by Band Back Together | May 3, 2016 | Anxiety, Depression, Fear, Foster Care, Help with Parenting, Parenting |
Most mothers struggle with the balance between taking care of their families and taking care of themselves. What do you do when your own issues start to take over your ability to care for others? This is one mother’s story:
This is my first post. I found this site while doing a search for Mom’s Mental Health; I am at a low point and need some perspective, some support, something.
I’ve had problems with depression and anxiety since my late teens/early 20’s. Becoming a mom has at least given me a good, unavoidable reason to get out of bed every day. However, when a mother is struggling with her mental health, who can she turn to?
I feel like a woman with mental health issues fears the risk of losing her children if anyone were to really know how bad it is sometimes. How does one know when they’ve crossed the line into not being able to do enough to meet their child’s needs? And to resolve it, do mothers normally turn to their support network to help pick up the slack, until she can get back on her feet, or do she and her kids just go without their needs being met for that time?
by Band Back Together | May 1, 2016 | Anger, Anxiety, Cancer and Neoplasia, Coping With Cancer, Denial, Feelings, Health, Sadness |
Have you ever lost something that you held dear?
Maybe a favorite piece of jewelry? Time? A friend?
My mother-in-law lost her battle with cancer just a few weeks short of my second wedding anniversary. She was an amazing woman. And I’m not just saying that. Everybody adored her. When you think of the ideal mom, that was her. She had a ton of friends that sang her praises. She volunteered with the American Cancer Society to drive elderly people that couldn’t drive to medical appointments and to run errands. She would do anything for anybody. Thoughtful, warm, beautiful smile.
Clearly, she was not a likely candidate for cancer!
Clearly God wouldn’t tear an angel from our hearts!
But we were wrong. Less than a year before her death, she was diagnosed with cancer.
Religion doesn’t play a huge role in my life. It is important to me, and I pray and thank God every night for our blessings. My mom’s best friend, a practicing Christian and strong believer, once told me, “God doesn’t care where you worship him as long as you worship him.”
So I prayed. I prayed that she would get better. I prayed that chemotherapy and radiation would work. I prayed the homeopathic treatments that she tried would work. I prayed for a miracle. I tried to bargain with God. If he let her live, I would never do X, Y, or Z again. If he let her live, I’d be a better person.
A few months before she passed, it was clear she wasn’t getting better. And that’s when I started to get mad. Why would God take someone so loved by so many? Someone that had not even met her son’s children yet? But I continued to pray.
Up until the night we got the call that she had passed away. We had been over to see her earlier that day, and knew that she was getting worse. We knew what was coming. We got to say that we loved her, and spoke to her privately. When we got the call that she was gone, I was shocked that she had actually died. I expected my miracle.
And I was pissed. Pissed off at God. All those prayers? They meant nothing. Why would he take someone that was so loved by so many people? There are thousands of murderers, rapists, and child molesters that deserve death – why not take one of them?
WHY, WHY, WHY?
The prayers stopped. I ignored him when I heard him trying to “talk” to me. Religion? Obviously a joke. Why believe in HIM if he can’t even help when you asked for it. There was no lesson to be learned. No epiphany to wait for. There was just sorrow and grief.
IT WAS NOT FAIR.
Does time really heal all wounds? I think it does. Because ever so slowly, over that first year after her death, I started to listen to him again. And I started to pray…occasionally. And when I invited him back into my life because I missed him, he gladly accepted me with open arms.
I still haven’t figured out the “why,” and I still don’t know what I was supposed to learn from her death.
Maybe I never will.
But I am glad I found my faith again.
by Band Back Together | Apr 27, 2016 | Anxiety Disorders, Dissociative Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Inpatient Psychiatric Care, Mental Health |
Mental Illnesses are prevalent in our world. They greatly affect not only the individual involved, but the people around them. In the month of April, we focus our spotlight on Mental Health, in order to heal together and break down stigmas.
We want your stories. How has your own, or someone else’s mental illness affected your life? How are you rising above stigmas?
Please share your stories with us during the month of April.
A bigger obstacle than psychiatric ward staff to the treatment of a Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) patient is that of a psychiatric doctor. Why? Because there is still a divide between the people who believe/assert/think/etc that DID exists and people who think it’s humbug and that we’re all faking it. The person supposed to treat you may not even believe you are telling the truth!
So you may now understand my relatively high level of anxiety and paranoia when entering a doctor’s office. Either I’ll be respected and treated as an equal, or I’ll be patronized and treated as though I’m just a vivid actress faking a bunch of crazy shit. The third option is that the doc wants to believe me, but actually has no fucking clue about what Dissociative Disorders are, and, evidently, has no clue how to treat me.
