Let Me Introduce You To My Mental Health

I wrote this just the other day. Quite the first official blog entry but a huge part of my life is Mental Health and my own, personal Mental Illness. I want to be able to share that piece of me, not be so afraid to show it. It isn't me being dramatic, wanting attention or anything else that some people say. It is life. It is my life and a part of me, a big part of me.

I do want to preference this with a trigger warning for any readers that may stumble across this who deal with any sort of mental illness. I also want to clarify there is no reason for alarm, I am safe, I am okay and in no way a danger to myself or anything like that. There are just real parts of mental illness in the following and that is exactly what I want to be able to share.

-Daks

7/10/2020

I used to think I was a good writer, one day hoping to have a best seller in the book stores. That was also 15 years ago. No best seller, I don’t know when I last did a creative writing piece, much less one that I actually thought meant much. I do think I am creative to a point, I love art, especially painting. I don’t do nearly as well as I wish I could and I get discouraged much too easily. I think of my Gramma and how I hope I can be as good as she was with her paintings. I don’t think she thought she was that good but I think she did wonderful. I love music but have no talent there although I have tried at the guitar. I still have my guitar and it isn’t collecting dust- only because the case it is stored in is. And I will always love writing too, I just don’t do it nearly as much as I used to and tear myself down before even trying to write. But, hey, I started this…

 I started this because I just finished watching a movie this evening that I could relate to so well, that really resonated with me and struck me. Not too hard to do since I am an emotional basket-case, even on my good days.

 

Even on my good days. 15 years ago when I could write and did quite often I don’t think I totally understood that phrase, “even on my good days”. I mean, what 15 year old does? Or should? I am 30 now. As with anyone in their life, a lot has happened in those 15 years from being 15 to 30. “Even on my good days” has a quite the meaning now. Thank you Mental Illness.

 

Mental Illness. Scary phrase for some, for me, it is life. I am sure there was a little seed in my 15 year old self that was there already. Some seeds don’t grow as us without green thumbs know, however, seeds are meant to grow and blossom. This seed may have been poison ivy instead of my favorite tulip though. But, it grew and is imbedded within my daily life now. I watched this movie tonight and the main character had their own seed that also grew. But, it is more than just the movie I am thinking about now. It is my mental health, my own mental illness and where I am today, as I write this.

 

I started therapy about 5 years ago. In those 5 years I have had great times and terrible times. I am sure I have grown but I also know I have faltered only to get back up again thankfully. I am extremely lucky and have had the same amazing therapist for 5 years, I have unfortunately had way too many psychiatrists. I have been on multiple medicines. Been in the hospital at least 18 times (it was counted this past year, yikes). Attempted to take my life 3 times, 2 of those times landing me in the ICU. It has been 5 years and right now I am probably what most of my providers would consider to be at my most stable. I’ll gladly take the assessment as “stable”, especially when I really do wish the inside of my head knew what “stable” meant.

 

People always say that they are glad nobody can read their mind, they joke that they would be in trouble if someone knew their thoughts or if they said what they were thinking out loud. However, when you live with mental illness, that is all so real and isn’t so much of a joke to you so much at times. Yes, those of us with mental illness will also make those same jokes but, that joke sometimes has a lot of truth to it.

 

I’m considered stable but if someone could get in my head, give me truth serum, I don’t know if I’d necessarily be living up to their standards. It is scary being scared of your own thoughts and head, worried that if people know what was swirling around in there it wouldn’t be good.

 

Depression, PTSD and Borderline Personality Disorder walk with me, resonating in my brain and body every single day and night. From nightmares, the oppressive sadness that you try to never show but always aches within you, the hypervigilance with every noise even when you are safe within your own apartment- yes I did just jump there when I heard a voice from some delivery person at another apartment. That actually just happened as I typed that up. So many different symptoms. Disassociating- I am here but I am not here at the same time, when you lose small spaces in time, wondering if at one point you won’t ever come back but you wouldn’t even realize it. Anxiety. Social Anxiety. When going somewhere, anywhere used to be just an everyday occurrence yet it becomes planning every moment from where you are going and what you are going to do when you are there, what you are going to do if A, B, or C happens and telling yourself you will be okay. That is all just icing on the cake. That is what you might tell someone if they ask you about living with mental illness. It is what you don’t say.

 

I can say, “I’ve been free from self harm for 153 days. I don’t say that I am questioning what that “free” really means lately. Free from fresh marks on my skin? Yes. Free from that constant urge to make marks? Hell no. Free from the unprompted images that come into my head of me inflicting self harm? Hell no yet again. I know I am 153 days from the last time I put a blade to my skin but I don’t know how free I am of it. When I won’t be able to fight those images and urges. I thought last night would go back to “0” and thankfully it didn’t but I can’t say that day is or isn’t going to come.

 

I can’t say how often I see things that aren’t there. And when I do with someone I trust it is brushed off as something that happens to everyone. I try to tell myself the same thing when I triple look at something because I know I saw something. It is just my mind playing tricks on me. Is it a medication side effect? My Borderline? The anxiety? I can’t say and goodness knows I can’t open up about it. With 5 years of therapy I know I shouldn’t put the word “stupid” to what something makes me feel but that is how talking about seeing things makes me feel. I’d like to know why but I cant even talk about it, say the truth.

 

I can’t say how often the suicidal ideation still runs through my head. How even on those good days, the nights get so difficult, I feel like I am being pulled out to sea, a cement block, or 20 of them, tied to me and I am sinking, without a fighting chance of resurfacing. I can’t say how often having medication around scares me because of my thought processes, how sharp objects hold different meaning sometimes to someone who struggles with self harming. I can’t say how close I come to the edge of everything, any wrong decision so often, even lately.

 

I can’t say it because I am stable. I have my very own place finally, I have a steady income, I am paying my bills, taking care of myself and my self care. I have a vision board that I made myself to aid in being my best self possible. I am doing the best I have in 5 years. I wonder if my therapist has wrote anywhere in her notes during our sessions the actual word “stable” to describe me and my state.

 

That 15-16 year old aspiring writer, the one that wanted to still be a police officer and go into law enforcement, that wrote stupidly ridiculous English journals and laughed with their Gramma at corny jokes and gave her kisses goodnight until a very sad February when the seed that was planted started to grow a poisonous plant didn’t exactly think this was what a stable 30 year old would be.