The Days After, The Day After

Lost. A raft in the sea… drifting aimlessly while ships surround me; each one busy along it’s course… trying to reach their destinations.

It’s impossible to describe what these days feel like.

Last Saturday, I experienced a severe mental health breakdown. I did not die and I did not end up in the hospital. But I did fall backwards to a point I’ve never been before, experiencing insanity to a new degree – confusion, chaos, and fear enveloping me.

Over the course of three days, I lived in a different world… I was by all accounts, a different person. By the end of the third day, I was not only afraid of both what I had done, but also of what was to come. I was unsure of who I was, where I was, or even at times when I was.

During the crisis I had people watching out for me. Friends reaching out to me – and to their own support system for advice on what to do. Co-workers of my husbands, passing him updates when they saw me. And my husband himself… taking necessary steps, and with encouragement and support for himself, when things got bad, calling the police to find me.

Thankfully, things turned out okay.

By Monday night I was hitching a ride with a Police Officer back to my house… back to a semi-conscious state of mind and able to think just a little bit clearer. Thankfully this Officer was amazing; and I can honestly say that without his assistance, accompanied by his respectful and empathetic approach to my tricky situation, there is an incredibly strong chance that things would have ended much differently.

On Tuesday I started to come back to reality… to see the damage and the aftermath of the storm I had caused. I spent the day picking up the pieces and trying to understand what had happened, exactly how I had fallen again.

Over the course of three days I unraveled completely.

By Thursday I was back at work… back in public. Smiling. Happy. Even a little bit more energized than before my break. I looked overall good; although perhaps a little tired. To look at me, you never would have guessed that the previous evening my mind was still foggy enough that I refused to drive my car, afraid that I wasn't able to adequately assess my surroundings.

Today. Friday. I am not good.

Today, I realised that it’s okay to not be okay still.

What I experienced during my three days of madness, was both an incredible breakdown and a massive breakthrough. It was scary and it was frustrating, and it was also traumatic.

On Saturday the puzzle I had been working to build was thrown to the ground in an earth-shattering quake… the pieces scattered, some chunks together, but all of them so far apart that nothing made sense.

By Tuesday, when my senses returned and I saw the mess that had been created, I wanted to fix it. I started to gather the puzzle pieces and quickly put them back together. Some of them were broken, bent, taped, and glued… the damage caused by my breakdown significant. In frustration I began to jam the pieces in that wouldn’t fit. I needed to put the puzzle back to exactly where it had been before this had all happened… I wanted to be able to add more unfinished pieces to the picture; to look forward and pretend that this had never happened.

After all, I was okay.

I woke up in the mornings. I looked perfectly normal. I showered, I was functional, and my autopilot functions were still intact. But despite the fact that things were ‘over’ and it was time to move on to the next leg of my journey… I began to feel worse.

Today I realized that I am not the same.

Mental health breakdowns can change you. For me, I began to understand this again, from an experienced point of view as I felt the beginnings of a panic attack rise at just the idea of going to the grocery store. I noticed the change through my general fatigue, nauseated stomach, and lack of general patience. I feel it in the fear, the haze that refuses to fully lift, and the confusion if things get too loud, too noisy, or just generally too much around me.

I admit, I don’t like this feeling. I don’t like feeling ‘sick’ after the breakdown is over; and I don’t like that I am the only one who has any idea that I am still struggling so much. In some ways, I wish I had a sign on my head announcing it… letting the world know that I’m sick… that I’m not just hiding away in my house for no reason. And in some ways, I love that it’s invisible because autopilot still works to an extent, and maybe if I just push myself a little harder... everyone will believe that I'm really just normal.

These are the days after, the day after.

Learning to heal. To re-enter the world. To know that it’s okay that I don’t look sick, but I am sick at this point. Learning to respond correctly again… to talk… to feel connected to the world, and not lost and isolated, and alone; despite the people surrounding me.

These are the days where it is important to talk. To let people know that I am unwell, not for pity or for manipulation, or to seek affection... but because it can't always be seen. These are the days to seek advice and counsel, and to answer messages from concerned friends and family. To make the effort in self-care. To not push too hard.

These are the days where I want the world to know, that I’m actually worse than when I was ‘in’ the breakdown. The days after, the weeks after… sometimes even the months that follow, when work is being done, new coping mechanisms learned, when life looks normal – but your head is still a mess.

These are the days when a simple text from a friend, or even acquaintance can change the course of the day.

This week I had a person that I would consider a friend message me after I said I had been feeling rough. I hadn’t gone into detail on Tuesday morning when we were talking… and although we are not close, and we haven’t known each other long; this friend checked in later on. A message to see how I was… to encourage me for the next day. It meant more to me than I could ever explain that she knew. That she somehow got it that the day after was just as hard… that it wasn’t simply back to normal.

