Wished for death, glad it didn’t come.
By moonflower | May 6, 2008
Last Friday, one of my son’s classmates lost his father.
The boy is a kindergartener, having only recently turned six years old. I read the letter the teacher sent home and I immediately began to sob. I do not know much about this boy, other than he frequents the principal’s office, and is well known for his antics.
That isn’t all he is, he is well known for his big and beautiful heart. He shares, he is loving.
As I am wont to do, knowing he was prone to trouble, I want to know more about him. To try and see inside his world, to determine if there is something more that should be addressed other than his negative behavior. It took me some time before he would really talk to me, this isn’t usually the case since I love kids and I always vie for their approval. Over the past few months, he’s warmed up to me.
Through the whole weekend, my thoughts kept turning to this boy and his loss. I am not sure that he will fully understand this situation for a few years. I worried if his Mom had other family, insurance, or anything to help ease her burden. These are times in which I wonder if I think too much about other people and if it really is none of my business. I subscribe to the quote, “it takes a village to raise a child”, and I fully believe in it’s power.
A few years ago, my daughter’s best friend lost her Mother when was only 9 or 10 years old. Her Mother was a friend of mine and we’d just spoken the day before about grabbing sushi at a new restaurant that had just opened in our area. She headed for the bathroom that Sunday morning and an aneurism burst in her head and she was gone. My daughter and her friend began to drift apart after this and we rarely ever see her. I miss her Mom every time I drive past their house.
All of this got me to thinking about my youthful dreams of wishing my Mom would die. I know how terrible this sounds, and I wince a little now when I think about it.
I would design horrible accidents in my head that she could be killed falling down the stairs, driving home drunk, whatever. When I got older and discussed this with my siblings, they too had wished for her to die. She was mean and she beat us. Who wouldn’t want the person who beat them dead? The woman she used to be, is not the woman she is now. She has become weak, fragile, and only has select memories. I am learning to make peace with this, she was always the pillar of strength and self control in my youth.
Putting these scenarios together side by side in my mind; my wishes for death, and the children that have actually had death at their door. I can say that I am glad that my deadly wishes never came true.
These quandries have always intrigued me, turning them all around in my head for years trying to unlock the secret of the why.
Why do the families that actually want children, are capable to raise them and give them a loving home cannot get pregnant? The parents that beat and destroy their children, live on so that the child is constantly reminded of their pain and suffering into adulthood, knowing that the truth will never be revealed.
Why do the good parents die, but the bad ones live? I’ve never solved this, but I have adopted a theory that our children choose us. Even if those children did not come from our own wombs, they choose us.
To make peace with the abuse that happens every day to children, even in my own neighborhood (and yours) I have to believe that on some level the children choose their lives before they are born. For me, it is how I make peace with the fact that I cannot save every child that I come into contact with. Throughout my main healing process, I was always told to watch children to “really” see them and how beautiful they are. This was designed to help me to understand that the abuse was not my fault. A six year old does not “want” to be touched by a grown man.
There were people along my path that reached me, inside where the pain lived when I was a child. I remember them, I remember their kindness and I believe on some level it gave me the hope I needed to rise up out of my experience, not to regret it, and heal. This is why I try to “see” children, to let them know that they are important and beautiful.
That there is more out there that will be revealed, they are not alone, they can survive and then pass it on to those that come after them.
Topics: moonflower, physical abuse, relationships, sexual abuse, therapy | 6 Comments »
Brave, sad girl
By bipolarlawyer | May 5, 2008
A story from my local paper about a teenaged girl suffering from bipolar and the push in Massachusetts for better funding for youth mental illness treatment.
Topics: bipolar, bipolarlawyer, depression, meds, self harm | 5 Comments »
Funding Intensive Mental Health Treatment
By Mr. C | May 3, 2008
Belle (not her real name) asks:
Hi there,
I realize that this question will likely take research by me, but I thought I’d ask in case you knew off the top of your head — do you know if there are intensive outpatient programs (Partial Hospitalization programs) who take people who don’t have insurance. I recently got depressed enough that I needed to quit my job and move in with my dad, and I’m realizing that leaving my health insurance behind was likely counterintuitive.
I’m sorry that this difficult time has come to you. As you guessed, you will really end up having to research this yourself, because hospitals and their programs vary a great deal. I hope these general ideas give you someplace to start thinking and looking for information.
If you are unemployed and have no assets, you may be able to qualify for Medicaid, a government program that includes mental health benefits, including hospitalizations when needed. If your father is a supportive person, and if you are very depressed, consider asking his help to pursue this. It’s a process. You have to first deal with the Medicaid system (and its paperwork), and then the mental health system (and its paperwork) and get a counselor and start treatment. The counselor would be the one to help decide if you would qualify for hospitalization, based on your symptoms and functioning. That’s just a lot of steps to go through and I hate to ask a very depressed person to face all that without some good support. However, this is the most likely way for you to get hospital or supported living services without your own insurance.