My experience yesterday was something like this: if you put the three options within equal distances of each other and drew lines to find the smack middle, my doc would have been sitting on top of the bulge of the three coalescing lines. She had quite a carefree outlook, vivid vocabulary, mild hand gestures. Naturally she wanted to hear everything explained, again, in detail. Fortunately my care worker was with me.
I stared at my thighs, and at my Adventure Time leggings, as the doc said in a chirpy voice, ”You’re not exactly normal, are you? You’re like a splash of color.” I giggled at this – my leggings and my unicorn hoodie were both so colorful I reckon the eyes of passersby would sting. ”No, I wouldn’t say I’m exactly normal.”
The doc decided I’ll stay till Friday, then try being home for the weekend and then come back for the beginning of the week, during which we’d have my second treatment plan meeting.
I have been given permission to take outings during the day. Physical exercise is very important for me in order to keep dissociation at bay, so I went to the gym today, as well as a walk. It is the time of year I wish I lived somewhere else, somewhere where it didn’t start getting dark after 3 pm.
So here I am, sitting on my hospital bed with my small turquoise HP Chromebook purring in my lap, waiting for my designated nurse to come knock on the door again.
by Band Back Together | Apr 27, 2016 | Child Abuse, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Murder, Pet Loss, Sadness |
I came home once to find one of my daughter’s most loved fish in the toilet. I was sad for her, and very worried the little fishy might accidentally come back up. I didn’t want that to be traumatic for the kids, so I flushed it again. The fishy wriggled ALIVE and went down with the water. I was horrified!
Abusive Husband was very angry, and demanded to know what the EFF my dumb ass was thinking. I asked, “But why was it in the toilet?” He said it looked like it was going to die, but the cold water must have revived it. He made big deal to my daughter about it, saying that I was careless and killed her pet.
I was so sad I just wanted to slip through the floorboards. I was so confused. I was always messing stuff up. I would never have hurt her.
Thankfully, my daughter doesn’t remember it at all, even though it was just a few years ago. It must have been so awful for her, that she has blocked the memory.
The other kids remember Abusive Husband putting beloved fish in the toilet as a threat to force them to do things, “or else”. Or, he would do it just to terrorize them into a panic, when he was bored while I was at work. I asked them, “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have gone toe to toe with him over one tiny mean comment to any of you kids!!”
“Exactly Mom, he was going to kill you if we told.”
by Band Back Together | Apr 27, 2016 | Bipolar Disorder, Child Sexual Abuse, Depression, How To Help A Loved One Who Self-Injures, Loneliness, Self Injury, Single Parenting, Therapy |
Mental Illnesses are prevalent in our world. They greatly affect not only the individual involved, but the people around them. In the month of April, we focus our spotlight on Mental Health, in order to heal together and break down stigmas.
We want your stories. How has your own, or someone else’s mental illness affected your life? How are you rising above stigmas?
Please share your stories with us during the month of April.
Today, well …really yesterday, I can’t sleep …my coworker stopped me to ask what was the matter. I suppose that it’s been pretty obvious for a long, long time that I haven’t been too happy.
So I laid it out for him.
“I don’t know how long I can keep doing this.” said I.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, just dragging myself through each day. You don’t understand if you haven’t felt it. There is literally nothing worse. It’s like thought-cancer. Every last good thing that you have done counts for nothing. Nothing is good. You don’t hope for anything because nothing works out, in the end. That’s the way it is when you’re a loser.”
“Hey, I think you’re pretty great. You’re a great employee. Nobody worries if you’re in charge of a project. They know it’ll be done. I can’t claim any understanding of what you’re feeling, but I do understand loneliness and doing the single dad thing. It’s really hard, but you’ll get through it.” he said. “Have you thought about getting any help?”
“Yeah, I’ve done therapy. I have to dredge up all these shit memories, some of which I had all but forgotten. It’s not easy or fun. The drive gets me too. When you’re feeling this way, two hours of driving becomes a HUGE obstacle.”
“Well, do you mind if I help find you someone to see? I wear lots of hats and it really isn’t any trouble. We care about you, and it really tears me up personally to see you this way. I mean man, when you’re up, you’re up and going, smiling and happy, whistling tunes and singing.”
“Well, those times are becoming fewer and further between. Thank you. Yes you can look.”
