Kristen Polito (@) on
If I can do that, then I can actually take advantage of the fact that I’m Bipolar, because, even though each day’s most basic demands leave me completely exhausted, my Bipolar brain is the very reason I’m able to write the way that I can. If I wasn’t unhinged, I’d not likely have a comparable grasp of the English language, of syntax. Words are a powerful display of feelings and sometimes people, even the ones we love, don’t understand or have access to suppressed feelings locked away for one reason or the other.
Civilian or celebrity, if you have a mental illness, you can’t run away from it. It will not be ignored. Rather, it will track you down, wrestle you to the ground, and, potentially, even immobilize you, and steal your life. Your sickness will also wreak havoc on the lives of your very sane family.
Star Wars’ actor Jake Lloyd — who played Anakin Skywalker in Episode I, The Phantom Menace– suffers from schizophrenia.
His demons wasted no time in tracking him down when he went off his meds early last year. On the 26th of March 2015, a police report was filed after he drove to his mother’s house and physically attacked her. A few weeks later, he led the police on a high-speed car chase through Charleston, South Carolina, hitting speeds of 117 miles per hour before crashing into a bunch of trees.
Since that time, Lloyd has been held in jail for ten months and is only now being transferred to a psychiatric facility. I think this demonstrates the breakdown in our criminal justice system: how did it take close to a year for the courts to determine that a schizophrenic who’d gone off his medication and had committed the criminal acts during a psychotic episode needed to be transferred? Why was it not glaringly and immediately obvious that a psychiatric facility was the more appropriaterehabilitative placefor him? I am angry that it took solong but mollified that he is now receiving proper care.Continue reading »
Because my body’s been fighting a nasty infection, I’ve been feeling run down, sleeping terribly, and really struggling to get through any physically demanding tasks. Activities that I enjoy; love even, have felt grating.
I started prescription antibiotics on Friday, and when I woke up Sunday, wasn’t really expecting much in the way of motivation. I’ve been running, of course, because, if you know me, you know I will run with a severed head if I can manage it. I’ve also put in a little time into the garden each day–just not as much as I ought to at this point of the season.
I know I need to step it up, but I’ve felt so below par and, this is going to sound counterintuitive, but, for some reason, the kind of physicality that gardening requires–the squattingand standing back up again repeatedly–versus the continuous cadence of running, has felt so much more taxing over the lastweek.
Sometimes when I am gardening, I get dizzy and see stars, or everything gets very dark momentarily. It’s possible that it has something to do with orthostatic hypotension (a drop in blood pressure when standing quickly). It’s very common and causes of this are myriad, but I think (and we all know I have an advanced medical degree, haha) the likely culprits are either dehydration, anemia, or my prescribed beta blocker.
To say it’s been a while since my last post would be an understatement.
It’s been 35 days since I last hit the “publish” button on the blog. And it feels a great deal longer than that! Making my life and thoughts available for public consumption has become so natural, so routine and so vital to my identity that a separation from writing and publishing, however brief, is unwelcome–distressing, even. I’m glad to be resuming a normal writing schedule for both the blog and my offline writing project.
And to address the break itself, I’ll say that things hadn’t–and haven’t–been going so well for me personally: internally and emotionally. I could just say: “I went off my meds” and leave it at that; streamline the speculation process, so that everyone could conclude that I willfully and deliberately made a choice to stop taking the medications that effectively manage my mood, personality and eating disorders.
But it’s a little more complicated than that.
I didn’t just wake up one morning, see my bottles of pills all lined up, quietly and patiently waiting for me, throw out an arm, scattering them to the floor, all the while hollering Fuck it All to Hell!
Why would I do that? The current meds were working! The suicidal ideation had stopped completely. I’d begun tentatively thinking about the future. I was experiencing little to no side effects. I couldn’t even claim one of the more adverse side effects–weight gain–that prevents some from taking psychiatric medication altogether. In fact, I’ve actually lost weight over time since beginning a consistent course of medication.
So…why, then? If I was feeling better, what was the problem?
I really was. Feeling. Better.
Well, what happened, see, was it was time to refill one of the bottles of pills, see. A really important bottle.The mood stabilizing one.
And because it’s a government subsidized program, the SMA Pharmacy is necessarily and understandably tightfisted concerning medication refills and the flexibility in picking them up sooner rather than later. And so, unfortunately, one can’t plan very far in advance.
And in the days leading up to this, I’d miscalculated, called in the refill late, had to sit it out over the weekend (as they are closed) and come Monday morning, the pharmacy staff told me they were out of the specific medication I had refilled. Not that my refill wasn’t ready. That they were just. Out.
So now, thanks to my own poor judgment, with a side of bad luck, I’m now on Day Five sans mood stabilizer.
The good people at SMA say, Don’t worry, it’s okay.
They say, Come back tomorrow. We will have your medicine by then and you will be okay.
I say, okay. I say, See you tomorrow.
I do not see them tomorrow, because, by this time tomorrow, I am batshit crazy.
The very poisonous, very diseased part of my brain, assumed command and jumped into the driver’s seat. I don’t even own a car, but there the demon was, racing gloves snapped on, pedal to the medal, zooming around like a Daytona 500 pro. By then, I wasn’t even in the passenger’s seat. I was knocked out, unconscious, in the trunk, without even enough time to try and kick out the tail lights like they tell you to do. …they? I guess maybe I read that somewhere; it sounds plausible.
Anyway…it sounds as though I’m not taking responsibility, right? Well, I am. I got what was coming to me. And since then, my meds have been adjusted. The monster inside me is sleeping. Fitfully sometimes; quietly, mostly.Continue reading »
