Here is today’s interview with me, Natasha Tracy, complete with call-in questions. I think it went well. We discussed some of the negative impact bipolar has had on my life. I talked about bipolar disorder, depression, suicide, coping and how my writings at HealthyPlace have been controversial.
Read MoreStabbing is bad. It just is. If you have to pick self-harm options between cutting, hitting, and stabbing, don’t pick stabbing.
Unless you’re trying to kill someone, in which case I think stabbing would be pretty good. And satisfying. I’m surprised more murderers don’t pick stabbing.
I’m having anxiety issues. And impulse control issues. And stabbing issues. Well, that last one is really a function of the other two, but it’s an issue nonetheless.
I’ve always been attracted to stabbing. I think that’s because when you start wielding a blade with force, you can’t change your mind. And it’s so easy to did deep. And draw a lot of blood.
Read MoreThis silence feels familiar. I despise the deafening, familiar sounds of silence. They terrify me. I suppose the silence strangles me. Strangled, alone, screaming.
People who know me, know this about me. They know how much I hate being ignored. They know that when they don’t return my calls or my emails my mind riles in negative and catastrophic scenarios. People who actually like me don’t want to do that to me.
Read MoreThere are frequent reports that of the people who survive suicide attempts, they realized sometime after the pills, or the gun, or the jump, they didn’t want to die. This is obvious. No one wants to die. People who attempt suicide don’t want to die. They want to be out of pain.
People Who Attempt Suicide Don’t Want to Die, They Want to Be Free of PainIt is obvious that every human wants to live. No matter what their personal circumstance each human claws against death until they either don’t see it coming, or they feel there is no alternative for them.
Many people actually have no problem with that – we call it doctor-assisted suicide. The reason it’s “OK” to kill yourself near the end of your life is because it is medically certain you will be in agony for the short remainder of your existence. In this instance doctors just turn their head while a little extra morphine is administered. Happens all the time.
No one, however, recognizes mental illness as a terminal illness. It can never be determined to a medical certainty that the rest of your life will be lived in agony. Even though it might be. Tomorrow might be different. Magic might happen. A unicorn might walk through my front door. But probably not. Tomorrow is probably going to be exactly like today. Only it’ll be Saturday. Yay.
The problem with a disorder like depression is that pleasure is simply absent. Pleasure in all ways is gone. Desire is gone. Depressed people don’t like anything. Depressed people don’t want to do anything. And even if something extraordinary were to happen, like a unicorn in your living room, it wouldn’t matter. Because the ability to feel pleasure is gone.
And if anhedonia weren’t enough to make life absolutely pointless, there’s the adding of pain on top of it. Pain on top of pain on top of the unbearable, unarguable knowledge of more pain. And still, the fact is, I don’t want to die. I just really don’t want to live. Like this.
Read MoreI have bipolar-disorder-type-II-ultradian-cycling. I diagnosed myself when I was 20 years old, and once I finally agreed to see a doctor, he agreed sometime thereafter. My diagnosis was fairly easy for me. I’m very self-aware and I could pick out discrete moods and swings. But as a 20-year-old, in university, using research, and having a fairly high IQ, this is not terribly surprising. If I were five-years-old, the picture would have been a little different.
There is an epidemic of children, as young as two, being diagnosed with psychiatric disorders in North American right now. It’s made the cover of Time magazine and countless articles have been written on the phenomenon.
It was once thought that disorders like bipolar did not occur before adulthood, but thoughts on this seem to be changing as diagnoses go up and more drugs are approved for treatment of children.
Antipsychotics FDA-approved for use in children (under 18) is:
And so on. And of course, doctors are free to prescribe any medication off label to children just like adults.
Read More
Anxiolytic Isn’t Even in the DictionaryI grit my jaw. I bite the skin around my nails. I pull at my hair. I bunch my fists. My breaths are shallow. I twitch and clench erratically.
I tell myself not to grit, bite, pull, bunch, twitch and clench. I tell myself to intake more air. Those instructions are followed. For moments. And then they’re not. While I wasn’t looking I started gritting, biting, pulling, bunching, twitching, and clenching all over again.
Caffeine is the world’s most popular psychoactive substance. So many of us love it a la Starbucks, Tim Hortons or just out or our home coffee machine. Me, I love coffee and I’m a fan of caffeine too. Coffee’s the nectar of the gods and nothing will convince me otherwise.
It seems though, caffeine can actually hurt you. I know, I never thought my beloved coffee could harm me, but I suppose anything that you abuse, will abuse you back. So, here is everything you ever needed to know about caffeine, caffeine disorders and caffeine and mental illness but were afraid to ask.
Read MoreFor anyone who is wondering, I am currently trying a calcium channel blocker to control my mood. This is a last-line treatment really as there are conflicting reports as to whether it works at all, but when you’re me,...
Read MoreI like to think I know almost all there is to know about mood disorders, but I was pretty shocked when I read this:
Differential Diagnosis
Mood disorders are sometimes caused by general medical conditions or medications. Classic examples include the depressive syndromes associated with dominant hemispheric strokes, hypothyroidism, Cushing’s disease, and pancreatic cancer (DSM-IV). Among medications associated with depression, antihypertensives and oral contraceptives are the most frequent examples. Transient depressive syndromes are also common during withdrawal from alcohol and various other drugs of abuse. Mania is not uncommon during high-dose systemic therapy with glucocorticoids and has been associated with intoxication by stimulant and sympathomimetic drugs and with central nervous system (CNS) lupus, CNS human immunodeficiency viral (HIV) infections, and nondominant hemispheric strokes or tumors. Together, mood disorders due to known physiological or medical causes may account for as many as 5 to 15 percent of all treated cases (Quitkin et al., 1993b). They often go unrecognized until after standard therapies have failed.
(bold mine)
I’m shocked. No one ever mentioned anything about birth control pills to me and I’ve been on them for years. YEARS. This is yet another reason why doctors so often get on my bad side.
This quote was taken from the Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General. The whole report is a good read, but very long. It’s everything you wanted to know but didn’t know you needed to ask.
I’m disgusted.
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