Reaching Outside of Yourself Part 1

If you are disabled due to mental illness, do you ever feel like you just can’t win, like you are unable to work but staying home makes your symptoms worse? If you are like me, this is one of your daily struggles. You’ve been told you cannot work, at least for now. You have all this time to create, but you feel out of it. What can you do to get back into the swing of things?

I felt this way a lot and felt like I was no longer part of the world. People always ask when they meet someone new, “So what do you do?” I never knew how to answer that question. I couldn’t say I was a stay-at-home mother because I had no children. I couldn’t say I worked even part time because I did not. I didn’t want to pour out my sad tale on every soul who asked that question because I didn’t wear my illness on my sleeve. I didn’t want to just say I was unemployed because I didn’t want people thinking I was a lazy person who just sat at home living off of my husband. I asked so many therapists how to handle that question and never got a satisfactory answer.

Then it occurred to me that maybe I didn’t need to find out how to answer it. Maybe I needed to make an answer to it. My doctor was adamant about my not going back to work, but perhaps there was another solution.

After failed attempts at working again against doctor’s orders, I finally remembered that I had been a part of a service sorority in college. Maybe something I could do would be to help someone else. But the question remained: what was I capable of?

I know not all of you attend church and I am not going to say you should, but that is where I started. I looked for opportunities to do small things at the church. When we collected items for a charity or made kits for relief efforts, I took the time to make kits and purchase things. These were inexpensive and easy to do. I also made meals for people who had just had a loss or a surgery or were going through chemo. I sent cards to people going through a rough time who needed prayers. Then I sang with the band and started serving on committees. I eventually became a co-coordinator for two seasons of our Operation Christmas Child efforts and became a council member.

Being involved really made a difference. It was easier to motivate myself when I knew others were depending on me. It also got me to think about someone else other than me. I was able to get outside of myself and the little world I was living in. Plus, most of these things didn’t create an unneeded stress that would only serve to make my symptoms worse.

I highly recommend getting involved in your community. Put together a meal for a neighbor in need. Buy a few extra items for your local food pantry when you are shopping. I promise you it feels good to help someone else in any small way you can. It was one of the first external steps I took to feeling better.

You can rebuild your life again. I am still working on mine, but as you saw last week, I have made a lot of progress on that front. There is life with mental illness. You just have to find what works for you. I can tell you that if you work at it, you will be rewarded with success in time. It is not immediate gratification, but it does exist.

So, stay on your meds, talk to your professionals about volunteer work, and see what you can do for someone else. It may not seem like a creative assignment, but it seriously helps with creativity when you learn about someone else’s story. Stories are useful for art. Plus, when that dreaded question is asked, you have an interesting reply to it. Until next week, when I will continue this post, be psyched!

So What Makes Me So Smart?

I ask this very tongue in cheek.  You may be wondering by now what I have accomplished that makes me an authoritative voice for getting out of a psychotropic med-induced haze. While my biggest accomplishments have happened within the last year or so, there were many smaller accomplishments along the way that led up to this point. Let me begin by telling you a bit about the last year.

 December 2012—I started my first blog, A Lady’s Tales. This was meant to be a fun way for me to convey little things in my life, particularly funny ones, to family and friends. I tell stories about cats, children, family members, and even stories I make up in a creative, fun format.

 March 2013—I had the inspiration to start this blog to help people with mental illness maintain creativity.

 April-June 2013—My husband lost his job, we moved, and my husband found a new job over 2 months later. This was a tumultuous time for me. Yes, I definitely had symptoms. All blogging was put on hold as my husband and I dealt with these changes. We had the opportunity to move closer to my siblings and their families and took it. I was up and down, mostly manic. My anger and irritability were through the roof for months. It took awhile to recuperate. It was a major setback. Moving meant finding new professionals, too. Everything had changed.

