Wanna break the door down
Apr. 19th, 2012 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kkscatnip
I've had this entry open and blank for two days because I am really not even sure what I want to write about. I need to write more in this journal, but I am just completely stuck on what I want to write about. (And I've been working on this entry for an additional two weeks. Go me.)
Guess I'll start with mental illness, since that's the hardest thing. Accomplish that and everything else will be easy, right? Here's to hoping! :D
My roommate and I had this extended discussion (three hours, y'all) about mental illness, wherein we discussed our own.
For anyone who is wondering, my background with mental illness, in shiny bullet points:
- 6 years old: have reoccurring, debilitating migraines, night terrors, etc; diagnosed with depression.
- 12 years old: committed to a lock-down unit due to suicidal threats; diagnosis of depression was thrown out, diagnosed bipolar.
- 25 years old: institutionalized four times within one year, once for anxiety that led to suicidal ideation, twice for plain old suicidal ideation, and once for actually trying to commit suicide (in that order); diagnosed borderline personality and generalized anxiety in addition to the bipolar diagnosis being upheld.
- 26 years old: placed on permanent disability (SSDI); I got SSDI the very first time I applied... I didn't go through the rejection/appeal process at all, probably because whatever the doctors told them did a good job of convincing them I was not functional on a long term basis.
So there's your run-down. I have been steadily prescribed medicine since I was twelve; I didn't start taking it seriously until I was sixteen or so, which was when I finally accepted that there might be something wrong with me. So it took me about four years between diagnosis of bipolar and accepting the diagnosis, pretty much. And even then it took me a year or two to really internalize accepting the illness; it's not a quick process.
Looking at it now, I think it's taken me three years to accept my diagnosis of borderline. I am in the process of accepting it now. I mean, when you look at the symptoms, it's like reading a checklist of what I have done for the vast majority of my life:
Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. -- Check. My abandonment complex is pretty huge, even when it comes to like, being physically alone; I would rather go to the store than be left home alone, etc. (Sharp counterpoint to this: I also purposefully isolate when depressed.)
A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation. -- Ahahaha check. This is probably the strongest symptom I have, and it makes it hard for me to have anything resembling steady relationships with, well, anyone.
Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self. -- This one, I haven't explored too heavily, but I know I have it, on reading about self-image and things of that nature.
Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., promiscuous sex, excessive spending, eating disorders, binge eating, substance abuse, reckless driving). -- The only thing here I haven't done is reckless driving, due to getting panic attacks when I drive.
Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars (excoriation) or picking at oneself. -- Check. Every single thing here, check.
Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days). -- Check. I don't know how much is bipolar and how much is BPD, but my mood is stable very rarely.
Chronic feelings of emptiness. -- Check!
Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights). -- Ooooh yeah. Not the physical fights, but I do have anger issues.
Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms. -- When I was working and very stressed, I'd get these kind of things. I still get the paranoid ideation sometimes when I get really stressed over one thing or another; it's an indicator for me that I am stressed.
That's all the symptoms for BPD itself, but BPD also has to satisfy the generalized personality disorder stuff too. These are:
An enduring pattern of psychological experience and behavior that differs prominently from cultural expectations, as shown in two or more of: cognition (i.e. perceiving and interpreting the self, other people or events); affect (ie. the range, intensity, lability, and appropriateness of emotional response); interpersonal functioning; or impulse control. -- Check! Impulse control especially; I have virtually no impulse control.
The pattern must appear inflexible and pervasive across a wide range of situations, and lead to clinically significant distress or impairment in important areas of functioning. -- Check! I'm on disability, for fuck's sake.
The pattern must be stable and long-lasting, have started as early as at least adolescence or early adulthood. -- Check. I've been like this since I was a little kid.
The pattern must not be better accounted for as a manifestation of another mental disorder, or to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g. drug or medication) or a general medical condition (e.g. head trauma). -- Check. A lot of the mood swings cannot be accounted for by bipolar alone, and are better explained by the BPD diagnosis than the bipolar diagnosis. My anger issues and the specific things that trigger my suicidal ideation and the constant self-harm and other things point to borderline and bipolar both being there. But I know I am bipolar, too, because I have definite up and down swing periods.
Reading all this, it's kind of amazing that for fourteen years nobody realized that I had this disorder.
So, I am borderline. Or is it I have borderline? I prefer the latter, heh.
I kept thinking, "surely I want to say more about this?" but I really can't think of anything to add. It's a lot to take in, and I'm still in the process of accepting the information so that I can then move to change.
(Hi new people! I title my entries with song lyrics, usually quite apropos lyrics because Winamp has AI most of the time. I discuss everything. I lock very little. I will have something more of substance to say later, probably con reports from APW and Frolicon.
