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Friday, 28 August 2009

  • Disability and Working

    For the past year, I've been considering working. Why so long to think about it? Partially because I've been building up my courage and confidence, and partly because I've been researching what I can and can't do while on Disability.

    Understandably, the courage and confidence part of this preparation relies on myself alone. I have to prepare myself for work. It's taken a lot longer than I thought it would, and part of that is because mental illness, by its very nature, destroys a person's self-confidence, and the destruction varies, depending on whether or not the person with the mental illness is able to tough it out somewhat. What I mean by "tough it out" is keeping up with regular, daily life practices, including working, if one has a job. I didn't do this; I quit working, and last year, when I first started considering returning to work, it had been approximately two years since I had last done so. As a result, I've had to work myself up to the confidence level necessary for job hunting.

    This includes planning what kinds of jobs I'd like to do. I know what I'm good at: dishwashing and manufacturing jobs. I've also had experience working as tech support for a national satellite dish company. I think my manufacturing jobs could have prepared me for stock work, as well. This may not seem like a lot, but I believe it gives me a good variety of jobs, even if I'm not able to apply for manufacturing jobs for lack of transportation options.

    The next step I had was to research, and research again, and again, and again--so I would fricking well remember what I'd been researching--what my options are with Disability. The search starts here, on the Social Security Administration's homepage. When you type "Disability and working" in the search bar, you get this page. Click the first option, and you get the Working While Disabled--How We Can Help pdf file. It's actually the online version of a pamphlet you could probably get from your local Social Security office if you're unwilling to read it online.

    In Working While Disabled--How We Can Help, you'll find important information about working while disabled, including the various programs they have to help you launch yourself back into the workforce. These include the Ticket To Work program, which you may already know about because the SSA sends this out fairly frequently. It is, I believe, the method they prefer people to use to return to work, based on the frequency the Ticket To Work comes to my mailbox. If you're like me, you've probably received more than one offer to rejoin the workforce using this particular program since your disability was approved.

    If reading the pamphlet online is too daunting, and you don't want to go to your social security office to request the printed version, you may do your research here, on the FAQ page. It'll take a little longer, but the same information available in the pamphlet is available here, usually in little factoid bites for easy consumption. Be aware that there are more than one page to this FAQ page. If you look at the top, you'll see an easy-to-use mechanism for sorting the questions to make your search for information simpler.

    One last note: The information I've given here can be applied to those of you receiving SSI, as well as those receiving SSDI. If you're retired, the searches will be a little different, but the FAQ page is an excellent place to start.

Wednesday, 05 August 2009

  • Weird Connections

    I've recently been on a hypomanic swing, staying up all night and all.  Great fun.  One of the freaky results of this is that my mind makes really strange connections.  A few days ago, after an all-nighter, my mind decided to make a connection between a secondary character in a WIP I've abaondoned and a song I recently downloaded through my Zune account.  The character is Meletus, who has an affinity for expensive clothes, restaurants, and wine.  The song is Peter Frampton's "Do You Feel Like We Do," the opening line of which is, "Woke up this morning with a wineglass in my hand.  Whose wine, what wine, where the hell did I dine?"

    Odd as the connection is, it's still very apt, and it makes me laugh.

Wednesday, 13 May 2009

  • Mental Health and Creating Yourself

    Several weeks ago, or perhaps two months or more ago, I purchased a mug that fits a life philosophy that I've developed and hadn't  realized I had until I saw the mug.  It was at the Friends of the Library store in the Main Library of Salt Lake City; it's a black mug, with white print on it, and it says, "Life is not about finding yourself.  Life is about creating yourself." 

    This started me thinking. 

    Mental illness, and particularly the kind of mental illness that begins with a breakdown of any kind, rather forces the sufferer to change.  It's rather like the military, in that it breaks you down.  Unlike the military, however, it does not build you back up, into a (hopefully) new and improved person, ready to face fresh new challenges.  It breaks you down, then, depending on how long you go without care and how severe the symptoms of your particular mental illness, may spend a while kicking you while you're on the metaphorical ground.  This, of course, is hardly pleasant. 