 September 2013—I began volunteer work, something I had been longing to do. I didn’t want just any volunteer job, however. I required something where I felt vital to the organization. I didn’t want to just stuff envelopes. I found a position in the baby room of our Special Learning Center. Many of these babies have special needs, something I have experience helping with. I feel needed, wanted, vital. I know if I don’t show up it is a difficult day for the people who work in that room. An extra pair of hands is needed.

 October 2013—I applied for a part time job at our local library in the adult circulation department. When granted an interview, it was the first I had in a decade. I needed to brush up on my skills ahead of time.

 November 2013—Began the National Novel Writing Month Challenge (NaNoWriMo) of writing 50,000 words in 30 days. I spent a month and a half during September and October preparing for this. I also began my job at the library on the 21^st of this month. I finished the challenge and still work at the library. I kept my volunteer job as well.

 December 2013—I celebrated 4 years of being hospital-free!

 January 2014—I restarted my blog and have developed an interest in completing flash fiction challenges. Also have started work on two other potential novel ideas.

 As you can see, lots of change, which the borderline side of me resists greatly, even if the changes are good. I have my down moments as well as my moments of feeling overwhelmed, all of which are discussed with my new therapist. I ended up going back to my old doctor. I have to drive 1 ½ hours for my appointments, but she is worth it. I was fortunate to find a therapist with a style similar to my former therapist’s.

 Some of the smaller changes that helped me get here:

 1.) Realization that my illness was not the reason I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was the reason because I was not working hard enough. I was content to wallow in self-pity.

2.) Allowing myself to accept help from others.

3.) Talking to a professional about problems with libido and finding new ways of intimacy with my husband. This boosted my confidence and sense of self as a woman.

4.) Realizing I was not the center of the universe, nor was I the darkest corner of it. I needed to develop a sense of community. Attending craft groups helped with this.

5.) Stabilizing enough to reduce my medication with the help of my psychiatrist.

6.) Learning to manage my symptoms more effectively through therapy.

7.) Developing a desire to help others again. I used to always be a helping type of person and had become rather self-absorbed.

8.) Beginning to see positive things about myself. I had no self-esteem after years of feeling beaten down. I had to raise myself up a bit and it really helped.

 Things I am still working on:

 1.) Learning to not be hard on myself when things don’t go as planned. No one ever has everything go as planned.

2.) Not taking the bad days of other people personally and letting others vent.

3.) Writing about what I am interested in rather than what my husband would be interested in.

4.) Learning what my interests are. I don’t even know what to read anymore since everything I have read has been for class or research. I have absorbed a lot of my husband’s interests in an attempt to spend more time with him. I need to figure out what I want for myself.

5.) Still working more on seeing myself in a positive light. It takes years to undo a lifetime of negative self-esteem.

 These are things outlined by me, not my professionals, though I share these things with them. This is where I have been and where I feel I need to go therapeutically. Life is not perfect. It never will be. It will always be a work in progress. The other thing I need to work on is to enjoy what is good and positive and stop living in fear of the other shoe dropping. As my therapist put it, when we are depressed we don’t go around saying, “Oh, no! What if I get happy again?”

 Being creative again was a result of all of this other stuff happening: the good, the bad, the uncertain all played a role. You can get to a point where you surpass me, where you are published or have your work in a gallery or are creating every day. I still don’t create every day, but I am working on it. I am taking the steps to get there and I have come a long way. I used to not create all. Now I create several days a week. I will keep working to outline the steps I used to get there so you don’t have to waste as much time as I did.

 Keep coloring the mandalas or design your own. Take some of the steps I outlined above for your own personal wellness if they apply to you. Keep the lines of communication open with your professionals. As always, contact me if you have questions, comments, or stories to share. Until next week, CREATE!   

Understanding and Participating in Treatment Part 2

This post is a continuation of the post from last Thursday.