I am debating doing one of those "things you should know about me" posts.)
Guess I'll start with mental illness, since that's the hardest thing. Accomplish that and everything else will be easy, right? Here's to hoping! :D
My roommate and I had this extended discussion (three hours, y'all) about mental illness, wherein we discussed our own.
For anyone who is wondering, my background with mental illness, in shiny bullet points:
- 6 years old: have reoccurring, debilitating migraines, night terrors, etc; diagnosed with depression.
- 12 years old: committed to a lock-down unit due to suicidal threats; diagnosis of depression was thrown out, diagnosed bipolar.
- 25 years old: institutionalized four times within one year, once for anxiety that led to suicidal ideation, twice for plain old suicidal ideation, and once for actually trying to commit suicide (in that order); diagnosed borderline personality and generalized anxiety in addition to the bipolar diagnosis being upheld.
- 26 years old: placed on permanent disability (SSDI); I got SSDI the very first time I applied... I didn't go through the rejection/appeal process at all, probably because whatever the doctors told them did a good job of convincing them I was not functional on a long term basis.
So there's your run-down. I have been steadily prescribed medicine since I was twelve; I didn't start taking it seriously until I was sixteen or so, which was when I finally accepted that there might be something wrong with me. So it took me about four years between diagnosis of bipolar and accepting the diagnosis, pretty much. And even then it took me a year or two to really internalize accepting the illness; it's not a quick process.
Looking at it now, I think it's taken me three years to accept my diagnosis of borderline. I am in the process of accepting it now. I mean, when you look at the symptoms, it's like reading a checklist of what I have done for the vast majority of my life:
Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. -- Check. My abandonment complex is pretty huge, even when it comes to like, being physically alone; I would rather go to the store than be left home alone, etc. (Sharp counterpoint to this: I also purposefully isolate when depressed.)
A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation. -- Ahahaha check. This is probably the strongest symptom I have, and it makes it hard for me to have anything resembling steady relationships with, well, anyone.
Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self. -- This one, I haven't explored too heavily, but I know I have it, on reading about self-image and things of that nature.
Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., promiscuous sex, excessive spending, eating disorders, binge eating, substance abuse, reckless driving). -- The only thing here I haven't done is reckless driving, due to getting panic attacks when I drive.
Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars (excoriation) or picking at oneself. -- Check. Every single thing here, check.
Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days). -- Check. I don't know how much is bipolar and how much is BPD, but my mood is stable very rarely.
Chronic feelings of emptiness. -- Check!
Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights). -- Ooooh yeah. Not the physical fights, but I do have anger issues.
Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms. -- When I was working and very stressed, I'd get these kind of things. I still get the paranoid ideation sometimes when I get really stressed over one thing or another; it's an indicator for me that I am stressed.
That's all the symptoms for BPD itself, but BPD also has to satisfy the generalized personality disorder stuff too. These are:
An enduring pattern of psychological experience and behavior that differs prominently from cultural expectations, as shown in two or more of: cognition (i.e. perceiving and interpreting the self, other people or events); affect (ie. the range, intensity, lability, and appropriateness of emotional response); interpersonal functioning; or impulse control. -- Check! Impulse control especially; I have virtually no impulse control.
The pattern must appear inflexible and pervasive across a wide range of situations, and lead to clinically significant distress or impairment in important areas of functioning. -- Check! I'm on disability, for fuck's sake.
The pattern must be stable and long-lasting, have started as early as at least adolescence or early adulthood. -- Check. I've been like this since I was a little kid.
The pattern must not be better accounted for as a manifestation of another mental disorder, or to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g. drug or medication) or a general medical condition (e.g. head trauma). -- Check. A lot of the mood swings cannot be accounted for by bipolar alone, and are better explained by the BPD diagnosis than the bipolar diagnosis. My anger issues and the specific things that trigger my suicidal ideation and the constant self-harm and other things point to borderline and bipolar both being there. But I know I am bipolar, too, because I have definite up and down swing periods.
Reading all this, it's kind of amazing that for fourteen years nobody realized that I had this disorder.
So, I am borderline. Or is it I have borderline? I prefer the latter, heh.
I kept thinking, "surely I want to say more about this?" but I really can't think of anything to add. It's a lot to take in, and I'm still in the process of accepting the information so that I can then move to change.
(Hi new people! I title my entries with song lyrics, usually quite apropos lyrics because Winamp has AI most of the time. I discuss everything. I lock very little. I will have something more of substance to say later, probably con reports from APW and Frolicon.
I am debating doing one of those "things you should know about me" posts.)
