May is National Mental Health Month. Today, this goes out to Princess McDowell and Sarah Myles Spencer. Without their courage, this post would have never happened. Truth: I was an angry, grieving, confused child who grew more isolated and withdrawn until I had a psychotic break at age 11. The first psychiatrist I saw said I was going through puberty and that I would grow out of it. What I was holding was a paradox: I was furiously homicidally hurt and angry at people I was supposed to love and be appreciative of. I also did love and appreciate those people, which made the hurt and anger repeatedly so fresh. The desire to make a situation stop by any means necessary - running away, withdrawing, dissociation, self-injury, acting out in hopes of being sent away, overbooking myself with activities, homicidal fantasies - all collided with the love, gratitude, compassion and desire I had to actually connect in deep and meaningful ways. I came to the conclusion that there was something wrong with me, and it was ME who needed to end. A failed suicide attempt began the journey of medication. Some meds made the anger worse (or perhaps, they burned through the inhibitions). On Zoloft, my brain began to burn. I became an anxious toothgrinder -- I still am, 20 years later. My 3rd day on Paxil, I walked out of class in a blind panic straight to the counselors office. He was on the phone when I got there, and asked me to wait. I turned around and kicked a hole in his wall. Other meds took all the anger, and every other feeling, and stuffed them far behind my stomach. I was disoriented and slow. I got bruises from unremembered origins. I began to pinch and scratch, and eventually burn, cut, and pierce, my arms so that I could feel anything, my own body, again. I am still an anxious toothgrinder. I still wake myself in the night scratching and pinching my arms. Over the eight years I took Lithium, my thyroid strained, sputtered and eventually gave out, and I will be on replacement hormone for this for the rest of my life. Medicated or not, my quality of life did not improve until I was able to get angry, and to get witness to that anger. I still have not gotten into it all -- to enter that space is like drowning in gasoline. Its a space that I can only go into on occasion, and only with the loving acceptance, compassion and witness of a growing handful of folks who wont let me stay longer than whats healthy, and who continue to love me even after they have seen what they have. We all have a right to be angry. Many of us have seen and heard and experienced all degrees of terrible terrifying unspeakable things. We all have the right to righteous anger. Without learning efficient ways of anger expression, we are all dying -- from violence to suicide to chronic illness. We all have a need to be seen in a vulnerable space, and accepted there. The difference between anger and violence is permission. I have been diagnosed with a variety of types of Bipolar Disorder, Schizoaffective Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder. I have been living with myself for 35 years this August. I have been med-free since January 2006 because it was the right thing for me to do for me. Because that is what this whole Radical Mental Health thing is about -- us maintaining our own agency and choice around our care, our health, our lives. If you need for someone to witness you get angry, call me. I got you. slate/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2014/04/anger_causes_violence_treat_it_rather_than_mental_illness_to_stop_mass_murder.html
Posted on: Sat, 31 May 2014 03:04:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015