Encourage Communication

If I am having a serious episode, I will often request that my psychiatrist and therapist consult with one another on the best course of action. It is helpful if all of you can be in agreement as to what would work best in a crisis. If your clinicians are in different practices, you will need to sign a release for this to happen. I sign one each year for them to keep on file just in case.

In between episodes, I give an honest account of my appointments to each clinician. In other words, I tell my therapist about psychiatry appointments and vice versa. Being a good communicator is another way of building that trust that you want.

Another Word on Honesty

I can’t stress honesty enough. If you want the best care available you have to be willing to be an open book. Treatment works so much better when you aren’t knowingly withholding anything. If they ask a question you don’t know the answer to, be honest and tell them you really don’t know. Don’t try to make things up to please them.

Know Thyself

The last point I want to make is that no one knows what you are thinking and feeling better than you do. Sometimes it is hard to put those things into words, but do the best you can. The better you know yourself, the more effectively you can communicate with caregivers.

Not every emotion you feel is a symptom—remember that. Even “normal” people get angry, sad, joyous, and anxious at times. I spent a lot of years blaming every little thing on my illness when some of the things were actually normal.

I have started to pay more attention to the extremes or how difficult it is to get the extreme under control. I also pay attention to how long emotions last because the ones that last longest are often more indicative of an episode for me.

I am still learning what is “normal” for me and that is something that looks different for everyone. Over time, you will start to learn your “normal” too.

The Result of Building Trust

Since I have spent time developing a relationship with my clinicians based on trust and honesty, I now make a lot of my own decisions. When I need to change medications (which is usually decided by me), my doctor tries to give me 2-3 options. We weigh the positive and negative effects of each, as well as how I have responded to meds in that class before. In the end, the decision is mine.

Hospitalizations are another thing I decide on my own, but I am honest about when I don’t feel safe being at home by myself or even with my husband, something that is very important to establish. My doctor knows that if I call her and tell her I need to go to the hospital, I am not crying wolf, trying to get attention, or any of the other negative responses. She trusts that I have assessed my symptoms adequately enough to make this decision.

Lastly, I also decide which therapies are effective. I have learned that I don’t do well in a group setting, so I choose an individual therapist and she gives me extra appointments when I am struggling. Be willing to try anything, though. Otherwise, you don’t know what works and what doesn’t. I also know I respond best to Rational Emotive Therapy as opposed to Cognitive Behavioral or Dialectical but that is because I have tried all three.

Trust is not a one way street—you have to be able to trust and rely on your providers, but they also need to be able to trust and rely on you. Many people forget about the second part of that.

If you would rather share privately, please contact me at psychedtowrite@gmail.com tell me your story. Be psyched to write!

–Marsha 

Understanding and Participating in Treatment

     If you have tried or are currently trying treatment for mental illness, have you ever felt like a guinea pig? Do you feel like you no longer control your own life and decisions are made for you? Do you feel drugged? Do all of your choices seem unacceptable?
     I felt all of those things when I first began treatment. First, I was given labels and I really didn’t understand what they meant. Second, I was taking medications and didn’t know their side effects or even what the good effects could be.
     I felt like the doctor had all the control and I was just an experiment. I went three years feeling like this, so one of the earliest things I did to help my situation was decide to be in charge of my treatment.
Being in charge is not a power trip or a way to manipulate your clinicians. It is a way to form a relationship with them. Building trust is an essential way to make sure you get to remain in charge of your treatment.

