Manipulation?

I have a thought. Probably not one that will be popular.

Those memes and quotes about “An apology without change is manipulation”. I call bullshit. Total bullshit.

Addiction and mental health can make it impossible to change overnight. If a person has mental health issues, even with intense therapy, change can come slow and mistakes, maybe the same mistakes as before, will be made. It takes extremely hard work and self-awareness while continuously fighting their instinctual behaviors that happen without thought.

Disclaimer: This is directed for those actively getting help. Mental health and addiction are not choices, but recover is your responsibility.

I have a ton of diagnoses that make behaving like a rational human being damn near impossible. I was in therapy for 19 years and while I progressed, the biggest problems were really messing my entire life up no matter how hard I tried or how much therapy, or how many support groups I did. I started therapy at age 14. Started addiction recovery at 28. Until I was 32 and finally got the correct diagnosis and medications, it felt impossible. It finally set my brain chemicals regular enough that I can regulate my emotions. Now I’m finding underlying health issues and deeper layers of trauma.

I made a ton of mistakes. So many. I hurt so many people. I screwed up my life so horribly. Did I do that on purpose? Hell no. Some of those mistakes were made over and over because I couldn’t deal with my emotions (Look up Borderline Personality Disorder, don’t read the blogs bashing people who have it.) I relapsed so many times because I felt like I needed to numb myself or commit suicide. That is how strong it was. Did I want to drink? No. I felt I needed to.

This is just to point out that what may look like refusal to change might mean the person is still looking for ways to be better and then be able to actually apply them well enough to work and finding what works might take a long time.

Be patient with us. If it is something you can’t or won’t tolerate, say that. Don’t say we are manipulating you because we aren’t. If we are taking treatment seriously then that is literally all we can do and it might take a while to get to a point that you will see dramatic changes.

I said what I said. I will not be taking any questions at this point 😉

The Worst

One of the worst things about mental illness is the random times I get symptoms. For example, laying in bed with my kitty about to fall asleep.

Cue panic. The hardest thing about these times is that it is so hard to work through because I don’t know what triggered it. There is no way to counter whatever is causing this feeling logically, so I am forced to only focus on the physical aspects of it.

This isn’t just with anxiety or panic attacks, either. This is with everything. For me it is like sitting here, then BAM! Something is different. Wake up depressed. Suddenly realize I’m hypomanic while in the middle of staring at my ceiling. Crying for now reason, but then finding a reason because I am crying and I’m searching my brain trying to figure it out. Dissociating. One minute I’m fine, the next minute my brain is detached from my body and I feel like everything is happening to someone else.

One of the big things I’ve been taught is how to recognize triggers, deal with them, prepare for them, and work towards eliminating them. That obviously works a lot of the time. Other times, no matter how hard I think and dissect my thoughts, behaviors, or outside stimuli cannot figure it out.  A little bit ago, I was comfortable, brain nicely empty, purring kitty curled up against me and everything was fine. Then, PANIC! Heart racing, painful chest, hard to breathe, entire body tensed up, sweating, hot flashes, shaking…. It felt like I was walking up to do something insanely scary. Comparable when I was waiting to go into the court room to get my signature bond set.  Seriously. That bad.  *Quick reminder that anxiety really does feel like something is wrong. It compares to real life situations that would cause extreme amounts of fear or anxiety.

What did I do to calm down? Controlled breathing. Not just breathing, but in for the count of 4, hold for the count of 7, and breathe out to the count of 8. At first I had to go through my nose only so I didn’t hyperventilate, but once my breathing slowed I could breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth in the same counting pattern. Also, some basic meditation repetitions and focusing on how my kitties fur felt in my hands.

These random episodes can be over that quickly or it can be an extended debilitating depression episode that I have to work through with professionals and sometimes the answer to deal isn’t to fix it, but to not make it worse. It is to just make it through it without self-imploding or setting myself backwards. Standing still is always better than regressing.

I guess this post was just to explain that episodes and sudden unexpected symptoms might not be anything that you can pinpoint the trigger of. That’s okay. Just do what you can and don’t go backwards. If this is an issue for you, try talking to your therapist about more work on triggers or how to deal without having that logical explanation of a trigger.

Sweet dreams, darlings. Time for me to go back to my cat. He is giving me dirty looks for not cuddling.

Video Reaction to Rehab Video from Vice

First of all, this is copied directly from my personal facebook. I went on a tirade after seeing this video. Also, because it is on FB and the privacy settings, I couldn’t use a link. I did the next best thing. Screenshot.

Hopefully this helps.

