All in the Family

All in the Family

By Eleni F.

Acceptance: Step One to a Better Life

There is magic everywhere; on the floors, on the sheets, in the walls. She tries to cut it out but it never really goes away. Spells are put on her by the same people who are always stealing her clothes and dishes. It’s the women her husband is always cheating with. They are the ones putting the evil in her home. She knows he is cheating because he never takes her out and they don’t have sex regularly. I know this because she tells me, because she thinks I am her friend, but I am not. I am her daughter.

My mom has paranoid personality disorder. I finally got her to see a psychiatrist a few years ago but she only went three times. Aside from her mandated stay at the hospital resulting from her calling the cops on my dad for killing her brother who had just passed away in Italy, she has never seen anyone for treatment. As the officers escorted her to the ambulance, I could feel my mind fracture my heart. They kept her for two days, releasing her after discovering I was a mental health counselor. She still blames every pain she gets in her aging body on the drugs they gave her then.

My mom says she is fine. She doesn’t see her illness. That’s common for people with her disorder. Living life with mom has been both an adventure and a lesson in patience. She is one of eight children, most of whom had mental illness. Sadly, none of them actually sought help except for her brother, John, who was schizophrenic and briefly hospitalized when he became catatonic. My mom’s illness has progressively gotten worse. She has ripped the molding off most of the walls in her home. She burns incense every single day, twice a day, to the point where a neighbor once thought our house was on fire. She reads the bible daily, religion being a theme in her paranoia.

I often tell myself I should be glad the only thing I got hit with was depression. My mental health resume is as follows: When I was 14, I was afraid to brush my teeth at night with the door open fearing my father would stab me from behind. When I was 16, I sat on my bed holding his gun, with the bullets spread out like a path to peace before me. When I was 22, I tested my veins with the blade of a knife and washed out the thoughts with vodka. When I was 29, I celebrated with a bottle of pills and some liquor. I was persistent, if not successful. I was also very lucky because I never wanted to die. I was just tired, exhausted from how hard breathing had become. I was tired of being tired.

I have been battling depression most of my life, though I didn’t always know it. I never went to a therapist until I was 22. She was the first of many I would see through the years. She tried putting me on meds but I stopped taking them, deciding I could do better on my own. I never liked the idea of needing something. I had issues with commitment. I can’t remember the number of jobs I’ve held and quit, or the number of therapists I’ve seen. I soon discovered drinking would make me feel better in the moment. So partying became my new antidepressant and blackouts were just a side effect.

I met my husband when I was on this self-prescribed treatment plan. I hid my amount of binge drinking by pre-drinking. He was smart, hard-working, and despite having met at a club, not into partying as I was. He was handsome and he made me laugh. So nine months after meeting this man, who made me want to walk away from the ledge, I married him.

I wish I could say that was the end of my battle, some magical happily ever after cure all, but it wasn’t it. It took years of on and off again binge drinking and getting on and off meds before I managed to understand this was not something I could just get over, or cure. This was something I needed to make peace with and accept. I needed to accept that medication was going to be part of my routine, and that this did not mean I was weak or crazy, it meant I had an illness. It took me years to realize that just like my mother, I had been unraveling in my own way through my own denial. With the support of a man who refused to let me drag him into the depths of my despair and also refused to abandon me there, I started to climb out of the abyss and find myself again, maybe for the very first time.

Editor-At-Large/As I See It: The Dangers of Lithium

Editor-At-Large/As I See It: The Dangers of Lithium

A Column by NYC Voices' Business Manager Marvin Spieler

Exercise Your Consumer's Right to Choose

After being on the medication Lithium Carbonate (Lithium) for twenty-one years, I became toxic. I knew potentially I could become toxic, but I was playing the odds. However, I lost in the end. Now I am on dialysis as a result, as Lithium ruined my kidneys.

