Documenting my journey through the mental health system

I’ve made it to week 10 and an important part of IOP, maybe the most important for me – distress tolerance. This is the key to hopefully preventing relapse, or at least violent detainment. This morning the first skill the therapist wanted to go over was self-soothing, or small acts in the moment that ground us and help us calm down when we are getting agitated or distressed. She addressed each of the five senses and we were all challenged to come up with grounding exercises that coincided to each sense – what are a few things I can see? A few things I can hear? Touch, taste, smell? This is something I’ve tried with limited success in the past. She passed around essential oils to engage the sense of smell, a strongly emotive one for a lot of people. She made us get up and toss a ball and shake our arms to get our heart pumping a little faster to mimic a crisis, and then practice looking at a gorgeous image, really getting lost in it. She taught that mindfulness is key here, and that grounding and self soothing exercises force us to engage in mindfulness because it forces us to focus on the present moment, the here and now.

I’ve become more engaged in the group, I talk a little more. I talked a little in the process hour about some of my trauma with the mental health system, my pursuit of a reasonable accommodation at my new job, the difficulty I have had with my mother, and other things. I’m more participatory than I was in the past too. When we started talking about what a crisis looks like, and what people do to help them get through it, a lot of people mentioned music, movies, talking with a friend, etc. But for me, crisis is when the police are hauling you out of your apartment, or when you’re locked in a psych ED holding cell, or trying to get away so they put you in restraints. There’s no music playing. Crisis is when everything boils over past the point of no return. I admitted I’m not sure when that is happening other than I start feeling horrible. I lose insight when I grow manic or suicidal. I grow delusional and hear voices. I’m starting to see patterns in my mental health history, however. Stability is largely dependent on the environment and people with which we surround ourselves. My mother was a major driver of my depression, for example. Obviously it’s not all her fault, and I’m sure my brain would have justified it another way had she never been in the picture at all. I lose stability also when I don’t take my meds right, or consistently, or at all. I will decompensate significantly and quickly if I stop taking my meds. The voices come back, I get delusions and paranoia, and also a lot of really good ideas I’m too scrambled to truly bring to fruition.

We finished by talking about Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. It affects millions every year and is characterized by a persistent low mood through the winter months. Because it’s DARK and COLD and WINTER SUCKS. I don’t mind winter, living in a northern state you get used to it – but that’s as long as I don’t have to be out in it. I don’t mind the darkness, it’s the cold I hate, especially after several months of it. Winters are long and dark. We may or may not get a lot of snow. It’s hard to deal with bipolar, let alone seasonal depression, on top of that. I take Vitamin D to combat some of that lack of sun exposure, and otherwise engage all the other coping skills and mood momentum skills I’ve been learning. It’s hardest to get some exercise. Like I said, I don’t want to go out in the winter unless I absolutely have to. I’ve thought of buying a YMCA membership, they have indoor swimming pools. But I’m about to be working 60 hours a week, so everything is on hold as far as future plans. I also stopped my voice lessons for now – I don’t have any choirs I’m singing for and there is nothing to really look forward to as far as performing goes. I’d like there to be…but I have to focus on making money for awhile.

I am flat, my hypomania has faded into flatness. I have even been getting more sleep with the same amount of meds. It’s not like I feel a need for more but I have been more successful staying asleep, which really pleased Dr Black when I showed her on the sleep log she makes me maintain. I’m eating a little more and trying to be really conscious of what I eat. I’m not trying to lose weight or anything, I barely weigh enough, however, I’ve cut back a lot on all the fast food I was eating before. It’s really hard to eat right. I don’t like to cook and often don’t have time or energy or motivation. Now I’m just going without before eating that stuff. Luckily, I’ve never been a junk food eater. Never developed a taste for it. Didn’t grow up with it, we were too poor for that stuff in our house. We never had soda, and marveled at the friends who did have that in their house. I don’t drink soda to this day. I am, however, crazy about chocolate. I eat it a lot.