What is well?

First off, I would like to apologize to everyone for not updating my blog sooner. I have been lazy as of late! My question today that I pose to all of you is what is well?

Some of us take our medicine and others do not. Does one make us more well then the other? I take my medicine as prescribe and I still get schizophrenic episode. However, if I didn’t take my meds. I would probably be homeless and wondering the streets!

I mean does going to therapy make us well or not? Sometimes when we in therapy stuff stays with us because our time is up and we can’t work through the rest. I realize a lot of people practice “door knob” therapy, where we don’t tell the therapist what’s really serious until fifteen minutes before time is up. However, does crying and releasing all this sad emotion good? I have often wondered if a hundred years from now if they would think that is just inhuman. However, hashing through serious stuff in until it becomes a scare and not a wound helps a lot. I know I said it before group therapy helps me tremendously. Without the support of my fellow peers in the rooms, I don’t know where I would be.

Does living a normal life make us well? For example we could go to work. But isn’t true that sometimes it brings more stress then it is worth? However, don’t we want to be productive members of society? I think that is good for the soul. Although, I don’t hold a job, I volunteer.

I think maybe we have to choose the lesser of two evils. What is well anyway? I think it’s funny if a poor person is mentally ill, she is called crazy. However, if a rich person is mentally ill, she is called eccentric. In this world we have to be ourselves. The most important thing is to be true to ourselves. And if that means sometimes we seem a little off to people, well so be it! However, keep taking those meds, going to therapy, and being productive members of society.

The Passing of my Uncle Dick

My Uncle Dick was very special to me. When I was about eleven years old, I wanted a pen pal. I had just learned how to write letters to people through English class. I am sure that between e – mails and texts now children learn much earlier now. Anyway, I wanted a pen pal and I looked in one of my “little kid” magazines and it said you had to have five dollars to get a name of another kid across the country. I am sure now that five dollars isn’t a lot, but back in the early nineties it was. Thus, it started; I looked on our family’s kitchen table and saw a letter from my Uncle Dick. Now as long as I could remember my Uncle wrote my parents and then wrote a paragraph for me. My parents had busy lives and didn’t write him very often. However, me, like I said, wanted a pen pal. So began a letter writing spree of letters once a month between a little girl and her Uncle. Now for the next eighteen years I would write once a month and my Uncle Dick would write back!

At the beginning of this year, I think my oldest Uncle, my Uncle Dick new something was up. He would write me instead of the usual one letter, a letter every other day. He wouldn’t mail them until he got his Social Security check, but I would get them all (about fifteen) from him in the beginning of the month. He was writing less and telling me that he couldn’t remember from day to day. Then it happened. Last Monday, my Uncle Bill called my Dad. (Both my Uncle Dick and my Uncle Bill are my father’s brothers). We happened to be in the car on our way taking my Dad to work. My Dad pulled over and talked to him (you can’t drive in NY and talk on the cellphone). I knew it was about Uncle Dick and my Mom was squeezing my Dad’s hand and asking him if Dick died. My Dad got off the phone and told us. It wouldn’t be later that evening until I talked to my Uncle Bill myself that I would learn how my Uncle had died. My Uncle Dick, who was going to be seventy – two in August, died alone in his apartment because he had an infection that caused all his organs to shut down.

Now this raises a lot of question for me. First, what is the difference between grieving and being symptomatic? When I cry do I take it too far? I had to learn this when my Grandma died in 2005! I think the most important thing is to talk about the grief with someone no matter if it’s a friend, family member, higher power, or even an animal! The Second question, am I going to die alone? Will I be like my Uncle and have someone find me in a chair slumped over fighting to stay alive, but already died? I surround myself with friends. Also one thing I will always have is a phone. That’s the reason my Uncle Dick wrote to us because he had no other means of communication. No he wasn’t deaf; he just didn’t like the phone. Third, will I have made enough difference in the world that I would have five concerned family members cleaning out my apartment once I am gone? I guess all I can do is be me, let go, and let God do the rest!

Mentally Ill
By Amanda R. Blodgett

First, you don’t give a
Shit about eating.
The food on your plate
Is an enemy.
It only sustains a life
Not worth living.

Then you haunt the
Night like a ghost.
Who needs sleep
When your dead?


Suddenly,
You are not
Bathing,
Brushing your teeth
Combing your hair
Or being conscious.

Finally, your actions
Are not yours.
You wonder aimlessly
Already gone.

Sexuality (ohh getting serious)

I know some about my diagnosis because I try to understand my illness. However, there is some things I don't get. Like, for example, everyone says that I do so well. I feel like all I do is live and be happy. Then when I was filling out my application for TSA and my therapist wrote my diagnosis down, she said that it was Paranoid Schizophrenia. Then my therapist commented on the severity of my diagnosis. I never knew that there were varying degrees of Schizophrenia, let alone I had one of the worst!