    Mental illness requires that the sufferer take the initiative.  If you don't, you'll only get worse.  This first requires that the sufferer admit that they are ill, of course, and that is the hardest step.  However, many people do not progress beyond that point.  They are miserable and either don't care to improve themselves or don't see how, or, and worst, they're waiting for someone else to lead them through life by the hand.

    In any recovery process, whether it be for a physical problem, an interpersonal problem, or mental health issue, the sufferer must take the initiative.  If you don't, the physical problem, interpersonal situation, or mental health issue will not improve.  In some cases, the situation doesn't get any worse.  But, in most cases, especially in mental health, the situation worsens.  Mental illness does not get better on its own.  It can't, because you have to fix the very thing that you need to keep you going.  And your mental illness will  not change until you decide that you need to get better.  Mental illness cannot be wished away.  That sooo doesn't work.  And admitting that you're mentally ill and then doing nothing on your own about it doesn't help either.

    Granted, you can get a good therapist, but all that therapist can do is listen and, if they're a good one, point you in the directions you need to go.  What that therapist, no matter how skilled he/she is, cannot do is lead you about by the hand.  You have to take the advice and use it yourself.  Neither can your psych doc, the one who prescribes your meds, if you need them.  Neither of these people has the time, or, frankly, the inclination, to lead you about by the hand.

    So, what some mentally ill people who don't care to get better do is burden themselves on friends and family.  Generally, this works quite well for the sufferer, but it's not helping anyone, least of all the sufferer.  Because the sufferer, the mentally ill person, is doing nothing on their own, and they need to.  This is called coasting.  Nothing improves when you're coasting, and if you're mentally ill and coasting, you're torturing the people you're relying on. 

    Yes, torturing.  Granted, they may put up with you for the rest of your life if you're coasting, relying on  them to lead you through life.  Many mentally ill people get through life like this, but it fosters resentment and anger.  Which in turn make you more miserable if you're mentally ill.  There is a reasonable amount of frustration and anger allowed for the mentally ill.  You do have a right to feel put-upon and temperamental.  But if you just wallow in those emotions, you're hurting not only yourself but those around you.  And you're certainly not helping yourself.  But there are many who do this, who coast through life.  Really, the best thing that can be done for such people, who do not wish to take control of their lives and work at recovering from their mental illness, is for the people they're relying on to just stop helping. 

    I said that, and I mean it.  Stop.  Nobody is being helped.  Not really.  And everyone in the situation is being hurt.  And, unless you're a masochist and enjoy hurting, there really is no good reason to stick around and help someone who isn't willing to help themselves.  And, oh, the mentally ill who require this of people will piss and moan and groan about how their lives are so horrible and that it's all their fault for not continuing to babysit them.  And emotional blackmail does work.  Too well.

    These people are "finding" themselves.  And what they're "finding" isn't making them happy because they're not working at that happiness.  And, yes, you have to work at being happy; it's not a free gift that you get at any point in your life--at least, not the kind of happiness we all want.

    But there are many, many more mentally ill people who work at improving themselves.  They want to get well, to be functional, to be a part of the world.  They use therapy properly, to recover from their mental illness and improve themselves.  They take their meds religiously.  They take the time, and put forth the effort, to learn what triggers their depressions, psychoses, and bipolar episodes.  They're rebuilding themselves, making themselves better, and in many cases, stronger people. 

    They are, in effect, creating themselves. 

    And perfectly mentally healthy people can do this, too.  They don't necessarily need to seek the assistance of a therapist to do so.  All it takes is spending a little time thinking about the person you want to be.  And then working towards becoming that person.  The fact is, many people don't really know who they are because they never bothered to decide to get to know themselves.  They're not happy and go on hunting expeditions to "find" themselves when there's really nothing to be found because they haven't put in the time, effort, energy, and attention into making themselves into the people they want to be.

