my story

starting around march of ‘08 my focus had been on detoxing off psych meds that i’d been on for over 11 years (i had been on and off for about 26 years. predominently for bipolar and borderline). i’m living with fibromyalgia diagnosed in 2001, began mid-’90s or earlier as some theories go…i’m also a recovered/ing alcoholic/addict who attends regular AA meetings and works with others. i want to share what i’m experiencing as well and read other’s blogs and get input as i progress.

i started this change in my life during jan/feb, ‘08. i never thought i would consider trying to get off the psych meds i’d been on all of these years…but i came to question what they were actually doing for me. i havebeen active in AA since sept. ‘97 but not perfectly and my current sobriety date is now sept. 27, ‘06. i began drinking when i was 14.  i havea great recovery community that not only helps me stay sober but to live my life. i feel grateful to be able to make a choice about the drugs i take. withdrawing is hell, but it’s a hell i’m willing to venture through in an effort to work towards having a better life. i am grateful for the people i have met on line, in my meetings and my community who constantly offer valuable insight and information towards living a better life. (i am merely a member of AA and my opinions comments do not represent AA or AA as a whole. i am neither promoting or discounting this program. my opinions and comments are just that and this blogg only represents my searching, curiosity and thoughts.)

     i’m a 44 yr old woman. i have been given a laundry list of diagnosis’ but on the short list i have: bipolar, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, PTSD, fibromyalgia/CFS and i’m a recovering  alcoholic. i first experienced my entry into the world of mental health some 38 years ago (’69-’70). when i was about 6, my mother was institutionalized with an initial diagnosis of schizophrenia. this was later changed to manic depressive (now bipolar). (funny, many of us who are now diagnosed bipolar were initially diagnosed schizophrenic…i was.) from that era on, my life has been infused (and i have effused!) with mental health issues…both mine and others. i only saw the bad and ugly for so many years…there really wasn’t much good for so long. i saw the dawn of lithium and remember when that came into my mother’s life and therefore…ours. she regularly saw a traditional fruedian psychoanalyst. i remember him well…his family, since they lived in our community. everyone did the best they could with what resources they had available then.

      i have to be merciful with those recollections. they were such painful, scary and tumultuous times. my father (who died alone sept. 5, ‘07) i’m sure tried his best. he was saddled with taking care of two young girls. he had little to refer to when it came to beinga parent, let alone a parent of two little girls. but, he drank a lot and was a very unhappy person inside. he was gay but married and had children because, “that’s what you did” back then. he was often angry and disciplined us severely. hurtful, abusive  phrases poured from both of my parents’ mouths as they struggled to navigate their own lives. our community wanted nothing to do with us and wouldn’t allow me to play with their children. i did have  an unusual history of behavior…but my god…i did what was familiar. i received no loving correction, just cruel criticism from neighbors, teachers etc… who had no idea of what was going on. my mother was eventually awarded custody. she was hardly fit enough to care for herself let alone us. at least my father was able to hire live in help and those people, for the most part, were oasis’ in our lives. leaving my father’s home, our home, and care of the people my father would hire to live with us was so horrible. my mother insisted upon staying in our neighborhood and with issues of divorce, mental illness and learning my father was gay, enveloping our family in the late ’60’s early ’70’s…well anyone else would have moved away. but my mother never considered the consequences that staying would have on her children…she just wanted to maintain a certain air she’d strived for all her life. we should have moved to the other neighborhoods where divorce and “not so perfect” families lived. i mean, the facade that everyone in our neighborhood maintained as “normal”, was rock solid. their expectations of others in the neighborhood mainitaining the status quo rang clear in every aspect of life. granted the expectations were not realistic…they all moved there hoping to have the life which that community projected. it may have been their “real world” but it wasn’t real. my mother staying there threw all of their greatest fears in their faces and they reacted accordingly. home was hell, school was hell, church was hell…the stories and comments still hang in my mind like a school of fish, each swimmingto the front when something in life baits it.

          Grade school (’69-’77) was an all too painful experience but by high school (’77-’81) my pronounced mood swings began…i had discovered alcohol, minor league drugs by 14 and ran away from home at 16. I developed anorexia that year as well. it was determined that i would not be able to attend a traditional college, maybe a junior college…but likely “i might be able hold a job bagging groceries and my parents would have to support me the rest of my life”. i did get into a small college (’81-’83) and excelled in my pre-med and fine art classes (only), but the drinking and starving got way out of hand and eventually the depression gave way to wild mood swings. I was given Buspar by a psychiatrist who worked with people who have eating disorders. I took the meds for a bit but I didn’t get any better and I was not receiving any sort of counseling. I was becoming a very unpredictable and scary person! I dropped out my sophomore year (’83).        