The kidneys: we all have two of them, they filter our body’s blood to keep it clean. The kidneys excrete the waste products through the urine. Now as a result, I am with two kidneys that are almost useless. Dialysis acts as my artificial kidneys. Without dialysis, I would die. That’s the bottom line. Go on dialysis or die.

Here’s the problem that I now have as a result. I must go to a dialysis center three times a week. I spend approximately five hours each day there. Actually, three hours on the dialysis machine, and usually about two hours in transportation time to and from the center.

The result is that I waste three days of what used to be productive time doing other things. I used to be a mental health advocate. However, I had to drop my advocacy work. I can no longer attend meetings, go to conferences, or go on trips to Albany with NYAPRS members to keep legislators from cutting the mental health budget.

At first I became depressed over my new reality, but that has passed. I am used to my new lifestyle. I finally accepted the fact that I had to drop my mental health advocacy work. However, it is a great loss.

Why am I telling you all this? GET OFF LITHIUM NOW IF YOU TAKE THIS DRUG!! Fortunately for you, now there are substitutes like Depokote or Tegrotal that work just as well for most mental health consumers. Only in rare cases, a few consumers have no choice but to stay on Lithium. I tried Depokote and Tegrotal. Tegrotal is now my drug of choice. I am doing as well on Tegrotol as I was on Lithium. Like Lithium, I need periodic blood tests to see that the level is in balance, so that in itself isn’t new for me.

Again my advice to you is this. Seriously, have a discussion with your psychiatrist. See what he says. Listen to his point of view. But in the end you have “the right” to determine what meds you take and don’t take. That is a right you have. Use your judgment. Mental illness doesn’t kill your right to think or choose. Use your brain to control your health.

When I went on Lithium there wasn’t much else to control my moods. It worked. I had twenty-one glorious years of continuous freedom from psych wards on Lithium. I built a life for myself. I made long-term friends, met a wonderful woman and married her. We decided on no children as we both had mental illness and didn’t want to potentially pass it onto our children. That is my only regret. Children would possibly have been a blessing, but that was our choice back then. Medications were crude and usually not very effective. We didn’t and couldn’t anticipate a modern second generation on psychiatric meds. So my advice is get married and have kids if you desire to. However, be ready for the turmoil your kid or children may have initially with mental illness. Mental illness is like no other illness I know of.

By the way, I am proud to say I am hospital-free for over thirty years now, a record I am proud of. This is one of my major accomplishments in life. To be free of the goons in psych hospitals is a real joy. To no longer worry about a hospitalization as long as I take my meds daily, I do thank medical research and modern drug production.

How Long Have You Been On Meds?

To be blunt, the drug companies in this country have pushed their products to the point of being the totally acceptable panacea to help the mentally ill. It is my understanding that in Europe, medications are used as a last resort.

Also, drug company representatives, meaning salesmen and psychiatrists who represent drug companies, have brain-washed most of our American psychiatrists. We consumers, as a result, have been practically forced to take meds for life. It is my assumption that after “x” number of years on medication, it is almost impossible to get off meds on our own.

Most psychiatrists swear never to take you off meds. That is what they are probably taught. Otherwise, why is it so hard to find a psychiatrist who will help get you off? In the end, we ourselves begin to believe the common line of thought about staying on them.

After a lifetime of medication, my concentration and memory are shot. As a result, I haven’t been able to read a book in years. I guess I must be thankful not to be hospitalized for years on end. Thank you, drug industry. HAH!!

Tooth Extraction Unlocks Bipolar Adventure

Tooth Extraction Unlocks Bipolar Adventure

By David Scott

Some Parts of the Adventure Were Better Than Others

The year 1995 was the greatest year of my life. The worst year of my life was 1996. That in itself comprised the highs and lows of bipolar.

In 1995, I was 22 and had two jobs, a girlfriend, lots of friends and my own car. One of my jobs was security at all the concerts in the Washington, DC area. I also worked security at all Washington Redskin games.