Education

     The first thing I did was read about my diagnoses. The internet wasn’t as savvy and informational then as it is now, so I went to the library and got books. I read about the illnesses and their treatment options. I heard so many words and terms thrown around when I was in the hospital that I wanted to find out what they meant. I also not only read about medications, but I explored the different therapeutic responses to my illnesses. Here are some of the steps I followed:

Responsibility

     I made a vow. I promised to be completely and totally honest with all of my clinicians about everything—side effects, positive effects, symptoms, triggers, thoughts, and psychiatric history. I knew I needed to prove I was ready to be in charge of my care and what builds trust better than honesty?
     In exchange for my honesty, I wanted theirs which meant I needed to ask questions about new treatments if and when they were prescribed. Most doctors will work with you on affordability and side effect issues if you let them know about the problem(s).
Understanding
     After doing all of my reading, I understood that medication and treatment is trial and error for all involved, not just the patients. Doctors are still learning about all of the effects of medication and therapy and much is still unknown about the human brain.
Once I understood that, it was easier for me to be open to experimentation with treatment. Through my reading, I had learned the following: a.) I wouldn’t be better overnight; b.) the first several meds probably wouldn’t work out; c.) just because a friend had a bad reaction to a med didn’t mean I would. Body chemistry is different for each individual.

Keeping Records

     Because I have taken so many different types of meds over the years, I began to keep track of which ones I have tried and what their positive and negative effects have been. Some meds I can’t ever take again and others might work again in the future. I don’t want to confuse which is which.
     I also made a psych history, which is a record of hospitalizations, major psych episodes, and events that may have caused problems such as the death of loved ones or moving to a new city. This information is helpful whenever I go to see a new clinician or have to be hospitalized. I can’t remember all 26 hospitalizations or where they were because I have moved a lot during my adult life, so keeping a record is good. I sit down every few months and add any changes to it.
     I also keep it records where my husband can find them in case I am unable to get the information on my own for any reason. I make a printed copy for each new clinician as well. The Dropbox app is really great for friend/family access because you can see files from any of your devices and so can your family.
     Keep an ongoing list in between appointments of items to discuss with your clinicians. I have one for each clinician and if I don’t write things down, I forget about them until it is too late to mention them. Observe any symptoms, triggers, side effects or just anything you might know or remember that could help with your treatment. The more information you provide, the better your treatment outcome will be.
     Tune into the blog next week where this post will be continued. I will discuss communication issues, knowing yourself, honesty (again because it is so important), and what the result of building trust with clinicians looks like. Then we will wrap up this topic. Feel free to ask any questions you might have. You can leave a comment or email me at psychedtowrite@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you. If you answered yes to any of the questions at the beginning of this post, feel free to post your story or email it to me. Until next week, Be Psyched to Write!

Marsha Holtgrewe-Posz

 

Setting Your 2014 Goals

     Goals and resolutions can be tricky things this time of year. What is the difference between the two anyway? I tend to think of resolutions as “big” things to accomplish and usually, they are also nearly impossible. How often have you actually achieved a resolution you have set for yourself? I think of goals as smaller, more doable things you can accomplish. Goals don’t necessarily take the whole year. You don’t have to work on each goal every day like you might with resolutions. Goals are achievable. Resolutions are generally given up by the end of the first month. People often make resolutions to lose weight or get organized but don’t have adequate plans for carrying those things through to the end. Goals have a plan attached to them and are more manageable. A goal can be to clean out and organize your closets. It is something you can tackle a little at a time.

     I have set some goals for myself in 2014. Some of them are loftier, others are shorter. I think it is important to have a mix of the two. Achieving short-term goals keeps you motivated for the long-term goals. So here are some of my short-term goals:

 1.) Get my blog up and running. I have already achieved this goal by getting it set up again and starting to blog.

 2.) Acquire and maintain a small group of regular readers, say maybe 20-30. Again, this is a smaller goal and one that is doable. I am not looking for thousands of readers—just a handful.

 3.) Finish three of my knitting works in progress (WIPs). I have three projects that have been on needles for the last year that I would really like to finish up. I have a couple of other projects that have been on needles longer, but I am going to start with these three and then see where that takes me.

 4.) Make a scrapbook of my niece, Adrian’s, first year by next Christmas as a gift to her parents. The last time I had scrapbooks to make, I didn’t get them done on time. This time, I would like to accomplish getting the book done in time to give it as a Christmas gift.