    Really, seeking to "find" yourself is an expedition to failure.  There's nothing to find.  What there is is what you are, and that is the perfect basis for working toward what you want to be. 

Wednesday, 01 April 2009

  • Bipolar Disorder and Writing

    http://maantren.blogspot.com/2009/03/writing-and-depression-kiwiburger.html offered some questions to answer about depression. I, personally, have mixed-state bipolar disorder, and I thought it would be helpful for me to answer the questions available.

     

     1. What Is Depression?

    There are actually slightly different definitions of depression. There is the one-time, severe depression brought on by an uncontrollable circumstance in life, such as losing a job. There is clinical depression, where the sufferer has periods of severe depression and a general low mood all the time; I have been diagnosed with this, and the way it was best explained to me was this: imagine a graph with three horizontal lines. The top line is very good mood, the middle line is average mood, and the low line is depression. Now, draw on that graph a wavy line that sometimes touches the average-mood line but spends more time near, on, or below the depression line.

    Then there are the Bipolar disorders.

    Standard bipolar disorder includes cycling from mania or hypomania to depression. You can be a rapid cycler, which means you go from mania to depression and back again several times within a week or day or just a few hours; or you can be a slow cycler, which means you spend anywhere from two months to much longer in one cycle before moving into a the opposite pole of emotions.

    I have mixed-state bipolar disorder. This means I present symptoms of both mania--in my case, hypomania--and depression at the same time. Most often, this means that I am outwardly happy and cheerful but deep, deep inside I'm feeling down. What this means is, I have NO way of predicting what I'll be doing one day to the next. Presently, for instance, I'm interested in taking my prescribed daily walk, writing, doing come crocheting with a movie on, and reading. I also want to get some housework done, and I want to unpack my stuff from staying at my girlfriend's a couple nights. At the same time, I really just want to sit and do NOTHING. The desire to do those things I listed is the hypomania (which is also nagging me to go spend some money I don't have), and the lack of interest in doing anything is the depression. Right now, considering I'm doing this, the mania has a slightly stronger influence. And, I still cycle. There are periods when I can't sleep, others when all I want to do is sleep (this is my depression; other people have difficulty sleeping).

    Here, this link to the NIMH page on Bipolar disorder can give you some more information: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/bipolardisorder/complete-index.shtml

     

    2. How is it different from just having a bad day? When you are unmedicated bipolar, or you don't have the correct medications yet, things are blown all out of proportion. You will either fluctuate between periods of extreme functioning and complete inability to function. Before I was diagnosed as bipolar, I was completely nonfunctioning. I laid in bed all day, didn't eat, hid from people, didn't go out, didn't do anything. I had a few manic days when I would get out, eat, do housework, spend time with friends, but much of the time I was in bed. And, on those days when I was manic, everything was good, without exception. Nothing bad that happened could get me down. On my nonfunctioning days, if I had to get out of bed and go to an appointment, that made the day bad. Just getting out of bed to do more than use the bathroom.

    Once I started getting medications, they mostly consisted of antidepressants, because I was still misdiagnosed as clinically depressed. And, after a while, antidepressants stop working for me. When they'd stop working properly, I'd still function, but my bad days--say, I'd miss the bus I needed; no problem, another bus comes after a short amount of time, right? Being depressed magnified that wait. It was horribly long, I would be in an instant temper, and I'd snap and bitch.

     

    3. What does it feel like on the inside?

    It feels like you're being drawn in two conflicting directions. For me, I consider feeling slightly more interested in doing things to be my "average," because I just don't get anything done if my depression is in control. Sometimes, I have periods when I can't focus; one of the symptoms I have is an obsessive thought process. Medications cannot control this all the time, so I have to figure out something outside of myself to do.

