Part 1: My Toxic Year

I walk into the room in the downstairs apartment of my Mother-in-law's town home. My husband is sitting, reading an Edward Abby book while drinking a beer. Barely looking up from his ecoterrorism idol trash, he says to me in a monotone voice,  “You need to get help.”

Me:  “Why? Because anyone who would leave you must be crazy?”

Him: “No, because you are out of control.”

Me: “That's a lie; I'm making decisions based on your history of shitty behavior- toward me, toward my family and even towards your own daughter. All of the things you have done to put me into a deep depression.”

Him: “Bullshit”, and then he spit a sunflower shell onto his dirty jean leg.  My man was classy.

Me: “That's a really productive answer. How does that help me understand your behavior?”

I walk away; I go upstairs to the living room to play with my two year old daughter. I had not seen Kelsey in a few days. The last time I saw her we were sitting on the floor in the living room of our home, we were sorting out linens and cleaning out the linen closet. I was packing items that were of value to me, I was packing and trying to secretly get away from that house, from that marriage, from that life. As she played on my lap, helping me fold, my husband barged in, tore her from me, and turned and walked out the door without a word. I tried to follow, but he had thought ahead and ripped a part out of my old Honda Accord.

Now I am here.

Mental Health is Everyone's Health

"Did you take your meds today?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Because you are acting a little funny.

"I have had this conversation more than one time since 1987. It's a question that seems to be okay to ask a Bipolar patient.

Have you ever heard this conversation?

"Did you take your beta blocker today?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Well your face looks a little red."

Of course you haven't.

When someone's face is a little red, that would be a sunburn right? It certainly does not mean someone is about to have a heart attack. But when a Bipolar person is a little cheery, they must be manic. When they are a little down, there is no way they just watched some sad movie. They have got to be getting depressed. I don't know a whole lot about heart medications. My husband takes them, and I really don't think that in the time we have been married that he has been 100% compliant, and I am certain that I would not be able to tell the days that he wasn't. Similarly, if I went for a day, or even two without taking my mood stabilizer or my antidepressant, there would be no change in my behavior. Just as it takes a few weeks for these medications to reach a therapeutic level in my system, it takes more than a day for me to show any sign of not taking them.To ask me if my behavior on one particular day is the result of not taking my medication on that day is not really insulting, rather it is endemic of the lack of understanding that most people have about how mental illness is treated or what the basic symptoms of some of the most common psychiatric disorders they are likely to encounter would be. 

Why don't we understand mental health in society, or even in our own families?  
It's been a long time since Ken Kesey gave us "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1963), the same year that Sylvia Plath's only novel "The Bell Jar" was released under her pen name Victoria Lucas. Could it be that we can accept mental health, and mental illness as a topic of entertainment and popular culture, as far back as the early sixties, but now in the 2000's, I am still being asked if not taking my meds on one given day will change my behavior? And, let's talk about Cuckoo's Nest. A book turned into a film, a film that my first husband brought to me on VHS to watch on the shared VCR, in the lounge area of the psychiatric facility I was in. A very different place then the facility portrayed in that famous film, but still not the most fantastic place to spend any time. (And oh ya that really happened, and he thought that was really funny.)

Psychiatric disorders have stigma written all over them, and our doctors and therapists are not the ones doing a thing about removing the stigma. It's the communities organized by NAMI and WEGO and others you will encounter online, including grass roots groups on Twitter and Facebook. I would like to add Chronically Awesome to this group of communities as we grow and change the landscape of how mental illness is taken in under the umbrella of all chronic illness, and not isolated into a corner of stigma with the "crazy kids."

 "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" By Ken Kesey     "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath 

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