About my mind
I will never forget my first existential crisis. I was six years old. In our little town in 1979, the view of the the night sky was spectacular. I'd often lie on my back, looking for satellites and shooting stars. The zodiac simply didn't gel with my brain. None of these constellations even came close to resembling the bulls, fish and human archetypes they were supposed to represent. I saw my own patterns and they were abstract.
At that age, I was of course dependent on adults for all my information. The accepted explanation was that the sun was the light created to light our days while the moon and stars were the subdued nighttime equivalent.
For some reason I knew that Proxima Centauri was the closest star to us (Buck Rogers?), but the fact that our own sun was just as much a star never occurred to me. The earth was at the centre of the universe and all these other things were revolving around us for our benefit.
The first trigger
It hit like lightning. My little mind somehow came to realise within a single unit of Planck time that what I was looking at, had no perceivable end. That all these pretty lights were not some pre-Galilean shell of fairy lights surrounding us. I stared up and came face to face with infinity and the fact that I was but a speck of nothing caught up in something way bigger than the God my parents and the whole of society were forcing down my throat. Those points of light looked different because some were near and some so far that I couldn't comprehend. Small mercy: I had no concept of galaxies and quasars yet!
I was regularly teased for my tremors, my views, was always highly strung and would panic easily. No adult or teacher recognised that I needed help. There were two remedies: God and the rod. I don't have to go into the cruelty kids can display towards those who are different.
Why am I like this?
I was born oversensitised to external stimuli. Because of neurons and sodium channels and quantum mechanics and other things beyond the understanding of our most brilliant minds. Trauma added its own little extra flavours here and there, but it mostly runs in the genes. No talking or therapy can make a dent in it. It's an overdose of adrenaline and cortisol caused by a slightly defective brain and needs no trigger though traumatic triggers can lay you to waste.
For most of my life, up until only recently, my generalized anxiety/panic disorder's effects consisted of nausea, headaches, obsessive paranoid thoughts and not being able to sleep because I worried about every little thing. Parkinson's-level tremors. Useless hands and body.
I got to know myself well enough as I aged over the past few years and managed to clear my head. This did come at an awful price though. All symptoms migrated into my body in full, so instead of worrying and obsessing, I get acutely physically ill. Very much so when you take into account that I also suffer from severe fibromyalgia and some other unspecified rheumatic/autoimmune symptoms.
The drugs
There is only one type of medication available that brings relief, allowing me to function: benzodiazepines. The most addictive group of substances on earth. I'm five years deep into daily use and have luckily not fallen into the trap of taking more than prescribed, but I am addicted as all hell and know of people who've kicked heroin, but will be on a prescribed benzo for the rest of their lives.
Benzos and heroin differ inversely: You can quite easily die from a heroin overdose, but withdrawal won't kill you. You'll be in hell, make no mistake, but you won't die. With benzos, it is hard to OD. People have taken their month's supply at once to try and end their lives, but wake up in hospital three days later with no damage. Withdrawing from benzos too quickly, or God forbid, going cold turkey, is life-threatening as it lowers your seizure threshold.
Only two drugs can kill you within three days if you go cold turkey: alcohol and benzos because of their strong action on the GABA neurotransmitter system.
So there's that. Even though I don't deviate much from my prescribed dose, I've been on Xanax and now Klonopin/Rivotril for five years. I literally cannot run out under any circumstances. Yet, before I started taking these, I lost all function and didn't leave my room for months at a time.
I tested my addiction and went without my dose of clonazepam for a day. The results cannot be described unless you've been there yourself. I choose death over ever feeling like that again.
Unless you have severe and unbearable anxiety or panic issues, PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM BENZOS, ESPECIALLY XANAX. Benzos are now to me as carrying insulin is to a diabetic. Quite possibly a matter of life and death.
Tri-Polar?
My anxiety disorders are co-morbid with bipolar disorder type II. How unlucky can one be? Well, most people who suffer from "mood disorders" (ugh), also suffer from some form of anxiety. Anxiety isn't fear. It can elicit a fear response, but it is not fear. Just like depression is not an emotion, even if your demeanor may broadcast an illusionary air of sadness to the outside world.
You can't separate anxiety from bipolar and other depressive disorders. I will go as far as to hypothesize that mania and hypomania are nothing but manifestations of anxiety. It has many names and even more faces. Source: I've been living with this shit for close to 45 years.