Okay, here is the tirade I went on after watching this. It isn’t my best writing and there is no structure. It is my brain vomiting out information because there is so much I want to say about this.

Tirade:

Okay, I have a lot to say about this, obviously. First, I went to a hospital (that is an important distinction) called Roger’s Memorial Hospital. They have programs for most mental health issues, including addiction. I did several intensive and partial hospitalizion program (both are outpatient), a residential program, and 2 impatient programs. I have also had several inpatient stays at a local hospital and half of a stay at one of the fancy rehabs in Florida. Yes, there were horses. Lol.
Roger’s changed my life, period. My residential program wasn’t exclusive to addiction but addressed all of my issues. What I learned in those 37 days has been priceless. We had insurance, it is around 3,000 a night.  The second (and last) inpatient stay, also duel diagnosis (mental health and addiction) is what really changed my life. After being diagnosed with Bipolar 2 and my regular psychiatrist refusing to adjust my meds, the doctor there changed my meds and I think it has been one of the huge reasons I’ve stayed sober this long. For the record, I switched psychiatrists before I was even out of the hospital.
The fancy schmancy rehab? There was an insurance issue and they tried to get me to sign a promissory note saying I’d pay it all back so I could stay. Let’s not say how much a night there was. Did not sign the note. On a plane back to Wisconsin. Also I hate heat and it was in Florida. I was glad to go home. They focused on the 12 step program for the psychotherapy parts and the 12 step program has never worked for me. I use other peer groups like Women for Sobriety. I think that other paths outside of the 12-step program should be normalized and offered, even out of hospitals and rehabs. There were a ton of reasons it didn’t work for me, but that is neither here nor there. Inpatient, which often includes detox, usually is very short-term and tries to give guidance for outside of the walls afterwards, but I am not completely convinced that they are all that effective, other than they gave me other resources to look for. Roger’s, however, has different campuses in different areas and I was able to step down, from “living” there, to a program that had hours like school where you learned more and there was a continuation of med oversight. Then, after that there was a part time program at night that weened you into society and still had some medication overseeing. From what I saw, they wouldn’t release you from the program unless you have a doctor and therapist outside of Roger’s. And they often got permission to share their information to the outside care to help keep the transition smooth and effective.
I might actually go back to Roger’s and speak to a group there sometime soon, as a successful recovery.
Yes, mental health care is super difficult to find in most places and that is a huge factor in the epidemic. Anyone who insults addicts has absolutely no empathy or understanding of how hard it can be to get sober without medical care. I couldn’t have done it, seriously.
The lack of options shown to addicts and available to them as far as peer support groups often is only 12-step program. The closest in-person meeting (even before Covid) for Women for Sobriety was almost an hour away. They, thankfully, had online forums, meetings, and other options, again even before Covid. For awhile it was several meetings a day and then a check in on their forums first thing in the morning (after meds. Lol). I was lucky enough to have a recovery coach that told me about them when I complained about the 12-step programs.
Also, addiction is still considered a moral failing by a lot of people, despite the fact it is medically and scientifically a disease. People say that addiction is a choice…”they took the first drug! They would be fine if they hadn’t!”. In case you didn’t know, I’m in Wisconsin. Our baseball team is the Brewers… drinking is a rite of passage. Did I have to drink? No, but it was normal. I also cannot tell you how many times I’ve walked in on people doing lines of coke in bar bathrooms. I never did, but I can imagine that people, wasted, decide to try. Addiction affects just about every system in your body. It makes it so that a person is physically unable to stop without becoming ridiculously ill, in some cases the detox can kill you. So, you do drugs to avoid the detox. Anywho, it isn’t a choice. Absolutely no one grabs a beer and says “You know what? I want to need beer in my system enough that I get hospitalized, lose jobs, mess up my marriage, have legal troubles….” No one.
I’m rambling, but there is just so much to unpack from this that wasn’t explained fully and didn’t come from an addict’s perspective.
With addiction being such an issue in our country, there should be more education ( probably told only by professionals and addicts themselves. DARE isn’t effective, trust me. Lol) not only warning and teaching for people to not have the issue in the future as well as resources and explanations about during and after. Not to mention some sort of information on compassion. Tbf, though, alot of people need compassion, so that could be multipurpose. Lol.
I’m going to be 20 months sober on the 22nd. I can break down to you what made my sobriety stick this time, but I’ve already written enough. My depression has been giving me hella writer’s block, so this was great. Message me. I’m happy to talk about it….well not happy to talk about it, but happy to help educate and support. There is a difference. Lol. If you’re still reading, you probably have too much time on your hands 😉 Thanks for sticking through it.

