the sound and the fury

i am so angry right now i feel like i could vomit.  i actually don’t know what to do with myself.  i’m just kind of sitting here, confounded.

it’s bittersweet really.

i don’t want to minimize the first part of this story just because i’m angry about the most recent event, so let me see if i can manage to articulate it coherently.

y’all who read this blog or even my “about me” page know that i was diagnosed bipolar II in may 2012.  it was traumatic, to say the least, and brought me to the brink of suicide on multiple occasions.  it has had far reaching effects on my well-being, my relationships with family and friends (and lovers), and professionally.  and still, over a year later, i reap the consequences as just this week people in my professional circle have made reference to “my problem”.

lucky for me (and i do mean lucky), for whatever reason, whether it be because i am a graduate student in psychology, or because i have an insatiable quest for knowledge, or because WHEN YOU ARE DIAGNOSED WITH A SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS YOU TAKE IT SERIOUSLY, i sought out a phd-level clinical psychologist who specialized in bipolar disorder.  of course, i went in for a second opinion, but it was probably a good idea anyway because i had no the fuck idea how to handle this diagnosis and it only made my depression even worse.  i literally lost my mind, and to this day i still experience the fallout from that serious short-circuit to my brain, where i could barely form sentences, let alone understand what the fuck anyone else was saying.  memory, gone.  ever seen memento?  yeah, that was me.

so i kept my end of the bargain.  i went, faithfully, to this woman, every week.  sometimes i really didn’t understand the purpose of our sessions but in hindsight i realize they were more about gathering data about me.  what am i like?  what are my behavioral tendencies?  how do i react to stress or challenges?  how do i react to great experiences?  what is the pattern of my mood fluctuations?  you can’t really figure all of that out in an hour session; it *requires* multiple observations over a long period of time.

this is much unlike the practice of she-who-shall-not-be-named, the evil cuntwad who diagnosed me within the first ten minutes of our first session.  we’ll get to her in a minute.

almost a year and a half has passed and i had actually forgotten (not really, more like…set aside) the fact that i was seeing a psychologist weekly to get a second opinion about my bipolar diagnosis.  then, when i returned from the great pacific northwest, after my aunt threatened my life and a bunch of other shit happened (yeah, i haven’t blogged about that yet), i was sitting in her office trying to figure out how to navigate the situation with my aunt and the rest of my family and it happened.  i don’t recall what immediately preceded this moment.  i only have the flash memory of what she said.

she said:

i don’t think you’re bipolar

and i heard it and i stopped and i said, what did you say?  i’d heard her, but i just wanted to hear it again.  to savor the moment, maybe, i don’t know.

i don’t think you’re bipolar

and this was just, like, too much for my brain to handle, so i didn’t follow up with anything.  i kind of just let that idea enter my brain and percolate a while because i could not fucking handle it in that moment.  so i missed maybe a beat, and kept talking about my aunt.

a few weeks have passed since this moment, and i can still barely look it in the face.  it may be shock, but when i think of it it’s like a flood of emotions and an absence of them at the same time.  i don’t really know how to describe it otherwise.  so i kind of downplayed it.  i took it as a working hypothesis, rather than fact.  simply that the evidence indicated that i was not bipolar.  there is no certainty.  and that’s been the only way i’ve been able to deal with it.

until this week.

this week, on three separate occasions, two individuals have mentioned “my problem” in passing.  as if it’s ha-ha, nudge-nudge, funny.  and maybe i was okay with that before.  maybe my response to those comments was permissive, or encouraging even.  but this week, they just made me fucking angry.  and as each one occurred, i became more and more angry, so that i was just operating with a general level of irritation about it.  my daydreams were usurped by imagining telling them off for making jokes about my being bipolar (because HELLO, I’m NOT now…as if they could know), and the furious fucking letters i would write to the campus psych services, the psychiatry ethics board, and hell, the a.p.fucking.a. about the evil cuntwhore witch doctor who both diagnosed me prematurely and then told me i was “immature” when i hadn’t told my advisor that i was diagnosed bipolar, leading to these comments in the fucking first place.

so that’s what i talked about in therapy today.  i was nearly brought to tears recounting the breadth and depth of damage done by this woman, recalling wanting to die, desperately, and the damage it caused to my relationships and myself.

and do you know what my motherfucking therapist told me?  i couldn’t fucking believe it.  she said:

i had another patient come in, who was diagnosed right away with bipolar.  the same woman who diagnosed you.

let’s just sit with that for a moment.

