Hello readers! Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. I know there are lots of other things you could be spending your time reading, so I do appreciate you making the choice to pick my post :)
Well, like many of my other posts, I've thought a great deal on this topic. Not only because I suffer from it myself, but because I feel there is a lack of people in my boat speaking about it. I'm talking about mental illness. I know I did another blog on it before, well maybe a few, but this one I really want to share my point of view on it. So to begin...
Lately there have been some celebrity suicides that have sparked the conversation of mental health. Television hosts have shared their opinions, and I see more and more memes talking about it. I do think we as a society have progressed in making mental illness less taboo, but it's still a "tricky" subject. There are very strong and loud people who believe a camping trip can solve your mental instabilities. Or there are people who think throwing pills at any sign of problem is the answer. I do believe that both options can be a solution...heavily depending on the person in question. Either way, I think our nation is recognizing that mental health is a serious thing, and should not be taken lightly.
When I was nine years old, the first traumatic thing happened in my life. There was a divorce in my family, and I remember hearing the news and not understanding it. I grew up with a mom and a dad who loved each other, and I thought divorce was only on the movies. (Which usually ended up as the couple getting back together). I sat on my bed in my room and just stared. Looking back, I now know this is when signs of my mental illness began. I stopped eating, playing with friends didn't sound fun, and I honestly longed to be a fly on the wall. Or a picture frame. Lifeless. These are thoughts a nine year old probably shouldn't have. It was a really hard time for my family, and looking back I think we all did the best we could.
As I got a little older, the other side of my mental illness showed up. I'm not going to go into every detail, but I did things that I would never do as myself. I ran cross country in 7th and 8th grade, and according to my doctor later on, that would be why I went undiagnosed for so long. My mental illness is Bi-Polar 1 Disorder , the worst kind of bi-polar. I have both manic and depressive phases. So when I ran cross country, I would run out the energy of mania, then give myself endorphins when I was depressed. This didn't stop my episodes from happening, just made them less apparent I guess. I did some really awful things, and when I would come down from the mania, I wouldn't know why I had done them.
New environments is a really big trigger for my disease, so when we moved to Idaho when I was 14, it got really bad. Some of my teachers even thought I was doing drugs because I was so manic. Way to make a good first impression, eh? Anyway, one of the episodes landed me in the hospital. I can't remember why, but after 5 minutes with a psychiatrist, he knew I had Bi-Polar Disorder. It explained a lot to my parents, and I suppose a lot to me once I became stable again and could understand. Medication, in my case, was the definite answer. And only answer, really. So I spent two months in a residential treatment facility where they found the right combination to help me stay stable. I really, really wish I could say my story with mental illness ends there, and that I've been stable ever since I left the treatment facility. But, as you can guess, I can't.
Going back to high school set off another episode, where I cut all my own hair off, and landed another hospital stay. This time it was shorter, though, and we were able to get me back in school and functioning properly. I ran cross country again Junior year and, although kids were pretty brutal, high school wasn't too bad. I stayed fairly stable through most of it, and graduated on time (which was actually rather impressive given my ninth grade start).
After I graduated, I went to BYU-I and didn't have any problems. My doctor even said maybe I would be ok without medication one day. That maybe it was my adolescence that made the episodes so bad. Well, this was false hope because I will always be on medication. Anyway, my point is there was hope.
After one semester at "The Burg", I decided that was not where I wanted to be. I moved to California and thought I would take my doctor up on his guess, and quit taking my medicine. I'm sure you can imagine, but all hell broke loose and I only lasted about a month a half out there. I moved back home, then after a few months moved down to Salt Lake. I promised myself I would always take my medicine, no matter how "good" I was feeling. I've taken it every day since, not once skipping. (Besides when I was pregnant, because somehow I'm super stable on the natural pregnancy hormone..fancy that)
I did pretty well in Utah. Despite not actually going to college, which is why I went in the first place, I was able to hold down a job, pay rent, and be on my own. I made friends, dated, and had a really good time. This is where my adoption post comes in, and explains that large part of my life. It's hard for me to remember if I had an episode right around the time I got pregnant because I was pregnant or because my medicine wasn't working, but I do remember taking it until my doctor told me to stop.
This is turning out longer than I anticipated, but thank you if you're still hanging on ;)
I consider myself very lucky that the depression I suffered from the adoption was what you would expect to suffer, and wasn't anything out of the ordinary. I do think my medication had a part to play in that. Well, right before I met my sweet Lucas, I was prescribed a birth control that counteracted my medication in a very negative way. But, like most people do, I listened to my OB/GYN and took it without researching it first. HUGE mistake on my part. It doesn't take a neurologist to figure out happened next. It took a good month and half or so for my mom and I to put together that it was the birth control making me crazy. I even went to the mental hospital for a week and even they didn't have an answer as to why I was having episodes. Somehow, Lucas stayed with me during the whole thing, and we were all very relieved when I stopped taking the birth control and returned to normalcy.
I was stable up until January 2016 when the medicine I was taking just simply wasn't enough anymore. Unfortunately, Lucas and I hadn't planned ahead and we didn't have a doctor to go to down here in Nevada, so it got ugly before we had the help for it to get better. I am happy to say, however, that that was my last episode and I haven't had one since *knocks on wood*. I'm hoping to stay on top of it and always have a therapist and psychiatrist ready in case any red flags start to show up.
My purpose in sharing my life story is so that people can understand better. It's very, very hard to understand mental illness if you don't have it. It's that way with lots of things. I can easily say having Bi-Polar has ruined my life in several ways. I wasn't able to finish my Dental Assisting certificate because of it, I lost many close relationships because of it, and there is just a lot of lost time because of it. The only reason I'm grateful for my disorder is because it opened my mind to others who suffer from mental illness. I know Anxiety and Depression are real things people have to live with. I know OCD isn't just a "neat freak" thing. I know a lot about not being able to trust your own mind. And let me tell you, it sucks. It really, really sucks.
I think the hardest part of having a mental illness is not having a way to explain to people what it feels like. Or watching people think that what you did or what you said while you were having an episode is what you are really like. That it somehow represents something that's actually part of who you are. I can tell you right now, not a SINGLE episode I've had has been an accurate representation of who I am or something I feel. Not even a little bit. I always came down from being manic and would look back and be so, so embarrassed of the things I did or said. And it never made sense, it never once was something I had been thinking of or wanting to do.
So, if there's one thing I want you to take away from this post, it's understanding. Maybe you know someone in your life who has told you they have a mental illness. Or maybe they were anxious, or manic, or depressed, and did something to hurt you. My plea is to just try to understand. It's not their true selves doing these things. And, like I said earlier in this post, maybe some of these people just need a camping trip to clear their heads and take a break. But more often than not, actual help is needed from a professional. Understanding something you don't have yourself is hard, but maybe we can try a little harder and be more empathetic (or sympathetic?) and help those around us who are suffering.
Thank you so much if you've read this. I hope it has shed some light on a topic we're not all comfortable with.
-Allison S. Dahl