Second ending for blog: I have an addiction category below if you want to check it out. Also, feel free to message me on my blog FB page, Twitter, Instagram, or my email (optimismandcaffeine@yahoo.com). All of the links are at the top in the social tab. If something doesn’t work, let me know. You also have the option of leaving a comment on here.

Go ahead and like this post and follow my blog, too. There is a lot of raw information and emotions about mental health and addiction, among other things. Heck, even better! Share!

You rock. You are loved. You got this. Go drink some water. Eat something that a horse or rabbit would eat. Take your meds. Tell your parents you love them. Cuddle something fuzzy (or scaly. Whatever floats your goat).

A Psychiatrist is a Doctor

And sometimes, so are therapists, but this is about me calling my psychiatrist at 8 pm on a Sunday, knowing full well I won’t get a call back until tomorrow.

I called because I, at this moment, need to call while I need it and I feel capable of making a phone call. Phone calls are like kryptonite for a lot of people with mental health issues.

I called because something isn’t working somewhere and my medications could be part of that. I called because that is what you are supposed to do when you have a chronic illness and symptoms aren’t resolving. I left a message and now just need to make myself answer when they call back, which is a whole other issue.

Psychiatrists are medical doctors. I think that gets forgotten alot. Their specialty organ is the brain. My brain is not neurotypical and I need help with the symptoms that I deal with because of that. Period.

I’ll update as things progress, but I felt like I really needed to remind people that it is a logical thing to do when symptoms aren’t resolving.

I also want to mention that this isn’t an emergency. In an emergency situation I would be using crisis lines or calling 911. I am not in any actual danger right now even though my anxiety is screaming at me at hard as it can.

Anxiety Vs. Worry Part 1

I spent a lot of time in therapy going over “worry”.  I still am.  Worry is considered detrimental and useless.  Basically, if you are doing everything you can in a situation, then worry just makes you miserable.  If you aren’t doing everything you can, then do more.  There. Fixed.

Anxiety is just excessive worrying that has inhibited my ability to function, right?  It comes down to me having to “do more”.  

I have an issue with that.   A huge issue.  I will be bringing this up to my therapist this coming week, but the concept is hurting me.  I worry.  Obviously, if anxiety is excessive worrying.  

Here is my thing; I run myself ragged, constantly trying to figure out how I can do more;  how I can make the worry go away; how I can figure out how to make the anxiety stop.  If I am worried about work, just work. Prepare more.  Try harder.  If I am worried about the household, just do more.  Schedule harder.  Push myself.  Organize more.  Buy things to make it look nicer.  If I am worried about something health related, research.  Go to the doctor for everything. If I am worried, then the only way to stop it is to go for the doctor for every little thing that I worry about.  WebMD it.  Take herbal supplements.  Worried about not being able to hit my goals?  Work harder.  Push until I am paralyzed.  

The thing is, it isn’t working.  I am still anxious.  So anxious.  I have been coping better, which is good.  I have been having fewer anxiety attacks.  I still have a baseline anxiety that requires medication and if I am late, the baseline spikes.   

If I am doing everything that I can to stop this, then what do I do now?  I only listed a few things that have brought anxiety.  If I do everything that I can for everything that makes me worry, then I will crash.  I can only handle so many things at a time.  I can only cope with so many things at once, so while I cope with those things and try my best to fix them, there are multitudes of more things simmering in the back of my mind causing more anxiety.  Then I switch focus and the other things fall to the back of my mind.  It is a rotation of active and background anxieties.  

What happens when this all builds up?  Which, honestly, happens several times a day. I get depressed.  See the circle?  It is vicious. 

Stay tuned to find out how I figure this out. I honestly don’t know.  Professional guidance is needed.  

Okay, so I just did some searching on Psychology Today.  According to the article (Worry and Guilt: The Useless Emotions), worry and guilt are based on negative thoughts and if you are able to solve it, then do it. If you aren’t then you are supposed to thought challenge.  Where is the negative thought coming from?  How can you change it?  What do you do if you have experience with that specific situation and the worry is justified, even with everything that you can do?  I can take my meds, go to therapy, practice the methods I learn, and do everything that I can, but my brain chemicals still fluctuate. I can talk to my psychiatrist and try to get my meds fixed, but that takes time to work.  What could happen in that time?  Could I self-destruct?  Could I take a nosedive into the abyss?  Those little fluctuations worry me.  As they should.  I am doing everything that I can, but there is a possibility that it isn’t enough.  What if it isn’t enough?  I do my best every day. I rest.  I do what I am supposed to.  