..

…

..

because this means a lot of things.

this means, 1) i was fucking vindicated, 2) there was reason to suspect that her diagnostic decisions were a pattern, 3) she is, as i suspected, a danger to others.

those are really the most important ones right now.  so yes, we have an n=2 (sample size of 2).  but that’s two who happened to end up going to the same psychologist to talk about it.  probabilistically, then, there are probably more.

and remember, i consider myself lucky – LUCKY – to have had the insight or drive or whatever the fuck it was to GO SEE ANOTHER PROFESSIONAL.  what about those who don’t!?

so now, i am sitting here, ready to vomit, because i’m angry on behalf of myself and terrified for others who might suffer the same fate, who might not, for whatever reason, seek alternative opinions or care and who will LIVE ON AS IF THEY HAVE A SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS THAT THEY DO NOT HAVE.

and it is fucking DAMAGING folks!  Many of my readers know this implicitly because they or a loved one experiences it themselves.  MY PROFESSIONAL REPUTATION IS FOREVER CHANGED BECAUSE OF THIS.  MY FAITH IN MYSELF WAS COMPLETELY DEMOLISHED, DESTROYED, AND I WANTED TO DIE.  DESPERATELY.  FRIENDS AND FAMILY DISTANCED THEMSELVES AND I WAS ISOLATED AND ALONE.  somehow i survived.

BUT THE NEXT PERSON MIGHT NOT.

THIS IS NOT OKAY. 

so i ask you, mental health community, what can be done?  who can i report to?  where do i sent my letter of complaint?

HOW CAN I MAKE SURE THIS WOMAN NEVER HURTS ANOTHER PERSON AGAIN?

and if i can’t do that…

HOW CAN I MAKE SURE THIS PATTERN IS ON HER FUCKING RECORD?

so that maybe, just maybe, when the next person complains, they will have a second complaint – my complaint – on record to show that YES, this is indeed a pattern, and YES, this woman is not professional and possibly not ethical, and YES, she is a risk to others.

please tell me: what can i do?

confidence-building exercises

it’s the first week i’ve felt like i can breathe in months.  last week, for example, i literally did nothing but sleep and work, with more of the latter consuming the time.  i slept on the couch every night, and would wake up and flip open my lap top to keep going until i couldn’t work anymore.  i had no food in my house, and no time to shop, let alone cook, so i ordered food to be delivered every day.  dominos boxes piled up several feet high as i plugged through grading hundreds of papers and setting up my winter course which is, fortunately, online.

the good news is that i successfully taught my two courses…two courses that amounted to over 150 students.  having gone from being completely dysfunctional over the summer to providing a level of instruction i’m proud of, all while remaining stable and fulfilling most of my other obligations as well, is something i’m extraordinarily happy about.  i was pretty concerned that i would just completely fail or collapse, but i’m glad to say that that fear was not realized.

i gave myself permission to limit my real responsibilities to teaching those two courses.  i put research on hold, as well as several other personal goals that i would like to pursue.  i needed to see that i could function again.  i needed to rebuild my confidence that was completely shattered over the summer, when i found myself unable to finish sentences, follow conversations, or think at any complex level.

i wasn’t perfect.  grades lagged, often way too long to be fair to students.  sometimes i didn’t respond to questions in time.  i’m sure several students were pretty annoyed with me at times.  i accepted that too, and promised myself that i would do better next time.

the important part was that i successfully designed and implemented an online class, despite its being my first time teaching online.  i’m actually pretty proud of how well i structured the class, and with the assignments i created (although i definitely created too many).  it was such a pleasure to get to observe learning in an online environment, and to see my students engage with the material.  i really feel that my students learned a *lot* in that class.

i also taught my first large lecture class at the community college.  i remember visiting the room before classes began, and my stomach dropped at the size of the room.  my previous classes were quite small, ranging from 10-20 people.  this room had a capacity that could accommodate over 70 students.  i was able to create an atmosphere that encouraged a lot of discussion despite the large class size, and students gave me a lot of positive feedback about the class and my instruction.

