WELCOME VYLA! And a great first post may I say. How long have you been lurking or did you just jump straight in as soon as you found us?
Crumpet
JoinedPosts by Crumpet
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91
My Brother Died in a Car Wreck Last Night
by WLG ini just found out about an hour ago.
he wasn't even old enough to drink yet.. to make it even sh*ttier, he had called me a few weeks ago and asked if he could come out here with me but i couldn't do it at the time.
so of course the first thing that comes to mind is if i had done something different it wouldn't have happened.. he was going through the sh*t as i call it, when witnesses go off the deep end and get into everything in the world to stop hurting and they don't even know what is wrong.
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Crumpet
Donny I am so sorry. Words elude me. I havent seen my sisters for many years but I know its going to hurt bad if I hear one of them has gone. How doubly worse to lose one who's life has hardly even started.
I'll be thinking of you.
(((WLG)))
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Crumpet
FACT:
A disproportionate number of those who are homeless have severe mental illnesses, particularly schizophrenia.
Many self-medicate with drugs and alcohol.Exactly and so who am I to judge. I always give money if I have any because it could so easily be me one day.
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133
Mental Illness - diagnosed for me
by Crumpet ini've long known, and most of you probably have as well, that there was something not all there with me.
mostly i put it down to me being bad.
questions i've never been asked before.
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Crumpet
One more thing Tyrone - it wasnt me who noticed you were gone (well I did but hadnt gotten around to saying anything) it was someone else here who posted wondering if you were okay and asking if anyone had heard. Okay. So thats two people who care.
over and out, Columbo.
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133
Mental Illness - diagnosed for me
by Crumpet ini've long known, and most of you probably have as well, that there was something not all there with me.
mostly i put it down to me being bad.
questions i've never been asked before.
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Crumpet
Right I have to go out so I cant respond to all the new and interesting and heartfelt posts but very quickly I couldnt go without responding to you Mr Tyrone.
Deep down I just have this beleif that no one really cares or that someone else has had a harder time, or that I'm just trying to get attention. You wouldn't beleive my bio.
a) I am really sorry that sometimes you feel your posts get ignored. I think this happens to a lot of people. It was another of my reasons in stopping posting for a while. I felt I was hogging a lot of attention and it felt unfair to others who have equally and much worse problems, much funnier insights on life than I do and are altogether more worthy of a response. I took to just posting on the threads that I felt were special and deserved flagging up ie like Roller Daves, but my impulse just to post on the sex threads gets the better of my nobler values!
b) I can relate to what you said about just trying to get attention. Maybe this is a symptom of our mental disorder. I dont know yet. But yeah I didnt want help because I felt I was just attention seeking and that my behaviour was made up...if that makes sense. More often that not when I do things its like I am a director and not me. I am outside myself. So I will say now is a good time to stab or cut yourself Nina. Now is a good time to fall on the floor and pass out. I don't feel its me or an emotion from with in - its the Nina on the outside.
c) We have spoken. You told me a lot of stuff and I do think about you and feel for you. If I didnt care please explain why I emailed you to see if you were okay and ask how your carving was going? Okay so there may not be throngs who care. But there is a mad girl in the UK who does. So just quit whining already and be satisfied!
(((Tyrone)))
Okay please do continue - I will read everything when I get back or there if I take my laptop ---- thats a good idea. Right have a train to catch, byew all - sweetpea - just replied to your PM you adorable girl. Middlechild - what can I say, you blow me away sometimes. You really have amazing strength of mind....oh lord I want to reply to Jgnat and V - the new poster but I have to run. xxxx
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133
Mental Illness - diagnosed for me
by Crumpet ini've long known, and most of you probably have as well, that there was something not all there with me.
mostly i put it down to me being bad.
questions i've never been asked before.
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Crumpet
Thank you RAF so sweet. Ninja - so funny as usual. Your wife's life must be hell or do you just take it all out on us! ;-)
Tyrone - I hope I dont experience the murderous side - that could be really bad. Next time my thread will read first female serial killer since Aileen rampages Britain! Argghh! I;d love to hear any of your experiences - please share - this thread is about the illness, and the reason I am sharing DESPITE THE FACT I AM A BIT SCARED NO NONE OF YOU WILL WANT TO MEET ME AGAIN is that I want to explain my absences from here, and what I am doing about it as well as to get other people's experiences and what has worked for them or those they love.