I want to end this on a positive note. I want to say that I know life will get better and easier from here on out… and I know, logically that it will. But I also know it will be hard. Being in this position is not easy – for me, or for those around me.

I have work to do. But I also have rest I need to take. I need to let the dust settle. I need to find the missing puzzle pieces… the ones that might have slipped under the rug, or been swept across the room. I need to heal my mind, the same way that someone sick with a physical illness needs to heal their body.

These are the invisible days of the illness. These are the days that honesty matters.

End the stigma surrounding mental illness. Talk about it. Reach out. Don't forget friends, family, or acquaintances in the days following a breakdown.

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Victory Through the Struggles

It’s not euphoria or hypersensitivity or the darkness of a deep depression. The spikes are no longer as severe as a freshly sharpened pencil, now more rounded, curved and easier to pass over. The waves have not disappeared – there is still sadness and happiness, anger and excitement. But they are easier to steer… they are no longer run-away trains, reaching the tipping point and about to spill off of the tracks.

Level. Stable. Manageable. In control. It’s almost terrifying – a great unknown and after another depressive episode, it is an entirely new world to feel this way. It hasn’t been easy to reach this place and there have been some detours along the way. But right now, in this moment – my mental disorders are not winning.

Recently, I spent a week in the hospital. I was at a low point and drove myself there; I fought through what felt like interrogations and some criticisms, and I was admitted so that I was in a safe place where I could be monitored and so that my medications could be adjusted again.

I did not want to be there.

But I was… and it was a massive victory.

Taking myself into the hospital was not easy… I felt like a failure and like a fraud. I was low but I was highly functional. I was depressed but few people knew about it. I was struggling but I felt like I should be okay. I was angry because it was such a short journey from managing my triggers and being able to work through my emotional surges, to feeling as though I had fallen down a rabbit hole and knowing the world had morphed into a much darker place.

Again, I did not want to be there. I did not want to admit my weakness. Throughout the days leading up to and during my stay, it was often a fight within myself… a heated and intense battle for control… for my life.

But it was also a testament to the changes I have made, the way I have grown within my diagnosis, and my ability to identify with and help myself. It was days of reaching out and seeking help from trusted sources. It was days of self-care while doing things that bring me joy, it was using the resources that I have collected and learned to use, almost as though they have become second nature from the practice and continuous learning that I have done. It was keeping to my routines and it was remaining functional while recognising that I was falling, and doing something that I had never done before. It was stopping when I knew that I was in danger and taking myself in before I was past the point of no return, before I was able to fall further, before I tried to end the suffering or before the police were called. It was calm and without the drama of past experiences. It was me never letting go of the reigns and steering myself to the help that I knew that I needed. It was being aware of and able to hang on to one single spark of light and let it spread as I stayed safe, quickly illuminating the darkness and letting me recover faster and easier than I ever have before.

It was a success.

I was hospitalised, but I don’t regret it. I will continue to grow. I will continue to strive to remain level. I will continue to hang on to those sparks of light when the darkness begins to close in on me. I will continue to learn and remain aware of myself, my triggers, my weaknesses, and my spikes. I will get the help I need, when I need it. I will embrace stability – even when it frightens me.

I will continue to share my story. I will continue to be open and honest, to let everyone know about the struggles and the victories. I will continue to talk and to listen. I will continue to grow stronger and I will keep going. I will continue to be a success. I will continue to change the game, and I will win.

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Different, Isolated, Unique

Glancing around the room I felt a little lost. My house hasn’t changed – my things are all pretty much where I’ve left them, but it feels different. I feel different.

I was in the hospital for a week this time. Unfortunately as much as I tried to avoid it, and as much as I used every method and every skill I knew to keep myself level, depression still managed to sneak in. I wasn’t in a good place and while I didn’t want to go (and even fought it); in the end I forced myself to give in and let myself be taken in as I began to reach the crisis point.

Coloring I Did While in the Psych Ward

Two days in lockdown (Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit) for assessment and then 5 days in the open unit for medication adjustment, sleep patterns, and re-stabilising. It wasn’t the longest stay I’ve ever had. There was nothing spectacular about my stay. I’ve come out and while I’m still not to one-hundred percent, I’m still much better than I was when I went in. However it doesn’t mean that things feel the same as they did before. I feel different and isolated. It’s a kind of feeling I can’t explain very well to someone who hasn’t been there and experienced it.  It’s the feeling of going from the isolation of a psychiatric unit to regaining your freedom and independence.  It’s the feeling that for you, while you were recovering from an invisible but terrifying illness, the world stopped – and yet it didn’t. It’s the feeling that you are different from the rest of the world, that you can understand once again what makes you act oddly… sometimes not making sense to yourself. It’s knowing that you have this thing, this unseen illness that you will always carry with you, that people may know about but assume is better simply because now you’re out of that uncomfortable unit in the hospital. It’s feeling like you aren’t a part of the same world as everyone else because you feel, react to, and experience life uniquely.