Anyway, that's not really what this weeks blog is about. I am leading up to it. One of the lesser things that I am diagnosed with is a sexual identity issue. I don't know if that started when my brain formed and I started getting the Schizophrenia or if I was always like that. I do know that I did have a crush on my eleventh grade English literature teacher that was a woman, but when I fully came out of the closet it was about two months before I was court order to a mental health unit.


My problem is that the only label I can place on myself is bisexual. I am attracted to both men and women. However, sometimes this confuses me. I didn't fully understand what that confusion was about. However, I had two therapist tell me that I shouldn't worry about the diagnosis of having a sexual identity issue because homosexuality is not a mental health issue. Then, just recently I decided to ask the psychiatrist. Mostly because the psychiatrist I had for about four years never had time for me. The psychiatrist I have been seeing now since January is a lot like another special psychiatrist that I had. Anyway, I asked her and she said that homosexuality is completely normal. The reason I have the diagnosis of a sexual identity is because I have issues with it!


It's true. I do have issues. One day I wake up and I think all day about being with a woman. Then you know what happens? I see a hot guy and think man, I would like to do him. I been over this many times. I am attracted to men's body. Everything! His hair, his eyes, his mouth, his butt... With women it's different. I like a woman for her inner beauty. It's more of a spiritual thing with women. So my dilemma is do I go for sex or a inner connection! And why the hell can't I have both?


Just to be fair, I have had two serious relationship in my life. One was with a young man when I was in college who was the BEST boyfriend anyone could ask for. The other was just after I came out of the closet. It was the worst relationship one could imagine. I won't go into detail, but I always say that no one can tell me there isn't a devil because I slept with her! So I guess what I am saying is, first off, I don't have much experience. Two, I have polar examples.


I know I have people who read this so I am happy. I guess I am looking for advice, criticism, and understanding. Thanks for listening. Keep fighting. And love like you'll die tomorrow!

Fear

We are afraid of a lot of things in this world. I know people with mental illnesses (including myself) that are afraid when the wake up. I know of people who are afraid of dying. I used to have phobia about plants. What makes this fear? Is it because we don't believe there is greater, bigger plan. Can one function without knowing there is something bigger than one's self?

I know people who spend their life in fear. I also know people that have given themselves over to a higher power and do lots better. It's really a lonely world out there. Do we want to spend it all by ourselves. I know many get from my blog that I am Christian. However, I can't knock anyone's religion because I believe all religion is helpful. I guess I am knocking the atheists.

You know, though, I once was an Anthropology major for a while and I know that the human animal is so afraid of death they have to believe in a power higher than themselves. My prof. told me that even if someone says they don't believe in God that they still do somewhere in the back of their mind.

Mental illness is hard enough, but to fear that you have to handle all this shit alone would be awful. Not having someone that would ALWAYS listen would be awful. Not knowing that our pain helps the universe some how would be awful.

Fear can be relieved in four little words: "Jesus take the Wheel." Again it really doesn't have to be Christian. If you give your fear over to some higher power, trust me, you will feel a whole lot better.

Be Merciful to Me Lord

By Amanda Robin

When I cry in mental anguish

because my thoughts keep going

without end.

Be merciful

When I cry in mental anguish

because the voices are laugh

just like little demons in my head

Be merciful

When I cry in mental anguish

because I feel like dragging

a jagged edged blade

across my wrist

Be merciful.

When I cry in mental anguish

because you are the only thing

between me and hell of pain

of never waking up.

Be merciful.

Physical illness messes with a mental status

I am a little late in writing my blog. I wanted to keep it up every week. However, last week I was on vacation and now I am home with a physical illnesses. I have always been allergic to nature, but God has a sense of humor. I can remember being thirteen years old and coming home covered in mud because I love the outdoors. Our vacation was camping in St. Regis Falls New York. You would think I would stay in the cabin. NO! I had to go hiking, looking for firewood, and building my first fire all by myself. No just to be clear, I don't think that God made me sick, I have never thought that! It's my own stupidity of not knowing when enough is enough! That and I probably should have bathed every time I came in from the outside like the allergist told me to do when I was a little girl!

Anyway, this is leading somewhere! Promise! Before I feel physically really bad my mental illness kicks up and I get what my Mom would call "moody." So that actual physical illness itself sets off my brain chemistry. Does anyone else find this to be so? Also once I give in and go to the medical doctor and they give me an antibiotic that messes with my meds. I am not sure about copy right laws and everything so I won't mention the name of the antibiotic, but there is one that interferes with my anti - sciatic. Most meds do effect me, but this particular one actually plays with what my Schizophrenia. They all do, though, in a way.

What happens when I get sick physically is that it messes with my birth control (my male visitors don't have this problem) then I get feelings like I want to hurt myself. I have what GYNO call PSDD. I basically don't get PMS, I get depressed. Sometimes the reason I deal with the moodiness my Mom describes it because I know the antibiotic will do worse.

It's funny how are body is all connected. I think we can help ourselves by taking care of our body. I am not some kind of hippy that believes in herbal medicine or anything. I am just saying that if we don't treat our body right it effects more than just our body. Everything is connected!