If you are not significantly suicidal or homicidal, I would recommend that you start off with finding a good counselor and also a good psychiatrist. A combination of medications and counseling is likely to benefit you, and it will cost a lot less than a partial hospitalization. The mantra of the mental health world is to serve people in the least restrictive environment that is safely possible. Bottom line: if you’re not a danger to somebody, you’re not likely to be hospitalized anyway. I hope you will also reference the recent post, “Knowing is Half the Battle.”
I hope you will be able to find the help that you need to feel better and regain a happy life!
Best wishes,
Mr. C
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Knowing is half the battle
By bipolarlawyer | April 28, 2008
I mean, not to draw deep meaning from the G.I. Joe cartoons, but really, it is. Paying attention to my illness, as annoying as it is to have to be that self-aware, is the only way to ensure that I keep myself out of trouble. And I’m pretty good at that part. But. But?
Did you know that taking a B-vitamin complex supplement has been clinically found to elevate mood in people suffering depression, as has exercise?
Did you know that Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to increase time between depressive episodes, among people suffering from unipolar and bipolar depression? I did, but I’d never read the studies.
Did you know that clinical research is tending to show that antidepressants do not affect the recurrence or severity of depressive episodes in people with bipolar disorder ? I didn’t, and when it came up during a medication discussion with my psychiatrist a few weeks ago, I was surprised. I don’t know why– we already knew that antidepressants alone can actually trigger a manic episode, leading to an even worse depressive crash thereafter.
I’m not a doctor. I am a lawyer who has worked with doctors, extensively. I am also a civil litigation attorney, used to defending cases where people’s medical records are at issue. I consider myself well-versed in the news, and I thought I’d done my reading about bipolar, by keeping up with the science and health sections of the Boston Globe (hooray for proximity to one of the top medical areas in the world) and the New York Times, my “paper of record.” But I still missed things, and I’m embarrassed. I’m not doing my work, doing the reading that I need to do to be aware of developments in the science. Especially since brain chemistry is affected by hormones from all over the body, and is “hideously complex,” as my psychiatrist says. I tend to think of it as playing darts, blindfolded, while balancing on one leg– there’s still so much to be learned.
I’m lucky to have a wonderful set of doctors caring for me. But they can’t help me with symptoms and behaviors I don’t know are important, and so haven’t reported to them. Too, doing my reading may give me a new perspective on something I’d never thought about, opening up a new avenue for treatment. Doing you bipolar homework needn’t be a hypochondriac thing, nor need it be a distrust of your doctors’ advice or ability to keep up with the reading. It’s simply this: it takes two to tango, one to lead, and one to follow. But the one who follows isn’t the patient– it’s the doctor. My doctors can only treat what they’re aware of. If I don’t stay abreast of the research, and combine that with my work to mood chart, med chart, symptom chart, then I am not leading, and we’re going to step on each other’s toes or crash into a wall eventually, having steered them in the wrong direction.
So here’s what I’ve done in my battle to know better. I’m using my gmail account more efficiently. I set up a Google Calendar on which to record when I took my meds– since I check my email a lot, switching over to the calendar for a few minutes isn’t too time-consuming. I take my meds three times a day– it’s hard to keep track of, even with my pill counter– but I’ve set up alarms in my calendar to go to my cell phone, to remind me. I also enter symptoms– diahrrhea? Worth tracking, in case I’m having a toxicity episode. More clumsiness than usual? A headache that’s different from my regular headaches? Bad sleep, without the pleasantly weird dreams my medications usually give me? Irritability? Anything, and I do mean ANYTHING, that seems interesting or out of the ordinary goes in there. I then did a brave thing– I emailed an invitation to share the calendars to my psychiatrist, my therapist, and my primary care doctor. I’m a pretty reliable patient, luckily I’ve never gotten too manic… but knowing they can read the calendar whenever they want, and see how I’m doing, is comforting. It also gives them a way to hold me accountable if I am NOT reporting things accurately, and if I’m not updating the calendar. That all keeps them in the know.
To keep me in the know? Google Alerts. I set up alerts to come to me once a week about “bipolar research,” “lithium research,” and “depression research.” I may have to tweak the search descriptions after I start getting my reports, but at this point I figure over-inclusiveness is better– I can use the “Advanced Search” options to refine the queries after I see what I get. I’m also in the process of setting up better bookmarks to mental health sites such as NAMI and DBSA, as well as NIMH, and a Google Calendar reminder to spend an hour, once a week, checking up on their science alerts. After all, an hour’s not too much time, since I can’t know too much– especially when I think of the hours that might be lost if I know too little.
(You can ask Google for an invitation to a Gmail account from the Gmail front page.)
Topics: Uncategorized, bipolar, bipolarlawyer, caregiver, meds, self-help | 10 Comments »