While I was backstage at a concert, my supervisor asked me if I wanted to work the Super Bowl. I was thrilled! They flew me down to Miami and I worked on the field at Super Bowl 29. I even took Steve Young, the MVP, back to the locker room after the game. 1995 was an incredible year.

In 1996, I had to have two wisdom teeth removed. My mother took me to the doctor. The doctor had the same last name as me. I thought I was in good hands.

The procedure did not go well. I could feel the drill going into my gum. The novocaine kept wearing off. The doctor stuck me with the novocaine seven different times. I remember everything because I am forced to relive that day every day of my life. The doctor even told his assistant to go get the larger drill because he could not extract the tooth. After it was all over, I felt strange, like my mind had been altered. My mother and I got into the elevator and I whispered in her ear that I could hear what the other people in the elevator were thinking. She did not respond.

When we got into the car, all I could talk about was God and other grandiose things. We went to the pharmacy to pick up my pain medicine and I could hear everyone's thoughts. Two days later I was completely insane and violent.

I was taken by ambulance to the local hospital. Once there, I fought with at least six doctors and hospital staffers before they knocked me out with a needle. When I woke up, a doctor told me that they thought I was high on drugs but found none in my system. I told them I had never taken drugs and I didn't even drink alcohol. The doctor told me I had bipolar disorder. I did not know what that was. He explained it to me. I told him that I didn't understand. Nobody in my family had mental illness and it was not brought on by drugs or alcohol. He said I had it all along but the severe trauma that I went through with my oral surgery had triggered it. I was devastated.

I spent a month in the hospital, the first two weeks in restraints. One time they released my right wrist to eat the tray of food and when I took the tray off, I hallucinated that there was a live snake wrapped around the plate, so I threw it on the floor. Also, while in restraints, I talked to this shadow on my ceiling and this light that would form a shape of what I was thinking. I thought it was God. 

After a month, I came home. I felt great and took my medication. I thought after taking the medication for two weeks, who needs the side effects? So I stopped taking it. 

This time I had to go to a different hospital. It was not like a mental hospital with restraints and harshness of any sort. I was in the room with two other guys and I had the freedom to walk around. I participated in group and I played chess with this bipolar lady every day. It was not bad except that I wanted to go home and every time I thought I was okay, the doctor was like, I think you need one more week. That was totally frustrating. What did I have to do to convince them to let me go? Well, I ended up staying there for a month, just like the other hospital. I would never stop taking psychiatric medication ever again.

When I got home, something was happening. I started writing poetry although I had never written any before. I was pretty good at writing in school but I did not know how to write poetry. In my manic state I was writing two poems per day. In my depressed state I was writing one every other day. I showed them to my father who was duly impressed. I started reading poets, beginning with Langston Hughes whom I had always admired. Then at a book sale, something just drew me to a rather plain looking book with the name Dylan Thomas on it. I was blown away by this guy and I discovered he was bipolar like me. I also found out that people were mesmerized at his poetry readings. So I started going to poetry readings.

People responded to my poetry. Within a year, I was featured at libraries and literary venues. When I discovered poetry slams I started writing more upbeat poems for performance purposes. I was winning poetry slams all over the Washington, DC area. One of my poems was on the hottest radio station in DC. For some reason, getting published was not as important to me as performing was.

Today, I suffer a great deal with heat and mania but I am able to control it. I don't get depressed that much even though I don't have a girlfriend or any friends for that matter. I am still on the spiral staircase but I am ascending one step forward every day.

A Crazy Guy Like Me

A Crazy Guy Like Me

By Dave A.

How I Found Stability With Meds and the 12-Steps

I was born in a shack my father built in Northern California in 1976. My father was violent, mentally abusive, a heavy drinker and, as is now apparently a schizophrenic. I dreamt of fighting him off when I was young. I had resentment toward him yet a natural admiration that looked for the good in him. My mother is bi-polar and began drinking after my parents’ divorce. She did, however, quit drinking and introduced me to 12-step help when I was a teen for my heavy drinking and drug abuse.