when i received negative feedback, i listened sincerely but also kept in mind that major transition that i was making in being able to actually function.  the standard of comparison was not being a perfect teacher; it was being a capable one.  it was relative to my functionality over the summer, so i could have done much worse and still have been successful.

happily, i wasn’t just adequate.  i was awesome.

follow the white rabbit

i estimate having slept between 2 and 3 hours last night.  i am not pleased.

i am afraid of myself.  i feel like a volcano.  or a geyser.  or something else that is unpredictable and explosive.

i’m not yet familiar enough with bipolar to know how to compensate, to try and bring me back to stasis.

not that i wouldn’t mind some hypomania.  it sounds awfully nice, i’ll tell ya.  i could get drunk and party and have lots of sex and spend money i don’t have and do drugs and forget about all of my current and impending responsibilities.  a little psychological vay-cay.

sigh.

it’s the depression that will follow, however, that has me shaking in my boots.  i don’t think i have another round in me to deal with it.  it’s too much, too recent.  i’m still reeling from the last “episode” that seemed to last FOREVER.

on top of that stress, i’ve arrived at the very dismaying realization that i am late.

i am late.  for a very important date.

i have not had my visit from Aunt Flo for 42 days and counting.  now, i have a long cycle but even for me that’s long.  i’m hoping it’s stress.

it’s stress, right?

so, along with my psychiatrist appointment today, i’m going to get a fucking test to see if i’m prego, because i can charge it to my bursar’s account at school.

i will just shit myself, literally, if that fucker comes back positive.  i paid over $400 for a 10-year IUD in 2009.  it better be doing its job.

regression

usually when i’m talking about regression, i’m referring to a statistical analysis that predicts an outcome variable from one or more predictor variables.

not this time.

now when i think regression, i’m referring to a rather strange and possibly disturbing trend in my behavior.  i’ve noticed that, over recent months, my behavior has taken on somewhat of a child-like quality.  i can here it in the tone of my voice sometimes.  i’ve been drawn to a few of the things i found comforting in childhood.  my behavior is decidedly more juvenile.

what does it all mean!?

i am already developmentally delayed as far as maturity goes, at least by some standards.  but this is a different mentality entirely.

take, for example, the last couple of weeks.  i have gone on a children’s cereal extravaganza.  i brought back all of my old favorites, starting with Lucky Charms.  Then I had Captain Crunch.  Then Frosted Mini Wheats.  I just finished off the Corn Pops.

last night, i downloaded a bunch of sanrio wallpapers for my phone.  right now i’m rocking pochacco who, along with keroppe, i used to draw incessantly as a kid.

the most disturbing aspect, though, is when i hear my own voice go from normal to  7 years old.  i catch myself and shut my mouth until i can regain my senses.

my cognitive ability isn’t far behind.  i have trouble reasoning through complex problems.  the idea of going to a meeting with my peers is just about the most terrifying idea ever (besides the one i’m going to talk about in my next post…).  anything that requires me to articulate something beyond the most basic sophistication gets jumbled somehow.  i can’t even think about the future.  the past seems swept away as soon as it happens.  it reminds me of the strange, disconnected mental space i was in for most of my childhood.

i just hope it doesn’t take me another 20 or so years to get out of it.

defer and refer

i’ve been shockingly productive the past two days and it’s late and i need to get my sleep on track so i’m going to make this a short post.

first of all, i’m still on the hunt for the truth about the widely reported 90% divorce rate statistic for bipolars.  there will be some interesting findings to report soon…

second, hats off to a fellow author at the Bipolar Blogger Network, Psyche Salve, who wrote an amazing post that I think you should read.  There have been quite a few posts (that I’ve seen) floating around lately, including my own, about the decision to have children as a bipolar.  Her’s seems to capture my feelings about it quite well.  Check it out, here: I love my children too much to have them.

cognitive dissonance takes a twist

it’s interesting.  the way the mind justifies things.

only a few weeks ago, i was in a massive state of dispair at the loss of my dreams of having a family as a result of being diagnosed bipolar.  for personal reasons i have explained elsewhere, i’m not comfortable with the chances of my kids having it or with them dealing with a parent(s) with bipolar.  not to mention having kids would surely set off episodes.  stress?  hello!

now i’m in a very different place.

i don’t even want kids.  the idea repulses me.  i think it makes waaaaaaaay more sense to just have DOGS instead of KIDS because they’re easier to manage and don’t talk back and more fun to train and love you no matter what, even during their teenage years, and don’t costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to raise.