My hypomanic episodes have all but disappeared and I had only experienced a few episodes of full-blown mania when I was young. It comes with a ton of anxiety. It is unadulterated anxiety. Cleaning the house with a toothbrush is not a sign of unnatural energy or being hyper. It keeps you from wanting to burst out of your skin and scream. If you sit still, you'd go mad.
The bullshit
Psychiatry is a mess. It is permeated with outdated ideas, old-boy's club tradition and pseudo-science. With every new issue of the Psychiatrist's Bible, the DSM, they add more bullshit disorders.
They are good for one thing: officially diagnosing more serious disorders like schizophrenia and autism.
When it comes to endogenous depression and anxiety, they are doing more harm than good because they are throwing darts at a black board in a dark room until something sticks within their personal frame of reference.
The classification of endogenous depression and anxiety should be moved out of the realm of "mental disorders". They are not issues of the mind. These are physical disorders of the brain and would be way better served if they were reclassified as neurological conditions.
They should completely relook bipolar and anxiety. Start anew from the ground up.
The poles are depression and anxiety, not mania. Mania is anxiety. Self-harm is anxiety. Bulimia is anxiety. Alcoholism more often than not stems from anxiety. PTSD is anxiety. OCD is anxiety. The list goes on.
Depression, bipolar and anxiety are physical disorders of the organ called the brain. Let's stop calling it mental disorders. The stigma sucks and the attitudes of people who don't understand amount to way worse.
I hate the current wave of ridiculous PC-ness, but there seems to be no problem in calling a healthy person who can't make up their minds quickly enough, "bipolar". "I waited two hours for her to choose a dress. She is so bipolar." Et cetera. Just please stop.
Changing the narrative
I refuse to be defined by my chronic illness and won't be reduced to a mental condition by people who do not understand.
Best
nonsqtr
First of all...
your writing is outstanding.
This post is wonderful. And your insight is spot on, imo.
Secondly, my heart goes out to you, completely. Not calling you old, but 45 years is a long time - it's a long time to suffer.
I agree, the science of "mental illness" is long overdue for a reboot, restructuring, looking at from a completely new perspective; a better one, a more useful one. Surely a less stigmatizing one.
And this is true: 'Trauma added its own little extra flavours here and there, but it mostly runs in the genes.'
...it mostly runs in the genes.
That seems to be the case. And with that said, this is a timely read for me in particular.
An acquaintance of mine recently went for genetic testing regarding their depression and the issue of their medication being ineffective. And what they found out was very interesting. The doctor said the test revealed that their body doesn't absorb folate properly; something that's needed in ample amount for their SSRI to be effective, and so they prescribed a L-Methylfolate supplement to help make the medicine actually work properly for them. Apparently, low/improper folate absorption is a genetic defect, and it affects serotonin related functioning in the brain.
This was a case of someone who I've known for some time and have seen go through so many numerous drugs for depression, bipolarism, and some other developmental/genetic issues. Having to be the person who watches that process; seeing it day and night, year in and year out, wishing they could help and not being able to in any truly solution finding way - it's hard. It's so very hard. It's hard for them who suffer, and it's hard for the ones watching who wish that person could be well, who wish that person could find a solution that worked. And not a morbid solution, a helpless and hopeless solution, but a life-affirming one, a hopeful one.
I wish for anyone who deals with these sort of issues or who is close to anyone with these issues, that that could happen. And that the science would advance, and the culture would as well accordingly, and not only to stop stigmatizing it, but also to start regarding it as seriously as it deserves to be; treated the same as any other biological or genetic disease of the human body.
This is such an important issue of our times, and for so many reasons. People's lives hang literally in the balance over how seriously we take it, and what we do, or do not do, to advance research on it. I'm sure it's one of the reasons you're here on this site, and probably the same for many, many more people here as well. People need help, and they're simply not getting it where they've been told to look for it.
Thank you for the kind words and empathy. Few understand or care. This post got all those upvotes from a whale trail, not many read it.
Yeah, I noticed that. You needed some real interaction on here. So there you go. :)
I do understand, unfortunately, and it was never really a choice that I made to do so. Life dealt me the cards it did, as with everyone. People understand what they know, what they've lived. I'm certain you get that, fully.
I'm curious to see what all you might have to say, and what about. I have enjoyed your writing. Good writing is something that I value on the lucky occasions I happen to find it. Too bad more people don't value that, or recognize it when they see it. Or rather, too bad they don't recognize someone who really has something to say...and then listen.
Looking good. I’m proud.
I love this