 5.) Lose 13 pounds and then maintain my weight. I gained 13 pounds in 2013 and I would like to lose the little I gained. Note I am not asking myself to lose 50 or 100 lbs. I just want to get back to where I was at the beginning of 2013. This is more achievable. If I want to lose more weight later, I can revise my goals.

 Here are some of my longer-term goals:

 1.) I want to redraft my novel that I wrote for National Novel Writing Month in November 2013. Note that I am not asking myself to finish it, but I want to redraft it at least once. This will have several steps. A.) I will need to reread what I have already written in one sitting and take notes for redrafting. This is not the time to nitpick on grammar and typos. That will come in the editing process. B.) I need to break what I have written into chapters and put it into Scrivener. C.) I need to add more details and make sure the storyline flows. This entire goal will take some time, but it is achievable to re-draft once in a year. If I happen to do more, hooray for me, but I am not pressuring myself the finish the whole thing. I can re-evaluate this goal later if I need to.

 2.) I would like to learn the Scrivener software. I have bought a book in order to help me do this. I want to be able to use it’s features to the best of my ability but that doesn’t necessarily mean I am pressuring myself to be an expert in the program. The software is new for me. I just want to be adequate at using it.

 3.) I want to maintain my part-time job through 2014. I acquired this job just a couple of months ago. It is the first job I have had in 7 years. Rather than just say I want to go full time, I plan to remain at this job on a part-time basis for two reasons. 1.) I want to make sure I can do it. 2.) I want to still have time for writing. Going full time would make that more difficult

      I think three long-term goals is plenty and I may add short-term goals throughout the year. I am just starting with five.

      If you have been in talk therapy, your therapist may have already had you set goals for therapy. But what about you? What do YOU want by the end of 2014? You may need to take some time to think about this. Yes, you probably want to feel better, but rather than set that as a goal, how about setting goals that help you achieve that. For example, you might try making sure you take your meds, every dose every day for 3 months. Or maybe you can set a goal of doing something creative, even if it is just coloring, 2 days per week. Make sure it is doable so that you don’t set yourself up for failure.

      Just because we are nearly 2 weeks into January does not mean it is too late to set goals. You can set goals anytime you want to. I do it in the middle of the year all the time when things arise that I want to set out to finish. I have given you some examples of my goals, but what about yours?

      Feel free to share your goals with me or someone else. Use others to hold you accountable if you have trouble doing that yourself. Make sure at least one of your goals is creativity-driven. After all, that is why you are here, isn’t it? Be cautious about pressuring yourself to create every day. Set something more doable so that if you have days where it just isn’t coming to you, you haven’t failed. You have tried and will try again later when you feel better.

      I admit to not writing every day. I read or write most days, but not all of them. Despite what all the writing blogs say, I take things in my own stride and create in spurts. This is not to say I wait for the muse or other inspiration. I actually push myself some days to get through the fog, but if the fog is too great, I will read instead. I don’t work 7 days a week like they say to. I work more like 5 days and they vary depending on my work and activity schedule. It is important to hang out with friends and family, too. If that happens to be during a normal write/read time, I work around it sometimes. At others, I defend my time for writing.

      Set your goals based on your ability level at this time. If you are able to do more later, reset your goal. If you are doing less, push yourself harder for a bit, but if you still can’t, maybe you need to re-evaluate that goal. It doesn’t mean you are a failure. It just means you need to work more gradually up to that ability level. You will get there eventually.

      Please feel free to share your goals with me by sending me an email. I would love to hear from you. Please also ask questions if you need. I am very open about my own illness and recovery. Until later, create, create, create!

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Help! My Meds Stole My Mojo! Part 1

Do psych meds cause your creative juices to dry up? Psychotropic medications often get a bad rap among the individuals who take them. Not only are there the other dreaded side effects, but meds are also accused of obliterating creativity. I have often heard other patients in hospital settings remark that as soon as they return home, they will go off of their meds and get their creativity back. I used to be the same way. However, each time I would belligerently refuse my medications, I would end up back in the hospital with thoughts of ending my life. One day, I decided I would make the sacrifice—I would exchange creativity for sanity and a life with my husband and see what happened.