     

     4. What can it look like from the outside, ie. from the perspective of friends/acquaintances?

    That depends upon what cycle you're in. When you're manic, you appear happy, cheerful, and well. When you're depressed, if you're not good at hiding it, you appear unfocused, distant, and unemotional. Both states have a certain amount of dissociation involved, at least from my experience, where you may not respond to certain situations with what are perceived to be the correct emotions; for example, you may laugh if something painful or traumatic happens.

     

    5 In what way is depression a part of your life? As I stated above, with my mixed-state bipolar disorder, I cannot predict what I'll be doing or feeling. When I worked, I had more frequent manic periods, was more temperamental, and less patient. Now that I'm not working, it just dictates what I do when each day; on especially down days, I'll reschedule appointments if I have any, and on especially up days, I'll go out and associate with complete strangers.

    With regards to my writing, my mental illness makes it more difficult to identify problems I'm having with it, especially when I'm blocked or I've written something I'm not happy with. Recently, I shelved a project that I'd been focusing on consistently for about three years, and I went through a period where I didn't write at all. It took me a couple weeks to figure out exactly why I wasn't writing, because I at first thought it was depression (it wasn't; it was actually some sort of grieving for the project that I gave up on).

    When something sudden, brief, and traumatic happens, I go into freeze mode then obsessively think about what I was or wasn't able to do when I was in the situation after the situation's over. I dissociate, because that's the easiest reaction.

     

     6. If you live with depression, how/when did you first realize it? Was there a formal diagnosis at some point?

    I was diagnosed with depression when I was 19. At 28, after, I thought, my depression was long gone, I joined the Navy; the A-School I was sent to broke me, and I came out a complete nonfunctioning basketcase. I was consistently misdiagnosed until about '03, when I was given the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. When I applied for the pension from the VA, the doctor who saw me for my mental health evaluation diagnosed me as mixed-state bipolar disorder based on what I said my mood was, the mood I was presenting, and some of the things I said ("I can't seem to stop spending money when I have it"--symptom of mania). This was in December of '05.

     

    7. What were some early experiences with depression that had an impact?

    As a teenager with depression, I stopped making friends, and I have had a difficult time doing so ever since. As an adult with bipolar disorder, I have to receive SSDI in order to survive as my mental illness prevents me from working well. I miss days of work, have difficulty sleeping, and am generally not a very good person to be around.

     

    8. If you write, how does it affect your writing?

    When I'm off meds, I don't write. I don't function. When I'm on the correct meds, I write almost every day, usually at least 2k words. I'm able to plan out what I'm writing before hand, do the writing, and I can remain focused thorughout the period I'm writing. I read more, I actually do the exercise I need to, and I eat regularly--all of these things are necessary for writing.

     

     9. What have you found useful for coping? What's NOT useful?

    Not working is a great deal of help. Stress increases the freqency of my cycling and increases my depressive moods and makes me tempermental. Medications help as well. This is a considered decision based on the fact that I was nonfunctioning without the correct medications.

    I currently take 160 mg of Ziprasidone (Geodon) a day, with anywhere from 25-100mg of Quetiapine Fumarate to help me get to sleep at night and stay asleep all night. I have recently ceased taking an antidepressant because it wasn't working. All of this is with the knowledge of my therapist and primary care doctor and the approval of my psych doc. Other things I find useful are reading, listening to music, writing, getting out of the apartment, and visiting with friends and family.

     

    10. What advice would you give to a young person, interested in writing, who's beginning to realise that depression will be a part of their life?

    If you feel consistently down, GET HELP. Tell some one. Keep telling people. Go to a school counselor, mental health facility, call a helpline if one is available in your area.

    If you're getting help, make sure to be OPEN about EVERYTHING with your therapist and your psych doc. They can't help you if you aren't honest. Your psych doc can't make an accurate diagnosis if you don't keep them updated on your emotions and moods. Don't be afraid to insist on a rediagnosis if you feel that you're not properly diagnosed, and look on changes to new therapists and psych docs positively. You won't always get good ones, but viewing the change positively will put you in the proper mood to accept what they say/do with confidence and willingness.