My schizophrenia started aggravating my psyche when I was about 15, most likely triggered from heavy drug abuse. Along the way, I started dating a sweet girl. We fell in love, yet she left and I was devastated. I began isolating and was tormented by horrible visions. Scenes of violence would flash through my mind. When I returned to counseling, my therapist suggested medication, which I did not feel was a good natural remedy. In fact, I looked down upon medication as if it were a street drug.

Not too long after, I was institutionalized upon my family’s insistence and my concurrence. Obsessed with my previous girlfriend, I continued to grieve over her. Whenever I seemed to stop thinking of her, someone would mention or ask about her, which I interpreted as God indicating her eventual return to me. After several trials and disruptions in medications, the majority of my psychosis involved my imagining this former girlfriend was with me. I knew she was not, however, I felt happier thinking she was somehow with me in spirit. My writing and the music I listen to is much inspired by this woman.

I have not drunk or used illegal drugs since I was 21. I am 38 now and feel I have made a strong effort to do well in this life of illusion. I met Dan Frey (editor of NYC Voices) when I was about 23, and whom I consider a good friend, although we have not been in close contact for years. His efforts to support my musical shows are still appreciated.

Since I was 21, I have done my best work with psychiatric practitioners, having been in hospital psych wards once a year until about eight years ago. The threat of psychosis has alleviated over time and I value my freedom with the assistance of outpatient care. I would, however, do inpatient again if needed, and have considered it on occasions when I struggled the most.

I have schizoaffective type 2, which means I have struggled with depression throughout my life. I continue to enjoy good times as well. The twelve-step program has taught me to find esteem in service, in hopefulness and faith in healing for the sake of others, as well as myself.

I can no longer drink or ingest the sickening amounts of sugar designed by junk food companies. Due to my borderline sugar levels, I cut soda and other sugary drinks out of my diet. I still acquiesce sometimes with chocolate, but not like I used to. I don’t know for certain if I have fallen prey to Zyprexa's tendency to create sugar reactions, or to the junk food industry. Either way, I now regulate my diet more consciously.

I bring a 12-step meeting into the psych ward down in the valley once a month. If I get the apartment I’ve been eyeing, I’ll be just a block away from the psych unit and my plan is to begin weekly meetings. I have a sense of accomplishment having done the same with the hospital back east years ago.

Currently, I live in the mountains of Northern California and have an application pending for a low-income apartment down in the city’s valley. I’m making an effort to enjoy my current life while looking forward to having a mental health clubhouse about a half block away, as well as other fun activities, when I get down there. Maybe I'll meet a crazy lady who would understand a crazy guy like me.

I Used to Be a Dog Person

I Used to Be a Dog Person

By Connie Jean Conklin

What I’m Learning From My Cats

I used to consider myself a dog person. And then I realized using dog as an adjective also applies. Like a dog, I did everything to please my “owner” (whatever man was in my life, and before then, my parents). I lived and enjoyed life when told to do so (i.e. “fetch”). And I relied on my “owners” to take care of me (in my case tell me what to think, feel and do).

I had dogs in my life, too. And thank goodness! They listened to me and loved me unconditionally. Dogs are the only reason I have any degree of sanity today.

Now I have cats, and boy is my life different!

I’ve been learning to take care of myself. I now know what I want, need, think and feel. And I express my thoughts and concerns in co-dependents anonymous meetings, with friends that I now have, with therapists, and in Facebook posts. And while I’ve had cats before, I did not understand them then. But I think I’m beginning to get the idea, not only to understand them, but to be a cat person.

To a cat, playing is their number one priority. They enjoy their life. They do what they darn well want to with little concern for what I have in mind for them to do. They seem to care about me. They cuddle with me, show affection for me, purr and respond to my requests, as long as it’s not too inconvenient or interrupts their pleasure. But they give up their enjoyment of life for nobody.