The thing about all of that above though, is that it isn’t necessary. I don’t have to feel that way. I am unique… but so are you. Everyone has a story and just because mine involves the way that my brain works, it doesn’t make me abnormal. It doesn’t make me any less important or worthy or strong than anyone else. I can let it feel different. I can choose to isolate myself because of what I go through on a daily basis, the exhaustion that it causes to deal with my illness at times, and the fact that the stigma surrounding it all is still so huge; or I can be brave. I can embrace my differences and while I am learning to deal with it and recover, I can talk about it. I can write about it and stop hiding it. I can live without shame, or guilt, or embarrassment and I can be who I am without feeling the need to be accepted.

So right now I’m home. But last week I wasn’t. I was in the hospital. And this week, I’m taking care of myself – I’m still adjusting to the change in medications and I’m getting my routine back in check, making sure that I maintain my diet and exercise patterns and overall just take care of myself. I will not be ashamed and I will not hide what has happened or the fact that I sometimes need a little help. I will help end the stigma against mental illness. I will maintain my hope, I will be honest – with my supporters and with myself, and I will continue my recovery journey with the support and encouragement of my friends and my family. I will maintain my hope.

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Journey to the Cliff

A couple of months ago I was sitting in a therapy group with a bunch of people with assorted diagnoses. It was during a break, a few minutes where we could grab water or use the facilities that somehow the casual conversation turned serious and one of the group members spoke up, ‘I don’t understand how anyone could get to the point of suicide, how they can get that low and depressed that suicide becomes their only option.’ I didn’t speak up. Nobody did. There was a room full of people who had all been hospitalised at some point for one type of mental illness or another and not one person continued the conversation, all of us letting it drop off uncomfortably, changing the topic as quickly as possible.

At the time, the woman and her lack of understanding didn’t upset me and while I don’t know that I could have changed her outlook on it, I do regret not using it as an opportunity to educate her on what it was like for me personally to reach that low point in my life. In two weeks (and a day) it will be one year since I last tried to end my life by suicide, and it is something that has been on my mind for the last few days – particularly the idea that while I have been open, and I have spoken about it quite a bit, I’m not sure that I’ve gone into why I became suicidal or how I reached a point where I was so low that I couldn’t convince myself to live.

November 6th, 2014 I made my way to the waterfall around the corner from my house and attempted to jump to the jagged rocks below, a razor blade cutting into my wrist as I let go of the wall. Two police officers manage

d to grab me as I let go, heaving me back over the
wall and to the ground, saving my life. Deciding to jump from the cliff, to end my life and to ensure my success with a backup plan was not something that I came up with that morning – it was not something that I woke up with and simply decided, ‘hey, today’s the perfect day for a suicide attempt!’

For months leading up to my final decision the thoughts had been invading my mind – and it wasn’t the first time I had come close. I was off meds for the bipolar disorder, isolated, alone, depressed, and feeling invalidated – worthless. I was working part-time but fairly steadily and every day that I went to work I put a smile on my face and I dealt with customers and the public the same way I always had – the only difference being that I was now running on autopilot. I was robotic on the outside. I spoke to the kids if they spoke to me. My husband and I were fighting over several things at the time and if we weren’t, I continued on auto. Days where I was not working, I sat on my couch in the living room, not really doing anything but the basics, and even then I couldn’t always complete the simple things. I was severely depressed, which lead to a lack of energy, which lead to further depression, which lead to a lack of ambition, which lead to further depression, which lead to feeling of disgust, hatred and inadequacy. It was an endless cycle that with each round became darker and darker.

I remember it being early October, the leaves just beginning to change as I sat on the stairs by my front door, still in pajamas as I watched the kids leave for school; the bus pick them up at the end of the driveway and I simply sat there, unable to get up, to move to do anything. Tears sprang to my eyes and before long I was crying uncontrollably and for the first time in a long time I felt that I couldn’t go on. I couldn’t keep doing life.

I was completely crippled with anxiety – whenever I had to go anywhere or do anything, make a decision of any kind, I would have panic attacks and experienced heightened and uncontrollable fear. I couldn’t use the phone and I certainly wouldn’t go out of my way to try and build friendships or a support system within the community that I was brand new to. My thinking became distorted early on; every move that anyone made became a mode for them to control me, to isolate me further. I looked around me and saw that my family was happy – the only people who I regularly interacted with and I wondered what was wrong with me. Why couldn’t I be happy, why didn’t I have energy, why was I so worthless, why should I keep pulling them down with me? How could I go on, when every day was a struggle – when panic attacks controlled my life, when I felt that the world would go on if I could just escape it.