Dogs = Fun

Kids = I need a nap

Besides, I keep hearing this 90% divorce rate among bipolars statistic thrown around, so why bother?

By the way, can I just note that EVERY source I’ve found links back to a *Psychology Today* article as the “source” for that statistic?  Psychology Today is NOT a reputable source for data!  So I did some hunting…

A PsycINFO search of “bipolar disorder” and “divorce rates” turned up all of FOUR articles.  I changed the search terms to “bipolar” and “divorce” and 27 articles came back.  Hmm.

I’ve had to request a few articles that weren’t available, in particular the ones that were published before 2007 (when the Psychology Today article came out).  I’ll let you know what I find when they come back.

Meanwhile I did find a recent article called “Which Neuropsychiatric Disorder is More Associated with Divorce?” (Walid & Zaytseva, 2011).  Reading through the introduction, it appeared that these authors had come across the same statistic.  I was excited to see a citation after that sentence, thinking finally!  a peer-reviewed source.

IT WAS THE SAME PSYCHOLOGY TODAY ARTICLE.

good fucking grief!  now i’m feeling slightly intrigued and a little disgusted, so i’ve got some motivation to look up this broad who has convinced so many people that bipolars experience a 90% divorce rate.  Ms. Marano is “an author, journalist and editor who, although not a trained psychologist herself has been Editor-at-Large of Psychology Today for the past 15 years…”

so, she sure as shit hasn’t been trained in research.  clearly not in citing properly.

i’m not finished yet.  the second source they cited was a Patient Health International article that states, “Divorce rates are around two to three times higher for bipolar individuals than in the general population”.  At least there was a reference list…so I checked the article that appeared most relevant (because there was no specific reference to the correct article), “Impact of bipolar affective disorder on family and partners” which admitted that “The sampling does not capture caregivers who have abandoned their role, such as spouses who have divorced the bipolar sufferer.”

Still, it seemed that we might be on to something.  The authors, Dore and Romans, wrote:

The literature indicates that the marriages of bipolar patients often lead to separation and divorce ( [Brodie and Leff, 1971], [Carlson et al., 1974], [Weeke et al., 1975], [Dinicola, 1989], [McPherson et al., 1992] and [Kessler et al., 1998]).

This is clearly not going to be an easy task.

The entire subject of this post has decidedly ALSO taken a twist.  I am going to take a break to retrieve and review these articles and see if I can’t get at the bottom of this.

Stay tuned!

S.O.S.

i feel like i was going to do something before i started this post, but for the life of me i can’t remember what it was.  the past hour has been jam-packed with distractions and i can’t keep focus.

i woke up to 2 phone calls, and 2 text messages from one person.  another text from a friend asking me to lunch.  several emails which required my attention, including a few hits to my craigslist ads, and a request from my mom to help her understand some terminology in the outcomes evaluation research literature.  the dogs were hungry.  another email from a friend requesting a skype call.  another friend texting me to call her back.

against my better judgment i made not one, but TWO different sets of plans with two different people.  and that’s not including the skype call.

please let me follow through.

please let me follow through.

please let me follow through.

it’s pretty discouraging.  these are just basic tasks that would have been simple for me in a previous life.  now it’s like climbing mt. fucking everest.

i even added a couple of potential tasks.  including a visit to my therapist, who i have not seen in almost a month.

why?

because i forgot when we scheduled appointments.  and then i forgot to call and ask.

then when i called, it turns out that THIS is the week she is on vacation.  not last week.  not only that, but her voicemail message was sure to note that she does not have any more availability for patients.

does that include me?

i really have no idea what’s going on.

life as an introvert

i’ve started to accept my new life as an introvert.  it’s kinda nice, actually.  simpler.  not leaving my house has become less out of dread and more out of preference.  i spend most of my time among furry things with four legs.  i’m starting to like animals more than people.