I ask forgiveness from the cats in my life. I was incapable of understanding them in the past. And while I still want a dog in my life, I vow to be a better cat parent and cat person in the future.

At age sixty-two, I own four hula hoops, a drum and two inner tubes. I play in the creek pretty much every day throughout the summer. I dance with my hula hoop at concerts on the creek most Friday nights. I drum and hula hoop at community drumming every month. At this mature time in my life, I have finally learned how to master the art of play. And you know what? I accomplish much more now. I don’t just “survive” in life, I know how to “live” my life more fully.

I have also founded an organization for adult survivors of child abuse, called SEASCAT.org. Send me a friend request on Facebook saying you read this article in NYC Voices and I will accept your request.

About an Individual Named Chrissy

About an Individual Named Chrissy

By Chrissy M. Strawn

Transforming Challenges into Success

Chrissy is an introvert. She likes to meet new people, but on her own terms. She can be honest to a fault. She is a very bright interesting person. She lives with her husband Lance who takes very good care of her. He is also a great cook. Chrissy is an army veteran who gave five years of service when she was found to have a service-related disability, for which she now receives compensation from the Veterans Administration.

She has a diverse array of talents. She is a brass instrument musician, and also a fourth degree black belt in karate. Her current major activity in life is volunteering with NAMI connection groups, of which she currently co-facilitates three. Every Saturday afternoon she attends her home group with Lance.

Chrissy is a photographer and artist. She had a long career as a telecom technician that lasted 20 years. She is unable to work anymore due to the disabilities she currently suffers. She has chronic back pain from the hard work she did in the telecom business.

Chrissy is a disabled person on the inside with borderline personality disorder, adjustment disorder and more, but she shines when she is talking to new people.

She has seen her share of trouble. She was convicted in 1998 for touching her daughter inappropriately, costing her a twenty year sentence. She is currently on parole in Portland, Oregon. From her own point of view, she is an acquired taste. She can be somewhat of a braggadocio. But she likes to listen too.

Chrissy is a very compassionate and empathic person. Caring and selective, she is generous with those she calls friends, and does not take friendship lightly. Helping people brings a shine to her life. A transgendered individual who is male to female, she suffered great gender dysphoria, the conflict between a person's physical gender and the gender he or she identifies as, during the last years of her male existence. In 2004 she started her transition from male to female.

As of 2014, Chrissy is much more stable. She credits NAMI.org for her current stability and continues to help others the best way she can. She also took DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy) at the VA and continues to receive therapy from her therapist while seeing her psychiatrist on a regular basis. Chrissy has great empathy for her fellow mental health peers. She took some classes to become a peer support specialist and connection facilitator. Those courses include peer to peer, peer support specialist training, and connection facilitators course. It gratifies her deeply to assist others.

Chrissy prides herself for her ability to stay calm in a dramatic situation. As it is her role to help those in need, she works to calm and understand what troubles her peers. It isn’t easy to be rational when all hell is breaking loose. But that is what her job entails. Peer support is worth it when the other person says “thank you” or “I am sorry.” She loves the challenge and reward that comes from helping others. She would encourage others interested in the helping profession to check out their local NAMI office, who are always on the look-out for able volunteers.

Advice from Chrissy: For those who have mental illness, consider social security disability. Though you may initially be denied, the vast majority of people are denied the first time. Chrissy recommends obtaining a social security lawyer. They specialize in the area of helping those with mental health problems get the fiscal assistance needed.

Chrissy’s solid twenty years in the telecom business built up a large cache for her to receive disability income. What you receive will depend on the amount of cache accumulated while you were working. The more you earned and the years you worked, the more that cache will be. Along with SSD you will qualify for Medicare. That will take some of the money you get for your benefit in order to pay for your portion of Medicare. Get the support you need. Apply today with a social security lawyer.