 

 

     After leaving college, I began working in a vitamin store and with my love of all things medical i threw myself into learningeverythingi could. I became pregnant with my wonderful daughter and for several months everything seemed to be in a bit of a remission. Although, my post-partumbehavior was indicative of problems, they did not have “post partum depression” per say back then (’84).  I kind of knew what was going on with me…i saw it in my parents and espeically my mother. my daughter would not grow up in that shadow. i never saw anyone who was mentally ill and an alcohoic get better. if there was help back then, i wasn’t aware of it. i was convinced that the way i was, with my messed up brain and drinking was just going to be how i was…period. fearing for what i might put my family  through if they lived with me,  i was about 22 years old and i walked out on my 18 month old daughter and husband. I went down, bad, with my alcoholism leading the way. I starved to nearly ninety pounds (i’m 5′ 6″ and weighed in at 182 pregnant). I began self-mutilating with cigarettes and safety pins. I was a punker, a “d-rocker”, now referred to as “Goth”. I loved death and wanted to die 24/7. I lived as if I were immortal on the one hand but had a death wish in my other hand. At this point I had a part-time job that didn’t pay the bills so I worked as a waitress at a topless bar and briefly, even got into prostitution to try to earn enough money to live on. poor career move…but it happened.  I couldn’t deal with the direction my life was taking and wanted out. I had a very serious suicide attempt where i “died” and was put on life support. I was hospitalized for several weeks. My family brought me home to see a specialist who was determined to get me on lithium but i was lithium intolerant…that was a waste of time. So i wandered on with just my alcohol to medicate me, to quiet the roaring silence and bridge “the disconnect”. You know when you loose reception on your tv and it goes all fuzzy and black and white? That’s how I perceived the world  for so long. I had at least received the diagnosis of bipolar by then as well as schizophrenic and of course anorexic. i am not schizophrenic though.

 

     I eventually moved on to another state and somehow got myself into a top ten university where i completed my BS in industrial design (’92). I got on the dean’s list, was awarded recognitions and a wonderful internship in Switzerland. Darn good for a kid who shouldn’t have even been able to consider college. i worked hard to put my self through school. starting out as working full time as a secretary and classes at night followed by 40+ hour weeks at a bookstore, freelance work and what ever i could pick up. it was hard…things were looking good, from the oustside, but i was all over the place mentally and my drinking was out of control.  While i was at the university I began see a school psychiatrist. He was a good man who really did try to work with me, allowing me to read his PDR and fully discuss all issues around my meds. Remember I worked at a vitamin store and didn’t believe in using medication so accepting help in the form of a pill was a hesitant leap for me. I was constantly wresting with the drugs though because, well, for one, you weren’t supposed to drink on meds and that wasn’t going to fly! In all those years we never discussed how much i was drinking or how it may have been affecting my moods and behavior. I was in my late twenties at this time.

 

     A few years after graduating i tooka job witha large university and with in nine months i had moved out to my farm in the country ‘(96). Upon moving out there a series of people and events would forever change my life from the direction it was heading in. I was confronted with the diagnosis of Borderline personality disorder, Bipolar, ADHD, PTSD and…Alcoholic! I found a wonder team of a psychiatrist and psychologist who I’ve since lost in about ’04 (one died). I got very involved in my local AA community and, it was seeming that, in light of being in a horrible mess, my life was turning around. I retired from my career as a designer and went to get my masters in counseling. (I started preordination and did a quarter in seminary first.) I’ve done most of my intern hours (700 required) but have more classes to finish. I’ve studied some medical assisting technology and am now a registered Phlebotomist. i was in the process of completing a business plan for opening a small clinical lab. but, the numbers were not looking good and reviewing the trends in the industry….didn’t look good for small private labs anymore. so i’m diverted again. 

     (input 3/23/08 start) jump back a bit. around ‘97, the year i was introduced to my wonderful (and believe me, they were the best) psychiatrist and psychologist…prior to workingwith them i was put on, taken off and swapped around several medications including ritalin. once with my new team, i kind of landed on a regime of neurontin, wellbutrin and klonopin. i pretty much stayed on those for about five years. many other drugs have been thrown and removed over the years, but my memory on that is not so great.

 

 

Looking back now, on my suicidal behavior…i had my attempt when i was 23, (’85, and was on some meds then), and i continued with suicidal ideationbut alcohol was my slow means of getting there and i didn’t haveanother attempt until i got sober in ‘97. i started taking the meds. from ‘96/’97 until now i have had over 6 suicide attempts that landed me on life support and admitted to the behavior health units. *i see a strong correlation between being on the meds and “acting” on my suicidal thoughts.* i usually “bounced” after each attempt. always, in a day or two, everytimei was back and runninglike nothing happened. i wouldn’t discuss what had happened. To everyone that did know….each attempt was just treated as a hiccup….just as i liked it never happened. i never liked getting attention for anything other than my accomplishments. the source of these suicide attempts eluded me and i felt that they struck me like a hit and run…no exact cause and no consequences. it just was a part of  ”how i was”. it really felt that way, and no one ever reviewed this with me…not really.