there are other factors.  being broke is one of them.  i can’t go get coffee or lunch with friends.  can’t afford to drink, and not sure i should yet.  i’m finding it’s pretty difficult to be social when you’ve got zero dollars to spend.

the other part of it is that i can’t make future plans to save my life, for two reasons.  one: my memory limitations are at an all-time high.  i’m starting to get really concerned about it and plan to make [another] doctor’s appointment soon.  in any case, i seem to be extremely limited in what i am able to remember in the short-term and what i am able to keep active in working memory.  if i get distracted, the thought can disappear forever.  i seem to constantly be operating in the present.  on the one hand, that’s pretty cool. on the other hand, it’s not going to get me a fucking doctorate.

the second reason i can’t (and don’t) make plans is that i can’t seem to follow through with almost ANYthing.  even the simplest tasks.  accomplishing anything must be done on impulse and i take the opportunity when it arises.  otherwise, i just can’t get myself to do it.  my grandma asked, “have you ever heard of discipline?” and i used to agree with her.  it’s at such a level now, though, that i simply don’t make plans or promises because i honestly can’t say if i will be able to do it or not.  i don’t know how long this will last.  i can only seem to focus on a few things at a time, and right now, all slots are taken with planning my online class this fall, my one tutoring student, and trying to get a part-time job.

this is quite an alarming turn of events, and i have no idea whether to attribute these problems to stress/trauma, lithium, bipolar, or something else.  it’s certainly not doing me any favors academically and i don’t know how long i can hold out before explaining to my advisor that i am cognitively impaired for an indefinite amount of time.

i’m also not comfortable with the fact that i’ve pretty much disappeared from most of my friendship circles.  i realize i am being an asshole because i’m not offering my support and friendship to them but i can’t seem to do anything about it.  an occasional text here and there.  a quick phone call.

but the idea of anything more makes me feel the panic i started to feel when i signed back on to my old Facebook account, when all of 5 minutes passed before i disabled it again.

too many people.  too many updates.  can’t keep up.

hunting for wabbits…i mean, work

last Monday morning, I got myself up and showered and headed out in the 105 degree heat to apply for a server position at a restaurant within walking distance from my house.  although they weren’t hiring, the manager told me that the owner is opening a  new restaurant downtown and that she’d give her my information.

unfortunately, my phone decided to break the night before.  i was mid-phone conversation when the person at the other end of the line suddenly went very quiet.  the speaker had gone out.  ringing and text alerts were pretty much down for the count too.  i periodically check my phone and then make return calls, but the turnaround time can be anywhere from minutes to days.  not very effective.

fine time to need a job.  how is anyone supposed to get a hold of me?  friends and family already have the text-to-call-back-using-gmail method down, so i really just have a fancy pager right now.  i can’t really ask a hiring manager to do that though.

oh well.  i wrote my number down anyway and figured i could just call back unfamiliar numbers.  i needed to find work.  at last check, i had all of about $50 to my name.  i couldn’t even get my jeep out of the shop.

i’ve already put most everything i can up on craigslist.  the 60″ tv i shouldn’t even own.  my nikon dSLR and all accessories.  an old cell phone and ipod.  anything that i barely or never used.  i remind myself that i can always get these things later, when my financial situation is more secure.

besides, i find myself wanting to scrap almost everything anyway.  stuff makes life too complicated.

fortunately my aunt took pity on my [indeed, pitiful] situation and convinced my grandma to deposit $300 bucks into my account to cover the cost of my jeep and my electric bill, which was due to shut off any day now due to non-payment.  and trust me, in this heat, you don’t want to get fucking stuck without electricity.

i think that money came in around Tuesday or so, but i didn’t have a ride to the tire place until Friday.  XBF had a bunch of school related activities to do for summer classes, so i opted to wait until he was done to request a ride.  Even still he complained about driving me there on Friday.  I get that 25 minutes is a long drive for this place, but really?

i walked into the shop feeling half triumphant and half humiliated.  it had been a week and a half since i brought Delilah in.  and this wasn’t the end of the road yet.  a mechanic there had put one of his spares on her in the meantime.  i’d still have to bring in my own spare to get them switched out, and it didn’t fit in XBFs car.