Again, I will be deferring to my professional in 3 days.  Until then, I will be using a blog planner and actually planning this blog out instead of just going where the flow takes me. My hope is that it will be a little more structured and hit more topics that I want to cover.  I will also be cleaning and helping celebrate Whimzy’s birthday.  

Oh, and guess what?  This should have been more towards the beginning and is much more important than my random thoughts on worry.  For the first time since April 22nd of 2019, I will be spending the night alone with my daughter.  I will be responsible for her overnight.  I have earned this. I have worked for this.  She deserves this.  She begged to be able to be able to wake up at home on her birthday.  She gets to.  I am incredibly lucky to have survived long enough to do this for her.  

By the way, another important thing, I am on episode 4 of the new Picard series.  I have cried 3 separate times. I’m not quite sure why, it was mostly in moments of nostalgia like Picard saying “Engage” for the first time in this series.  Even writing about it almost made me cry.  Another thing to talk to my professional about.  

 

*I share to show others that they aren’t alone, to give my mind some space, and to maybe help.  That being said, I am NOT a professional.  If your professional told you something different, listen to them!  Me having a B.S. in psychology is only about 1/3 of way into being able to give you specific advice.  Take all of my musings with a grain of salt, please.  Unless, of course, I offer sources.  Take those seriously, but question what doesn’t fit your truth.  

Behind the Scenes

My to-do list for today: make homemade butter, make Irish Soda bread, meal plan, meal prep, tidy dining room, tidy living room, dishes, cook dinner, make Oreo brownies, read, plan for this next week, etc…

Then I’m tweeting as I’m going along for the cooking portion and I realized that if people think that it is my daily thing to do all this I would be super misleading. I don’t. Sometimes I have to use Door Dash because I haven’t been cooking enough to even have leftovers. I hardly ever bake.

Bloopers

• I ordered my groceries to get delivered (first time). We really needed toilet paper and pants seemed like overreaching for the day.
• I over “churned” (let’s be real, I was using a mixer) the butter and ended up with unsweetened buttercream frosting, I think. That, in turn, meant no bread because I needed the buttermilk.
• Whoever successfully uses parchment paper on the bottom of their pans for baking and it doesn’t look all wrinkled and not flatten out all the way, help me out? I can’t make it work.
• Brownies took at least twice as long to bake.
• I, in fact, barely got my daily cleaning list done.
• My husband and I yelled at each other.
• Didn’t read.
• No meal prep.

So, as you can see, even though I am tweeting about all of this homemade cooking nonsense, I am not actually accomplishing all of it. Or, if I am attempting, there is a decent chance I am failing at the task. That beings said, I did get some stuff done that I consider wins.

Wins

• Made dinner 4 nights this week for the first time in over a year!!!
• Put the new rug down! (Amazon is my best friend.)
• The Oreo brownies are finished, even though they are wrinkly at the bottom.
• Did some weekly cleaning tasks.

I guess it all evens out. My point is that it is never as good as it looks in Twitter. I was all excited to be starting these projects and tweeted about them and failed half of them then didn’t really tweet about the fails. Not on purpose, just didn’t occur to me. Take what you see online with a grain of salt. ❤

Now for my plug of the day. Check out Thundragonraids on Twitch. It is my hubby’s page. He has been putting alot of work and time into it. I’m super proud of him for pursuing this. It is about Pokemon Raids, but even if you just get on and let him know you’re rooting for him I’d be forever grateful. Check out the actual link if you can’t find him on my Twitter, Instagram, or FB. One more favor, if you do go check him out, put in the chat that he should let his wonderful wife buy herself something nice off Amazon. Lol. No shame in my game.

Lost Time

Recovery from addiction is full of guilt and part of moving on in a healthy manner is learning to work your way through the guilt healthily.

For me, besides hurting the people I love, I feel immense guilt for not accomplishing much during my relapses and the consequent mental health side effects. I also spent many years barely squeaking by on the productivity meter because my mental health was so absolutely debilitating.

Now I am on different meds and I’ve still had times that I need down time and can’t push myself as hard, but overall I am completing goals and catching up on things.

Here’s the kicker. I feel guilty when I relax. I am dissatisfied with progress if it isn’t completed as fast as I would like. People who suffer from addiction have patience and instant gratification issues. We want it all and we want it now. That carries over into sobriety. I was productive all day from family time to volunteering to housework to working on setting goals.

It is hard for me to sit and relax, even though I planned this relax time. I feel like I don’t deserve the down time. If I have a sliver of motivation left, I should still be going.

That is unhealthy. Thinking like that will cause a breakdown and repeat the addiction/depression cycle all over again.

