World Mental Health Day
Oct. 10th, 2019 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootI hate mental illness.
It is a subject I start to type about or talk about, and then it hurts so I stop.
Mental illness ruined my family, ruined any chance we had of starting again after everything else combined to harm us. Those things could have been mitigated with clear judgement, but judgement is precisely what mental illness diminishes if not destroys.
No point trying to talk about that yet.
I have had PTSD, still get it from time to time. i had a bout on the 4th. It was a strange thing, silly really. There is a school nearby, I saw dads going to pick up their kids... And locked my front door. Later I had a flashback of the black satin sheets on my old bed, all covered with blood.
It's under control. The trouble is that it opened the door to other issues, suppressed memories, depression, suicidal ideation, disassociative fugues etc. I don't medicate, so maintain awareness just to be careful, to understand what is going on. For all the list sounds difficult, I am actually OK.
Typing, typing, a pain in my heart, my lungs don't seem to expand properly. I can't breathe.
So I stop.
It is a subject I start to type about or talk about, and then it hurts so I stop.
Mental illness ruined my family, ruined any chance we had of starting again after everything else combined to harm us. Those things could have been mitigated with clear judgement, but judgement is precisely what mental illness diminishes if not destroys.
No point trying to talk about that yet.
I have had PTSD, still get it from time to time. i had a bout on the 4th. It was a strange thing, silly really. There is a school nearby, I saw dads going to pick up their kids... And locked my front door. Later I had a flashback of the black satin sheets on my old bed, all covered with blood.
It's under control. The trouble is that it opened the door to other issues, suppressed memories, depression, suicidal ideation, disassociative fugues etc. I don't medicate, so maintain awareness just to be careful, to understand what is going on. For all the list sounds difficult, I am actually OK.
Typing, typing, a pain in my heart, my lungs don't seem to expand properly. I can't breathe.
So I stop.
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no subject
Date: 2019-10-10 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-11 09:09 am (UTC)After the attack, I was put under massive pressure from the doctors to medicate, so I did. And it does work, Sertraline 50 grams, baby stuff really. It didn't take away the PTSD and disassociative fugues, but it raised my base mood to the extent that they were easier to cope with and contain.
But I almost stopped dreaming. And also, though I hate to confess it, the people I knew who were on anti-depressants never seemed happy. They were coping. It just felt weird, so I stopped doing it, and since then have just tried to observe and understand what is happening as and when.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-11 02:28 pm (UTC)I know a number of people on antidepressants, including Max, my eldest son, who will probably be on low doses of Wellbutrin for the rest of his life.
I don't judge, but like you, I don't think it's a workable solution for me. Dissociation and denial work for me! 😀 Max disapproves and lectures me about this from time to time. But really, I think much of my ability as a writer comes from that particular dissociative coping mechanism.
Of course, dissociation wreaks havoc on intimate relationships because it makes it all but impossible to be fully there in the moment.