Coco you do write beautifully and I am glad you have that crfeative side. Quietlyleaving the highs are amazing, but I hadnt actually considered that other people dont have these...I thought its just one of those things we dont discuss. Harnesing its is exactly what I wamt to do.
Sweetpea - I agree as soon as she said this I thought of Stephen Fry. You know what I watched that whole series avidly and sat their nodding yes, yes, yes, yes and then but ah I'm not a genius like Stephen Fry ( a man I have always wanted to meet, but wouldnt on account of feeling too stupid) so I therefore my magnificent powers of deduction concluded I didnt have anything wrong.
Hellrider - so when did you start noticing any kind of oddness or disparities that led you to seek help. And how come it took 10 years. The reason I have never been diagnosed is that I conceal my problems quite well most of the time, ie by not associating with work colleagues, by saying something else is physically wrong when episodes strike and quite honestly I do the physical symptoms do occur anyway so I dwell on them to explain my absence rather than the mental strain. I didnt ask for help because I wasnt ready to accept I needed it. Even now I find it quite hard to think about accepting the help or if I really qualify or deserve it. Its very hard to get my head round it.
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1320
YOUR DAILY JOURNAL
by compound complex indear friends,.
much of what we do on a daily basis is routine and of no particular, earth-shaking importance.
however, after reviewing letters of family going back to wwii, it is fascinating to read what dad was doing on board the aircraft carrier in the pacific on any old day, what mom was cooking on her ever-steaming range, how i was dealing with the roller coaster of emotion at bethel [mom saved all my letters], how nana wrote that she would not study with the witnesses [per my request] but 'here are some mittens i knitted for you when you canvass new york with your magazines.
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Crumpet
What work do you do that has you up at such extraordinary hours coco?
This morning I woke to two of my dearest and oldest friends dead. And the other one very sick. The floods of two weeks ago contaminated our water supply and whilst I eventually found out and stopped drinking it myself i forgot that it could be harmful to animals, in particular goldfish. So last weekend I changed the water in the tank. And then by tuesday they had stopped eating and were looking very unenthusastic about life. It wasnt til yesterday I realised it was probably the water. But I didnt have time to take action because of work. And this morning Ant and Dec were dead and belly up. I've never had to deal with dead pets before. It seems such a crime, they were both over 8 years old and have moved house with me three times. I took the healthiest of them out last night, Cat, and she is in a quarantine bowl which I filled with bottled and filtered water. She went belly up but by this morning she looks so much better and is feeding. Now I have to completely clean out the stinking tank, think about writing to the water board to complain but then what can they do?
And I have to ponder the irony of this morning receiving my only piece of mail. Inviting me to have a goldfish credit card!! Sick!
I feel really sad, even though they were only fish and responsible. And last night I dreamt that they werent sick but pregnant and I woke up in the morning to dozens of little tropical fish (my dreams ignore the usual boundaries of specious relations and genetical possiblities) in rainbow colours (take note Terry I was dreaming in clear colours). I leapt out of bed hoping it was true and was confronted by the disappointing reality. Sucks! I hate things dying.
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Crumpet
Ummm and how old is your son Jwdaughter? Please say you had him very young!!! LOL!
BFD - Niagara Falls blew me away. I literally broke down on the Maid in the Mist which was embarassing - I had to go stand at the back alone while I soaked up the spray, drowned in the sound (I loved the way you couldnt hear anything else not even your own thoughts anymore) and sobbed my heart out. I had to do it again the next morning.
I think gentleness in a man is a major turn on - because it turns my brain on first and then my body. Turn my brain on first and you will get a much longer run out of me. Anyone can turn my body on. Even furniture, so its not so a big deal. It takes a great strategist to be able to turn me off. Or medication.
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133
Mental Illness - diagnosed for me
by Crumpet ini've long known, and most of you probably have as well, that there was something not all there with me.
mostly i put it down to me being bad.
questions i've never been asked before.
