Crazy Beautiful
I Know How To Save A Life.
I was only in the program for a week; the reason I was let go—I had a concert that had been pre-planned for two months (Red Jumpsuit Apparatus at The National in Richmond, VA) and the psych on duty thought that was suitable enough for me and let me go. My discharge papers gave me another label—borderline personality. I despised the depression label and it took me a long time to accept that I needed help; now another thing was being thrown my way. I thought it made more sense than depression, but not enough sense to actually want to have such a name to my issues.
I got involved with a group, NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness). It was a group for people in my area that had some form of mental illness. The meetings were fun and it was great to know that I wasn’t alone in what I was dealing with. NAMI also taught me that I had been misdiagnosed and poorly. I did a nine-week course called Peer-to-Peer where we learned about different disorders and how to handle living life with our own illness. It was enlightening and very eye-opening to me. For the first time, I had felt grateful for being sent to the hospital that day back in December. I was the youngest person in my class, 23, the next person in age was 25. I had most of the older patrons of the class, at our ‘graduation’, they all told me that they were proud of me, that they had wished they had gotten help when they were my age. For the first time in years, I began to feel more than just relative hope for a better future.
I was finally properly diagnosed last summer—bipolar type two. I’m on the depression end, hence the initial thought of severe depression, however, anti-depressants did not work on me. For a year I went through three different types of anti-depressants, all of which never worked. Months and months with bouts of insomnia, screwed up eating habits—mishaps I’m still dealing with the repercussions of. I’m on the proper medications, my moods haven’t been as yo-yo like as before and I can finally hold a job again. Sleep is still hit or miss, but that’s something I’ve got meds for too. I used to never be a fan of meds, but with what’s wrong with me, I can’t fix it myself, so I need the extra help and I’m finally okay with that.
I can’t say I’m out of the woods yet, I’ll never be. Another episode will rear its foul, ugly head and I’ll have to start over once again: It’s okay to have ups and downs and that one day, you do come out of that dark place…The loneliness and despair do begin to wean and eventually disappear all together. The want and need for any form or release of the hellish side of life eventually diminishes. It’s not a quick fix, or an overnight sensation, it’s a process. She’s still in the haze of the twilight, but her dawn is approaching. The colors are appearing on the far horizon and she knows that her day is coming.
I got involved with a group, NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness). It was a group for people in my area that had some form of mental illness. The meetings were fun and it was great to know that I wasn’t alone in what I was dealing with. NAMI also taught me that I had been misdiagnosed and poorly. I did a nine-week course called Peer-to-Peer where we learned about different disorders and how to handle living life with our own illness. It was enlightening and very eye-opening to me. For the first time, I had felt grateful for being sent to the hospital that day back in December. I was the youngest person in my class, 23, the next person in age was 25. I had most of the older patrons of the class, at our ‘graduation’, they all told me that they were proud of me, that they had wished they had gotten help when they were my age. For the first time in years, I began to feel more than just relative hope for a better future.
I was finally properly diagnosed last summer—bipolar type two. I’m on the depression end, hence the initial thought of severe depression, however, anti-depressants did not work on me. For a year I went through three different types of anti-depressants, all of which never worked. Months and months with bouts of insomnia, screwed up eating habits—mishaps I’m still dealing with the repercussions of. I’m on the proper medications, my moods haven’t been as yo-yo like as before and I can finally hold a job again. Sleep is still hit or miss, but that’s something I’ve got meds for too. I used to never be a fan of meds, but with what’s wrong with me, I can’t fix it myself, so I need the extra help and I’m finally okay with that.
I can’t say I’m out of the woods yet, I’ll never be. Another episode will rear its foul, ugly head and I’ll have to start over once again: It’s okay to have ups and downs and that one day, you do come out of that dark place…The loneliness and despair do begin to wean and eventually disappear all together. The want and need for any form or release of the hellish side of life eventually diminishes. It’s not a quick fix, or an overnight sensation, it’s a process. She’s still in the haze of the twilight, but her dawn is approaching. The colors are appearing on the far horizon and she knows that her day is coming.