 

 

 

     but, my first consequence came down on me (sept. ‘03) when i’d been admitted to the emergency room of oneof the hospitals that i’d been admitted to at least twice before. i think they were implementing a “three strikes” policy. at about midnight, a hospital psychologist and a lawyer entered my room with a nurse and some orderlies. they were drawing up the documents to commit me! “but wait, i want to call my psychologist and my lawyer….i will voluntarily go to marietta memorial.” their “committment ceremony” was conveniently timed so that i couldn’t reach my own lawyer or psychologist.

 

      i was forced to sign away my freedom with out recourse and…committed. next, i remember layingin the back of a squad car, one cop driving and speeding about 100 mph down the highway for what felt like…oh i didn’t know where we were or where we were going. god i was in the middle of west virginia, layingin the back of a cop car with just one male cop driving me…the mental patient. i felt so vulnerable, violated and scared. this cop could pull over and do anythig he wanted. at this time of night, in the middle of WV…he could do whatever he wanted with me and it would be the word of a “deeply disturbed” person against one WV’s finest. god, i’d heard stories like this, but it was happening to me…or was it…this is unreal.

 

     a week before i had been a counselor in training, working with the criminally insane in a maximum security facility in CA. now, i was headed to be a civil committment case myself. it washumbling. upon arriving (safely, thank god), i was handed stuff to go and wash the lice off of me….LICE! god,  i was not someone who would havelice….didn’t they know who i was…what i do?  but, alas here i was in the WV state mental hospital. how did this happen? another hit and run kind of thing, because i was fine…really. if they would let me go i would get righ back to work on my graduate couses and not miss a beat as i’dso gracefully done before. but no one would budge and it was one of those experiences…i guess they wanted to “scare me straight”! but this meant nothing to the hit and run driver of my suicidal tendancies. there was no action or language for reasoning or dealing. it was just one of those things…but it happened. (alcohol and PMS were involved everytime.) i stayed for two weeks and it was a typical state institution experience….but of course i counseled and uplifted as many a patient as i could. after all i was in the midst of my counseling intern hours…this was a great place to work on my skills. it’s not as if i was going to step on anyone’s shoes doing this….yeah, like the place was crawling with docs and therapists to really help any one of these poor “frequent flyer” lost souls i was surrounded by. certainly this was some cosmic joke. i couldn’t see why i had to be in “that place”. a looney bin in the middle of west-by-god?! well, i don’t really remember too much of how that wound down.

 

     i do remember a year before, the morning after i returned from another visit to the behaioral health floor for the “suicidal hit-and-run girl”, the phone rang at 7am. it was my best friend and she said, “i have cancer.” my first response was “no way!” well, our conversations were never about something like cancer, so i only had a few responses in my repotiore. she didn’t seem upset and i guess at that point she didn’t know how serious it was. but this is the twist…here i was wanting to die and the whole while, my best friend was fighting for her life. how self-centered am i! when she was diagnosed with the cancer,  her husband took off…she had just moved here. she hardly knew anyone except me. and we…we knew about drinking and addictions and mental illness….but…cancer? well another story for another time. but she lost her battle to colon cancer around march of ‘04. she is with me always and some days i still have the impulse to go to the phone and call her…it’s just still second nature. i’m glad she moved on from all of her pain and is perfectly perfect now. but i loved be perfectly imperfect with her and i really really miss her. (input 3/23/08, end)

 

 

 

     But, from my mother’s illness, my personal odyssey, involvement in AA and graduate work…I’ve racked up a bit of insight into this whacked world of mental health care. I’m almost 45 now and…well, I just keep looking and praying and trying my best…helping others is very important too. Now, I’m going to pause here. I will return to fill in this section and continue to try to fill out the rest of my story.

 

Now this is where things become more complicated for me to convey detailed information in a timeline. The extreme emotional upheavals, alcoholism, starvation and psych meds have scrambled my memory to resemble a blurred Pollack.