Saved by Imagination

Saved by Imagination
By Carl Blumenthal
A Memoir of Depression and Recovery by the Book
“Depression is a double whammy. Negative thoughts and feelings flood in. The positive dissolves in a sea of self-doubt.” During my depression from 2006 through 2011, including two suicide attempts, two hospitalizations, and two years in day treatment, I tried to cope by withdrawing from the world: quitting my job as a peer counselor, ceasing hobbies and volunteer work, avoiding friends, and limiting contact with family, except my wife, Susan.
Most painful of all, I suspended my part-time career as an arts critic. Penning hundreds of articles about writers, painters, dancers, musicians, photographers, and film-makers, I earned respect because unlike most critics I didn’t suck the life out of my subjects. Now writer’s block prevented me from living—vicariously.
My world shrank to the living room couch where lying down was the most comfortable and comforting position, both during the day while I listened to the radio and at night when I retreated farther—into sleep and dreams. It was like clinging to a raft of calm on an ocean of bad thoughts and feelings.
I maintained this fetal-like pose by avoiding as much stress as possible because undertaking the simplest task made me feel as if I suffered from a permanent case of indecision. Thus hygiene went down the drain even though I didn’t shower. Determining what to eat and how to prepare it required an appetite I lacked. And household chores seemed like opportunities to malfunction.
If my living room couch resembled a raft in a storm, I also tried to batten down all hatches to the outside world. I only left our apartment to get the mail before other tenants arose in the morning. Then I would throw away most letters from family and friends. I dreaded checking my email and browsing the Internet for fear I would have to respond to demands on my attention.
I let Susan answer the phone so she could say I wasn’t available. She shopped, cleaned the apartment, washed our clothes, did the banking, paid bills, and generally interceded on my behalf whenever the world seemed too oppressive. She took everything in stride just as she had raised her younger sister and brothers when their parents weren’t around.
If the psychologist at day treatment hadn’t been a book lover, I might never have started reading again. With the lending of a novel to me she overcame my resistance to the written word. Fiction proved too real, too raw, but non-fiction books on nature and history represented safe ground at first and room for growth later.
I also consumed a heavy dose of biographies about such heroes as the existential novelist Albert Camus; the Depression-era photographer Dorothea Lange; Beat poet Allen Ginsburg; radical folksinger Woody Guthrie; Thomas Paine, pamphleteer of the American Revolution; and the Belle of Amherst, Emily Dickinson.
In March of 2011, I was inspired by Jane Campion’s film, “An Angel at My Table.” It is based on the autobiography of Janet Frame, who survived years at mental institutions in the 1950s, enduring more than 200 electroshock treatments (ECT). She became New Zealand’s most acclaimed author of the 20th century.
My outpatient social worker challenged me to write about the movie. Despite my low expectations, I returned to her the following week with 40 pages of an incomplete essay, “Saved by Imagination.”
How I got carried away was as much of a miracle as Janet Frame’s recovery. Even when not pinned to a stretcher for ECT, Frame, like me, spent most of her time prone to despair. Cowering in bed on the verge of being carted away for a lobotomy, she is greeted by the asylum’s director with the news of her release because she has won a literary prize. As if escaping a firing squad she’s bundled into a taxi for the ride home.
Thanks to Janet Frame’s example, I had cracked a five-year writer’s block. She was the medium for the message to me that “recovery is possible.” With this weight lifted, I returned to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the newspaper for which I covered the arts. Since then I’ve been able to round out my life by doing the following:
relying on writing and other passions as if my life depended on them;
seeking help from peers who understand my struggles;
finding love in the advice of family and friends;
accepting that how well I do at work isn’t a criterion for manhood;
engaging in politics as a form of community responsibility;
volunteering as a way of counting my blessings; and generally
putting one step in front of the other as Elizabeth Swados recommends in My Depression: A Picture Book.
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from a longer essay to appear in the book Coming Out Proud published by the National Consortium on Stigma and Empowerment, Chicago, 2015.