    Don't be afraid of the therapy process. They're there to help you. If you feel you're not getting the care you deserve, either from your psych doc or your therapist, do what you can to get someone else. But FIRST, give everyone you see a chance, and that means meeting them more than once or twice. It takes time to build a relationship with your psych doc and your therapist. Give the relationship time to develop before deciding you're not being helped.

    Don't be afraid to be honest about whether or not your medications are working, if you are on or must take medications. If you're not taking medications, make sure you're equally honest about your emotions and moods.

Wednesday, 25 February 2009

  • An Open Letter To Rob

    Rob,

    You have made some judgments about me based on pure speculation, and I would like to give you some facts to base your judgments of me upon.

    You cannot control, manipulate, or frighten me.

    You called me a lesbian. I am not, strictly speaking, a lesbian. If you must put a label upon me, call me a bisexual. I prefer to call myself panamorous, which means all-loving, for I have no set type in either gender that I seek out. I would as happily date a transgender individual as I am now dating your ex-wife.

    The last time I can recall my appearance being insulted was when I was in the sixth grade. My class's bully called me, among other things, "Bugs Bunny." I always responded with, "Thank you for the compliment." Though exaggerated, I lacked all but one of the characteristics of this cartoon character, and I admired them all. I longed to be as witty, funny, and entertaining as he was, and I learned to employ my creativity and took great pride in it. I must once again say, "Thank you for the compliment," though you refered to me as "a sick version of Nanny McPhee." I was at first hurt by this, until I realized that you were texting in ignorance. I researched the movie and learned that the character of Nanny McPhee is in fact a caring, generous, and magical woman. These are all characteristics I admire and try to emulate.

    I must say, however, that you lack the same creativity my last stepfather lacked. He is a drunk, and the best he could do to insult me was call me a bitch. However, bitch is the correct breeding term for a female dog, and all dogs are loyal and love unconditionally. These are also traits that I try to emulate. 

    That is not to say that I love blindly. I have learned the folly of that for myself.

    Yet, I still love unconditionally. I even love you. I do this with my eyes open, with complete understanding of your personality as you reveal it to me through your actions toward your eldest biological child and your ex-wife, my girlfriend. I would not be doing God's work for me on this earth if I did not do my best to love you as I love them already.

    I intend to be with your ex-wife for as long as she'll have me. Even if we break up, I hope that we will remain friends. I do not give up those I care for easily. You will not chase me away, no matter how you manipulate your daughter, no matter your hatred of me based on the superficialities of my appearance and sexuality. It is solely up to your ex-wife to tell me to abandon her, and I will be doing my best to see that she has as complete an understanding of your behavior as I can give her.

    I am far from perfect; I am selfish, self-centered, and have a tendency to put more value in the material than there really is. But what I am doing is to improve myself. I am not only trying to live compassionately and positively, but to live vertically through life. I am in the care necessary to control my mental illness, devote time and thought to my shortcomings so that I may move away from them, and endeavor to think more of others than of myself.

    You may not believe it, but I am a Godly person. You may not believe it possible of non-heterosexuals, because your religion teaches you that any sexuality besides heterosexuality is wrong. But I am one of my mother's two miracle children, who should not have been conceived, according to the doctor who tied my mom's fallopian tubes. God created me, gave me this life, and the instruction to love. This I will do, to the best of my ability. You cannot alter that, no matter your beliefs.

    These are but a few of the facts of myself, given as a gift to you, so that you may make the judgments dictated by your maturity, will, and creativity. I don't expect you to always make accurate judgements; I doubt you would even have listened to me if I had said this to you in person. But I forgive you, and I love you, unconditionally, as God has instructed me to do.

    Because I want to.

    Sincerely, Your Ex-Wife's New Girlfriend

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About Me

  • I am myself. I invite you to get to know my superficialities. Oh, and don't let the block of favorite songs scare you; I was being facetious (def 3, specifically, nonessential; as found in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition as printed by Random House).