Some drugs I’ve been prescribed:

Buspar

Xanax

Dalmane

Halcion

Lithium /Lithobid / Eskalith

Stelazine

Tofranil / Imipramine

Elavil

Tranxene

Tramadol /Ultram

Sinemet / Carbidopa Levadopa

Ritalin

Trazadone

Provigil

Zoloft

Risperdal

Lexapro

Seroquel

Effexor

Topamax

Vistaril

Ativan

 

’08, Currently coming off of:Wellbutrin (over ten years)

Klonopin (over ten years)

Neurontin (over ten years)

Lamictal (just over a year)

Lyrica

Nexium

 

’04-’05: the Salmonella/Osteomyelitis era: When I had undiagnosed Salmonella that after a few weeks, got into my bloodstream, I developed Pancreatitis, and was sequentially almost notdiagnosed with Osteomyelitis in my hip. The docs missed both diagnosis and had I not fought and been persistent I would havejust been given Imodium then adjustments and maybe muscle relaxant and death! They told me I had the flu and several weeks later my Salmonella results were reported to the wrong county’s health department. When my healthdepartment called me I asked my doctor what was up with this call and she knew nothing about my lab results. Later I developed acute pain in the hip. The orthopedic doc that looked me over insisted it was an impingement in my lower lumbar but I went screaming back to my doc and told her I was positiveI had an infection. To humor me she set me up for a bone scan and thank god, because it lit up! I had developed Reiter’s Syndrome which will be with me for the rest of my life. Then came the bone biopsies and central line, six weeks of hooking up to an I.V. Cipro 2x daily and a total about 4 and half months oral Cipro. this whole ordeal took about 1 year of my life!

A few meds that resulted from this go ‘round:

Almost 2yrs on Hydrocodone / Vicodone (plus var. pain meds)

Skelaxin (plus var. muscle relaxants)

6 mos Cipro (iv and oral)

Regalan

Phenergan

 well here it is may of ‘08. i have been detoxed from all of my psych meds since april 25, ‘08. tough learning experience and i’m still quivering and shaking out the withdrawal side effects. my doctors told me that my fibromyalgia was back…of course it’s never gone, but the neurontin i was on must have been helping me and the withdrawal…tough on your body…must have stirred things up again…i guess.

while i’m sooooo grateful to be off the drugs and totally clean (except for the lyrica for fibro)…i’m paddling to adjust to my new life. i have always worked on maintaining a very healthy lifestyle but it’s somehow different now. i guess it’s just knowing that i’m doing it with out meds…both great and scary. when i get anxious or depressed a portion of my thoughts drift to “will i need to take meds again?”, “can i pull myself out with out drugs?”…all those normal thoughts that come with change. but i can remember that everyone who is adjusting to a new life with out pysch meds is wresting with the same thoughts and concerns. when you’ve felt that the medswere managing your illness for over a decade…you havea hard time having faith that lifestyle managemnt can do the job…probably better than the drugs once you get the hang of it!

well, i pray a lot…i’m slow and tired a lot. but mostly…i’m content. yes…content. that can be a difficult state for a borderline to say “i’m ok with it”. my borderline wants me to find attachments and commotion…but me…i want nothing to do with any of that. that craziness will be my destruction if i allow it to seep into my life.

my focus for now is to try to get re-admitted to the graduate program in counseling which i had to walk away from for awhile. i’d like to have my emphasis be on working with people who deal with long-term, chronic illness. i’m involved in a new fibromyalgia support group which is coordinated with the arthritis foundation. a very cool project! and i hope to budget time to visit this blog space. i have my farm, dogs and a never ending pool of projects that need tending to. yes, there is never a good excuse to be bored…if i’m bored that means something is not being tended to…24/7. but, even quiet time done right, is important to schedule in. i love my personal time spent alone with my dogs. thank god for them.

yes, this life is kind of simple now. it has to be. periodically i read my “story” here. it’s very brief, but even this abbreviated version of my life takes my breath away. how did i live like that for so long!? how am i still here. we lost a member of our community to suicide a week ago (may’08)…that’s rough for me since i’m a suicide survivor. everyone is all down and sad…they can’t see the situation like i do. we, with suicidal tendencies die…we just die. no one could have predicted or change the path of our fellow. our friend was going where they needed to and, suffered with this life for years. yes i knew this friend and yes i wasn’t close during the last years. but i watched what was happening and if they wanted help, our friend couldn’t have been in a more caring and concerned circle of people. they were there for them as much as they could have been…and then some. but no one, no one besides they and their god could have saved them. but their death wasn’t lost…people seem to be looking around a bit…but this tends to wear off as despair leads people back inward. i can’t lie. i have to ask where they were when i attempted suicide. they ran from me like i had the plague! but i lived. i learned i couldn’t rely on others to do my work for me. they could love me…they could answer the phone…they could say hi when they saw me but, i couldn’t expect them to get dragged down with my junk. they had to live too. they had to breath. and by their self preservation they let me breath. and i’m still breathing. i hope i can extend a hand to others…neither smothering or drowning…just a hand…i may not be who you want to be…but i hope something in my struggles and lessons can give hope, inspire or…show you who and what you don’t want to be or do!

yes be concious of the others around you. love bravely, hold on loosley. let yourself breath, so others can too. but find your thunder and live bold. put out the fires around you but feed the fire within. our world may be going to hell in a handbag…but we don’t have to go that way.

smile today because…you are.