We had our Christmas party tonight and it really was all I could do to get out the door. My kids and me. The only single person there. It wasn’t easy. The kids got some small presents, and we feasted on prime rib roast and ham, salad, and green beans with garlic and bacon, funeral potatoes, and cheesecake for dessert. I ended up smoking at least a dozen cigarettes in between playing cars and dollies with all the kids. I really do love playing with kids. They’re so much cooler than adults. Plus, they don’t mind when you’re a bit of a nerd. They think it’s funny. They’re not all caught up in being an “adult.”
Anyway, it was a fun night. At least as fun as being a depressed mess can be.
It struck me that my coworker noticed something that has only been slowly dawning on me the past few months. I may very well suffer from some kind of Bipolar Disorder. I noticed in this last year that I have periods of not exactly mania, but something akin to it, that precede my depressions. And indeed, thinking back, there were times that I was the one dragging a reluctant wife around to friends’ houses, staying up too late and drinking too much, laughing too loudly, smoking way too many cigarettes. Looking back, it’s like watching a slow sine wave …up and down, and up and down. But the peaks are flattening out, while the valleys are falling lower and lower, like some macabre emotional EKG readout, about to flatline.
In any case, this December is my crossroads. I really think that it’s my last chance, and that I WILL be a fool if I don’t follow through and take whatever help my company can give. Once again, I am struck at how selfless these people can be. I have often thought that my job was the single best thing that I have going for me, aside from the children. I am blessed that they care. I explained to my coworker that even getting out of bed is a HUGE accomplishment for me some days. What I didn’t mention was that most of the days that I don’t show up to work, I’m laying in bed wondering why I’m even breathing. Last month, I spent two working days and nearly all weekend in bed, leaving only to buy cigarettes. Another thing I didn’t say was that I am completely sure that I could CONQUER THE KNOWN UNIVERSE if I could get better. Another serving of hyperbole anyone?
But its true. I have managed this much in my fight against depression. I have a tiny nucleus of potential, waiting like the silence before the Big Bang, hidden away from the shadows. Indeed, somehow I have managed to keep this strange little grain alive through it all, shedding its light silently like the crystals from Final Fantasy. Maybe that’s what they call my god-spark, my soul or whatever. My true self. It’s a dim light, and a cold one, but at least I’ve managed that much.
I have been very reluctant to try medication. I must admit that I self medicate with marijuana. But….cannabis IS NOT A PANACEA! I have argued this point with people more than once. You can be depressed, get stoned, and yep, be stoned AND depressed. It does make things bearable in that I am freed for a while from the cyclical thoughts of self loathing. But it’s not a treatment. An old hippy once told me that pot should be the spice on an otherwise good life and that kids now wanted to feel stoned to improve their lives and end up being slaves to pot. It’s true. I’ve known people who will go without food in the cupboard in order to get weed. Food is the very first thing I buy, after paying my bills …after all, what will one eat when one has the munchies? Which, since I have a really bad habit of eating little to nothing for days at a time when depressed, is another benefit. It’s sad that so many who advocate for marijuana don’t just say that it’s like a glass of wine for people, and the governments should get over it. They push like it’s some kind of miracle thing, but its just a damned plant with psychoactive substances. Yes it has been shown to have medical uses, but I really don’t think that depression should be one of them.
I have been reluctant to try medication since my stint on a previous bipolar medication. Sure, I didn’t feel depressed any more. But it was a hollow sort of feeling, and I didn’t like it. I couldn’t get happy or sad. It was weird. Maybe it was working like some kind of chemical lobotomy. I’m becoming more and more convinced that there is something wrong in my brain chemistry. I don’t know if things went wrong because of the sexual abuse I suffered, or because of a genetic thing, or both, but I think that some kind of medicine is what I need. I will have to give up pot, to be sure, but I am not espoused to Mary Jane, and I don’t think that I’ll miss her to much.
I also have to get over my anxiety that the medicines will make me feel more suicidal. I began self-harming in 2014. I hit myself hard in the face and head. I already have a kind of cavalier view of pain. Physical pain is easy to bear, for me at least. This means that I could be one of those who just snap because of their medications and finish themselves off impulsively. I don’t want to die, no matter my suicidal thoughts. Not really. But it’s frightening when you can suddenly become your own worst enemy. No one has ever hit me as hard as I have hit myself. But the scariest part of it is that, for a while, I feel better. Yes. I hurt myself and feel better. Fucking A.
So December is my crossroads, and I hope I take a better path. Dare I hope that I’m going to get better? Tentatively, perhaps.