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Crumpet
Thank you (((free2think))), Timbo, fifi, blondie for your lovely generous PM, and the rest of your Tyrone and Stealth can rot in hell for all I care!
Just kidding - I love you boys too! See I havent lost my wicked sense of humour and flip and naughty is always fine with me! Out of cuirosity Tyrone who is on your hitlist and did you ever get the email I sent you last week? Is it a symptom of bi polar to ignore emails?? LOL!
Its very tempting to blame everything on being mad, but I shall try not to except in jest.
Rebel 8 - my mother who I do love dearly still definitely exhibited interesting similarities, nothing as extreme as me, but nevertheless she would blow very hot and cold and could get extremely angry at a a bewildering pace for us kids and we never knew why. I've always had the massive mood swings. I can be ecstatically euphorically happy one minute and looking for a train to slip under the next, which is scary because I DO NOT WANT to die. I can't stress that enough, but sometimes I really really want to stop and I take tremedous risks with my safety and health at times which are well there is no two ways about it - abnormal. I've been extremely lucky that 9 times out of 10 I meet kind compassionate people when I am in these manic episodes who dont use the situation to harm me. And then there is the 1 in 10 where I dont always come out unscathed.
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133
Mental Illness - diagnosed for me
by Crumpet ini've long known, and most of you probably have as well, that there was something not all there with me.
mostly i put it down to me being bad.
questions i've never been asked before.
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Crumpet
I've long known, and most of you probably have as well, that there was something not all there with me. Mostly I put it down to me being bad. I was always told my behaviour was bad as a child and innately that was something that settled with me as a certainty. Various people, friends, lovers, their family have begged me to get help, but I said no. My reason, I didn't feel I deserved it and that taking myself somewhere to chat about my favourite subject for an hour every week would be like treating myself for my bad behaviour.
So what changed?
Well a lot has to do with this board and the people I have met here. I've met people in the last couple of years at the fests and established a number of very precious online friendships that have made me realise that there is another side. I am NOT all bad. That there are actually likeable qualities too and good ones. I've taken great pride and pleasure in sharing my experiences - the good, the bad, the ugly and the downright dirty and been so touched when they helped people in any way. Just as many many experiences have helped me here. But I felt a few weeks ago I had come to an impasse. I have reached as far as I can go on my own. And I felt fradulent for dishing out advice any further because basically my life is falling apart. Lets see this year - I lost my lover of 9 years, I lost my home of 6 years, and right now my job is very tenuous because I have been so depressed I havent been able to leave the house for weeks at a time. I am trying to rescue this situation before I end up homeless because that IS what will happen and I will just be a sad statistic. With the support of some special friends here I decided to ask for help as a last resort.
I told my doctor the story (which some of you probably read on my myspace blog and breathed a sigh of relief) about a month ago and got an immediate referral. My first appointment at the Psychological Unit happened on Thursday just gone. For the first half an hour the counsellor took notes on what my history was so I told her about the cult, the shunning, the suicide attempts, the rape, the self harm, the domestic abuse. Then she started to ask me questions. Questions I've never been asked before. And that had a sharp resonance with me. She asked do I get high? I said yes, manically so. And she asked what I see and feel during these episodes and how often the recurr. So I explained how the air becomes electric, colours become sharper but overlaid with blue and green, I feel like I can read people's minds in the street, I sometimes believe I can fly like I do in my dreams and I physically become lighter, I process thoughts and words and speech at aggressive speed and become extremely impatient at the slightest hold up, and inside I fizz and become extremely aroused. I never actually put any of this into words before. I didn't really think it to be that different from other people's experiences of life. I don't really know what triggers this - apart from stress, good stress and bad stress. But the high becomes exhausting and frightening after a while and so sometimes I drink or over eat to damp it down because I can't cope with it and there is no outlet. I can go nights with no sleep or very little sleep and days without eating because I dont need to and I write pages (probably of nonsense) in my diaries and feel superbly creative. Its a fantastic feeling but it also gets overwhelming. Hence the self-medication.