The First Two Blog Entries

Because I feel that this blog is laying the groundwork for a unique discussion on mental illness, taking medications, and creativity, this entry idea will be divided into 2 parts so it isn’t so much to take in at once. In Part 1, I will give you a little background about me and where I have been. In Part 2, I will tell you where I am trying to go and what I have done on my own to get my creative mojo back over the years, as well as steps you can take to do the same. This is will be the “hope” portion of the discussion.

Inner Pain

There are many things that are difficult about having one or more chronic mental illnesses, but it seems that feeling as though one has lost their creativity is one of the hardest things to overcome. Why is it such a deal breaker? Because creativity is what people suffering from mental illness have used as an outlet all their lives, a way of releasing their inner pain.

I wrote a lot of poetry in high school and college before joining a band in my early 20s and writing song lyrics. My pain and suffering found its way into my art and was a dominating theme. It is not uncommon for people with mental illness to be creative types, something which even science recognizes (I plan to explore this further in the blog’s future). Studies have been done on living people and speculation has been made about many famous deceased people. People assume that once they don’t feel as much pain, their muse has left them.

My Own Pain

• I have been mentally ill most, if not all, of my life.

• I remember hearing voices at age 6 or so. I was always sneaking up the stairs to hear what my dolls were saying about me and it was always vicious. I never heard commanding voices, but always heard voices, sometimes of people I loved, saying bad things about me.

• I remember being depressed as early as age 8. I often isolated myself from other kids on the playground and sat alone under a tree, moping about how no one liked me.

• By the time I reached my teens I can remember episodes of mania where I was bouncing off the walls, had rapid speech, and obsessed over details followed by episodes of deep despair and depression.

• In high school, my teachers became concerned about my depression and had the principal discuss this with me and my parents. I read a description of what was then called Manic-Depressive Disorder in a psychology class and felt it applied directly to me.

• In college I began to self-injure and was evicted from my dormitory for being a liability to the residential staff.

• At age 24 I was hospitalized for the first time and have had an additional 25 hospitalizations over the past 13 years, most during the first half of that time period.

• I have the labels Mixed Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder in my psychiatric medical records.

• I have been glued, stitched, and even stapled due to self-injury.

• I have made a suicide attempt.

• I have been arrested for mixing large quantities of alcohol with medication and getting out of hand.

• I have felt a keen sense of helplessness, an even greater sense of loss of self-worth, and a loss of hope for the future.

• I went through a long period of time where I had no creative outlet and rampant negative feelings. Everything in the world seemed to be against me, and I dwelled on it.

• I went off of meds numerous times for every reason I could think of, including trying to get pregnant, getting my creativity back, because they were not working, and because I thought I didn’t need them anymore.

• I lost my job because I self-injured at work and I ended up going on disability. During the past 13 years, I have only worked during 3 of them and that was only part time. Even that became too much and I had to leave my job.

• I hit rock bottom on more than one occasion.

Where You Come In

As you can see, I have probably been where you are or have been, at least partially. I wanted to write this so you could see that I have been in the bottom of the barrel, feeling as though I was drowning. I am not a clinician. I am just someone who has experienced a lot and I want to share it with others as a means of hopefully inspiring them to be greater than they think they can be. I know that even as I write this I am doing something I never thought myself capable of. Next week, I will tell you how I got here.

In the meantime, I would like your input. What would you like out of this blog? What questions can I answer that would help you on your own journey? Have you hit rock bottom? Are you ready to change anything about your life? Do you want to get your mojo back? Comment below and read on next week to find out about the changes I have started to make. Until next time, be psyched to write!

–Marsha Holtgrewe Posz

psychedtowrite@gmail.com