And so, on that day in early October I began to fantasize about dying; but I still continued to live. I still went through life robotically, working and running the kids around, and fighting with my husband. I experienced extreme anxiety that would grip me at all times of the day or night, disrupting my sleep patterns and causing a sense of paranoia to begin. The depression got deeper – everyone around me was happy, making plans for fall and then Christmas; life was happening and I was being dragged along unwillingly. And then I crashed. A fight with my husband was my snapping point. I left home. I was angry and bitter and most of all in extreme emotional pain. It hurt immensely to see everyone around me smiling and laughing and living the way that I felt I would never be able to do. The pain became physical, making me sick and weighing me down. I slept in my car in a parking lot one night, texting my husband and telling him that I was done, I couldn’t do this anymore – I meant life. 

The next morning I went home, I couldn’t do it – I was terrified not of dying, but of failing. I got changed and went to work that day. When I left work I again didn’t go home, my husband knew I wasn’t well, he and I texted – him trying to get me to go somewhere safe (home, the hospital, anywhere that I was with people and wouldn’t hurt myself). I refused. He called the police. I tried to sleep in my car that night when I finally couldn’t stay awake any longer – I was already determined that I couldn’t keep living, but again – I was terrified that I would fail and that I would be taken away, locked up in a mental institution for life. I had a razor blade in my hand and I had already taken a few pills I shouldn’t have taken when the police banged on the window. We had a short conversation and despite my worrisome text messages to my husband, they let me go as long as I went either to a woman’s shelter or a hotel. I chose the hotel, staying there all night, awake – my paranoia now out in full strength as I envisioned them circling the lot, keeping an eye on me. I believed that they were out to stop me and that my husband and others wanted to control me, keep me trapped and isolated when all I wanted to do was end the pain and the suffering I was experiencing.

The next day was November 6^th and I was set on my path, completely convinced that it was the only way that things were going to get better. It wasn’t an instant decision. It was something I had thought about and envisioned for weeks and could only see the positives of, that I was convinced was the absolute and only way to end the pain I felt. When I arrived at the waterfall, I felt peace and comfort and I was resolute. I was ready.

I can’t speak for others, but I can speak for myself when I say that suicide is not a selfish decision, not something that is decided on a whim and taken lightly by the person in crisis. For me it was something that I agonised over, fighting as long as I could before giving in and letting the decision happen. It was terrifying and sad, peaceful and confusing, angry and frustrating coming to my low point. I envisioned it and chastised myself, tried to listen to logic and find reasons to live but heard only twisted truths and outright lies, my own mind working against me. It was a long and exhausting path and by the time I looked down at the water and the rocks, I simply just wanted it all to end.

Talk truth, listen openly, reach out, give hope, and find reason. It sounds easy enough, but those are the things I needed in the days, weeks and months leading to my decision, and yet I could not find them anywhere.

I don’t have a problem with people who don’t understand; but it’s just one more reason why I’ve felt the need to share my story, my feelings and my experiences. It's about stopping stigma, breeding empathy and understanding, and learning to give hope. It's about giving even one person something to grasp onto when they are in the throes of despair, sinking and about to give up. 

Life gets better... sometimes it takes time. Hold on, keep your head above water, and grasp someone's hand. You are worth it.

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Setbacks

It's been a tough week.
I take medication for bipolar disorder. The specific medication that I take is a mood stabilizer with an anti-depressant effect. Now this doesn't mean that I'm an emotional robot. Thankfully the medical world has come a long way from the days where people with mental health disorders were given medication that turned them into zombies. However, it does mean that sometimes things can still trigger us, even medicated. The difference is an ability to spot our mood changes, to watch for those changes and the ability to act on it before it becomes a crisis.
Last weekend I spent 24 hours in the hospital.
Triggers - things that we can't control but which have an effect on our mood - can still hit us and I was hit hard. My mood slipped down into a depression. Watching it closely my husband and I monitored it, waiting patiently, for it to come back up to a level place.
It didn't.
And so I (with my husband) made the decision to go in and get checked out at the local emergency room to make sure my medications were still working and to ensure that I was safe.
My meds were checked, some additional community supports were arranged, and now I'm home,
Why Am I telling this story?
Because it's real. Because this is a daily, weekly, or monthly struggle for so many people living with mental illness and I know that I am not alone.
Because I hated how I felt and I know that it is incredibly difficult to talk about or open up about it. And I know that I am not the only one who has been faced with making the decision to return to a hospital, a place that in itself can be a major trigger.
Because I know that it's normal to have ups and downs when you are in recovery/post crisis mode and I want to wash away the shame and embarrassment that clings to me at the thought of even mentioning where I've been and why.
Because I want to pull myself out of the pit of depression and I find it helpful to write about my experiences, my thoughts, and my emotions.
I don't want to be bipolar. But I am and it is okay to be me.

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