So at the end of her questions and my responses she said have you ever heard of Bi-polar disorder. Well of course I have, but I didnt know much about it and have to admit half of me just thought it was an excuse for selfish behaviour. Shows what I know. She explained that everything I described as being an experience of my whole life, the fact that I couldnt smile as a child for very long periods to the annoyance of my parents and the long depressions where I cant talk to anyone at all and just go into lock down mode as I have been doing for a few weeks now and the mania which happens at least every two weeks , more usually once a week and sometimes several times in a day are all strong symptoms of a chemical imbalance in the brain which can be regulated and moderated through medication. Now I shied away at that. From the outset I didnt want to take drugs. I really really dont. It makes me feel scared just thinking about it. I wont be the same person. And part of me loves the highs despite the lows. When I am low I know after three decades of this that they will be followed by a plateau - a normal period and then another high.
So I have to have another appointment with a medical doctor where we will discuss medication. If it helps me keep my job and keep a roof over my head then I have to do it. Part of me feels still there is some stigma to this. The other part feels kind of proud because of the last thing she said to me. That she was amazed and that I should feel proud because I have managed this long by myself, held down jobs and some relationships of length and that takes strength since many with this illness dont manage to function very well at all.
Thanks if you read this far down., If you didn't, NAUGHTY!
Thank you to everyone who has checked on me, posted little things about me which have brought a smile and a tear more often than you know when I was in my withdrawal phase. I had no idea that my constant withdrawals from society, which began very young and I would maintain a word limit of a 100 a day in public to be perverse, to today where I have to cancel going to social events because I am worried I wont be able to behave and that I will embarass myself and piss off my hosts - all are symptoms of this illness. Special thanks to Hemp Lover for persevering with me, Timbo Hooper for unfailingly checking I am still alive and making me eat and leave the house when I've been just at the very end of all my resources and encouraging me to ask for the help I need, and to Middlechild and hubby for giving me a little project to distract me and setting me an example which really helped me do this.
After my appointment yesterday and after a HR interview about my absences from work and being asked what Bipolar was and not actually knowing I looked it up. I was just startled by how many boxes it ticked. I could have cried that I didnt know any of this before.
During a manic phase, you may feel extremely happy and have lots of ambitious plans and ideas. You may also spend large amounts of money on things that you cannot afford. Not feeling like eating or sleeping, talking quickly, and becoming annoyed easily, are also quite common. You may be very creative, and feel that mania is an extremely positive experience. However, during a manic phase, you may also have symptoms of psychosis, where you see or hear things that are not there
The main symptoms of bipolar disorder are mood swings. The mood swings range from extreme happiness (mania) to extreme sadness (depression). The episodes of mania and depression can last several weeks or more. Some people with the condition can swing from highs to lows quickly, without having a normal period in between. This is called rapid cycling.
In the depressive (low) phase symptoms may include:
- feeling sad and hopeless,
- lack of energy,
- finding it difficult to concentrate and remember things,
- loss of interest in everyday activities,
- feelings of emptiness or worthlessness,
- feelings of guilt and despair,
- feeling pessimistic about everything,
- self-doubt,
- difficulty sleeping and waking up early, and
- suicidal thoughts.
The manic (high) phase usually comes after 2-4 periods of depression and may include:
- feeling extremely happy, elated or euphoric,
- talking very quickly,
- feeling full of energy,
- feeling full of self-importance,
- feeling full of great new ideas and having important plans,
- being easily distracted,
- being easily irritated or agitated,
- not sleeping,
- not eating, and
- doing lots of pleasurable things which often have disastrous consequences e.g. spending a lot of money which you cannot afford.
It you have bipolar disorder, you may be unaware that you are having a manic phase and, after it is over, you may be shocked at your behaviour. However, at the time, you may think others are being very negative or unhelpful.
Some people with bipolar disorder have more frequent and severe episodes than others. Due to the extreme nature of the condition, it may be difficult to hold down a job and relationships may become strained. There is also an increased risk of suicide.
During episodes of mania and depression, you may experience strange sensations, such as seeing, hearing or smelling things that are not there (hallucinations). You may also believe things that seem irrational to other people (delusions). This is known as psychosis or a psychotic episode
So there we go its official. I am a mentalist.