[side note: the mechanic who worked on my jeep thinks someone was trying to STEAL my wheels.  i later reasoned with my mom that it probably happened up on the mountain the week before the ill-fated trip.  be careful out there.]

MY CARD WAS DECLINED.

holy balls again.  i went over to the bank and saw that my car payment went through early.  nearly $200 bucks gone.  and i thought i would have extra money after these two bills, so i had bought a new game for my Playstation Vita, making it impossible to pay for the work on my jeep.  i really hate myself sometimes.

all my credit cards are maxed.  no money.  i had to ask the bank to give me a fucking $40 “loan” to cover the balance.

but finally i got the keys to my jeep.  as i drove home, i felt an overwhelming urge to cry, but the tears couldn’t come.  stupid mood stabilizers and anti-depressants.

on the way home, i started to feel desperate.  panicked.  i stopped by the bike shop and talked to the owner.  he had sold me a road bike when my live-in boyfriend got the urge to get one for himself.  he agreed to help me sell it.  i was supposed to bring it by today, but i forgot (much like everything else).  i hope to get several hundred for that, which will take the edge off.

then i went home and scoured craigslist for jobs.  i submitted 3 or 4 applications at various restaurants and contacted a couple more people about positions.  i can’t remember exactly, but i think i’ve contacted 7 or 8 jobs by now.

i’ve also got an ad out for tutoring, and i’ve already gotten a student for that.

some jobs are probably more well suited for me than others.  but i’ll take what i can get.

some places have these online questionnaires that seem to assess your personality and work ethic.  i was filling out one application that seemed to ask an inordinate number of questions about my MOOD and my disposition toward MOODINESS.  just for shits, i’m opening a new application and will copy and paste the questions here.

bipolar discrimination?

• When I am in a bad mood, it affects my work.
• Coworkers would describe me as being very even-tempered.
• I have been known to lose my temper when I am upset.
• I always know whether I am in a good mood or bad mood.
• I strive to keep my emotions from interfering with my judgment.
• In critical situations, I usually stay pretty calm and collected.
• When faced with high-demand jobs, I am rarely stressed.
• Sometimes there is so much stress I wonder how I am going to make it through the day.
• Even after coworkers seem to be worn out I usually still have a reserve of energy.
• Working at a standard even pace is my preferred approach to work.
• When I get upset, I yell at other people.
• Even when there are pressing issues in my personal life, I am able to remain focused at work.
• I rarely lose my temper.
• Over the course of the day, I can experience many mood changes.
• Being in a bad mood has no effect on my work.

some other favorites:

• Coworkers would describe me as someone who follows the rules.
• I think everyone should obey those in positions of authority.
• When I make a promise, you can count on it.
• I have never been late for work.
• I find that I have a hard time keeping my promises.

…

well, that pretty much rules out THAT job.

sigh.

avoiding interruption of service

today i got a text from t-mobile that my bill is past due.  yesterday, i received an email that my car insurance is set to cancel in 10 days unless i pay the bill.  my electricity payment is late.  my jeep is in the shop.

i have no planned income until the end of august.  my mother is already paying my august rent so i’m not comfortable asking for more money.  hell, i don’t even feel comfortable with her paying my rent…but that’s a story for another post.

this is about as bad as it’s ever been, money wise.  although i did experience some pretty painful times during college where i was just paralyzed by my money issues…i’ve entered the big leagues now.  there is only one solution.

it’s time to get a job.

as much as i’d like to spend the summer planning my fall class, playing video games, and hiking with my boys, that just isn’t a feasible option right now.

i’m thinking about a serving job, even though i promised myself i’d never, ever do it again under any circumstances.  but, i know the business, the hours are good, it’s not a heavy-investment job, and i can quit without many consequences.  plus if i can get a decent shift 4 times a week, that would be a nice supplementary income to my stipend.

i’m also going to start selling things on craigslist.  i have a road bike that i never use.  i’ve got drapes and rods just sitting here from when i was furnishing a 2000 sq ft home.  i really, really should sell my tv (waaaaah!).  if i absolutely have to, i know i can sell my beautiful Nikon because the reality is i’m just not using it right now.  i just have to remember, i can always get another one later.

sigh.