How am I going to break this cycle? Think differently. I am relaxing. I am thought challenging the ideas that I don’t deserve this break and that I need to spend every minute making up for lost time. If I want to stay healthy and be able to keep making progress (even if it is slower than I prefer), then I need to take care of myself. Which, at the moment involves watching a movie, cuddling a cat, and working on my planner.

Gonna go journal to try to finish untangling these thoughts and find some dopamine, seratonin, or endorphins. They are a bit tricky these days. 😉

No Pants and Upside-down Meditation

Since my husband and I decided that I have recovered enough from my horrible crash at rock bottom to have our daughter alone, I have had her 2 days a week, have 2-3 days a week alone, and have 3-4 days a week doing family things.

It has worked out wonderfully.  I have time to focus on other things like my recovery, cleaning, and just being myself.

This week, because of a couple scheduling issues, I have a single day to myself, and today is it.  I could run around like crazy cleaning and catching up on stuff.  In reality my mind is telling  me that is what I “should be doing”, or what I “must do in order to be considered a productive member of this family and society”.  I call this, bear with the terrible pun, “musturbating”.  It feeds my depression, self-esteem issues, hinders my recovery, and overall makes me feel like crap.  It simply isn’t healthy.  Now, to clarify, my apartment is messy, and there is a load of dishes in the sink.  So what?  It isn’t filthy and it is suitable for living in, even if the clutter bugs me.

Let’s face it.  I have a huge thing coming up.  A job interview in my fucking field!  Excuse the language, but it is still boggling my mind.  It is a good stress, but still stressful and could turn into a very bad stressful situation if I feed the anxiety/depression/low self-esteem monster.

Let’s pretend I have something physically wrong with me.  Let’s say really bad arthritis, but I have been doing exercises to help alleviate pain and I have been offered a place in some sort of physical activity show that was part of my career dream.  Would I be judged for taking a day off any physically demanding tasks, or even just relaxing a day before said show?  No, I wouldn’t.  It would be considered acceptable and I probably wouldn’t beat myself up over it.

Well, having a mental illness is just as real as having something physically wrong.  For me, there is just a lot more guilt and misunderstanding when I need to take a day a week, or a day before or after a stressful situation to take care of my mental health.

Today, I need a day off of expectations, stress, and guilt.  I need to enjoy the fact that I have a job interview without turning it into a bad situation, or berating myself because I may or may not get around to those dishes.

Here are my goals for today:

*meditate upside down

*mindlessly enjoy the drama of fictional witches on Netflix

*maybe read some

*not wear pants

*stare at a cake recipe until I decide whether or not I want to make it

*probably make dinner later

*take a bath

*enjoy the air conditioner

*do a couple DBT exercises to help with negative thoughts I have about the job interview

*give my face a day off from make up

*Don’t weigh myself, but still stick to my healthier eating plan

This stuff is important for my health.  It may seem silly, or even lazy, but trust me, it is helping strengthen me, and maybe in the future I will need less of these days because I learned how to cope better.  Until then, I am refusing to feel guilty because I need days like this.

Hey!  You! Do you need a mental health day?  Maybe just a day to unwind, an afternoon, a morning, anything that you can focus on your mental health, coping skills, and yourself?  Don’t feel guilty. In fact, applaud yourself for having the strength to move past the guilt and do something that you might desperately need.  Relax pantsless, read a book, binge some Netflix, meditate, do that hobby that you’ve been ignoring, do nothing….do whatever makes you feel happier.  Trust me, you will be a better person tomorrow for you off day today!

What do you do to give yourself some relax time?  If you had a day that no expectations were placed on you, what would you do?  What are you going to do to make this a reality?

A Choice

I’m watching a show that centers mostly on forensic psychology.

It is a crime drama, and it is fascinating.

However, I disagree with something they said, and something that is unfortunately accepted as truth.

“It is not a matter of if ‘he/she’ (insert undesirable behavior), it is when.”

That is not true.

With enough education, people can seek help.

Like breast cancer and people screening for lumps, people should know that some thoughts can lead to bad behaviors and can be changed or treated.

I have threatened suicide and attempted suicide more than once.  More than twice.

I am not currently suicidal.  I have gotten help.  Some of my unwanted behaviors still exist.  I still wish I was a lil drunk right now writing this, but I am not. That thought is still there, but with knowledge (workbooks, therapy, research, etc…) I am fighting my own thoughts and becoming healthier.

Anybody can do this to varying degrees, just like any disorder or disease.

This needs to be understood and be passed around as truth.

I am not my diagnosis.  It does not define my next choice.  I define my next choice.  I choose not to drink, to not kill myself, to get up and write this blog.

You have that choice.