Fear of loss
Hot, stinging peppers in my chest
Shallow breath
Fear of loss
Terrified
Only fear and worry
Only no
Life please don’t leave me
Laughter, love, where has the sun gone?
Lightness, airiness, come back to me
I don’t want to live here in this dungeon
It’s dank, cold, frightening
Help me
Help me out of here
I belong in the sun with crystal waters running
With the sounds of waves crashing on white beaches
Take the weight off my chest and let me breathe
Let me out of the dungeon
Evaporate
Clint Malarchuk is a former NHL goalie, cowboy and all around hero. While playing for the Buffalo Sabres, his neck was slashed, on live TV, by a skate in what is the most gruesome sports’ history. After this injury, he was not offered counseling of any sort and was back on the ice in ten days. His attitude was that he was a tough guy and he didn’t need help. But Clint was suffering from depression, obsessive compulsive d/o and post traumatic stress. One day, on his ranch, he put a gun to hid head and pulled the trigger putting a bullet in his head. He was airlifted to the hospital, insisting that he didn’t need the air ambulance. They actually had to sedate him to get him on the helicopter! He survived the suicide attempt. After Clint awoke from the coma due to the gunshot to the head, he was determined to use his fame to help people with mental illness and break down the stigma. He wrote a book called “The Crazy Game”. In it he says that dealing with mental illness was much more painful than having his throat slashed. In an interview (below) he said he would rather have his throat slashed a million times than suffer from depression! In the book, he also opens up about the pain and his path to getting help. He says that many people don’t speak about their mental illness for fear of being judged and the stigma, but that this can change as society’s attitudes about mental illness change. He points out that a person who had cancer would go and tell his boss, whereas a person with mental illness would hide He also says that a depression is caused by a deficiency in serotonin, just like diabetes is caused by a deficiency in insulin. Both chemical imbalances. So why does the person with depression have more stigma attached? Mental Illness is not a weakness. In fact, Clint realized the toughest thing he ever did was to allow himself to talk about it.
Here’s the full interview. (Warning: The throat-slashing skate injury appears from 0:14 to 0:27.)
This sounds amazing! I am seriously thinking about going there for their 5.5 Day Workshop for Personal Growth. The most important thing for me is Emotional Manageability on a Daily Basis. Sounds really wonderful! I wonder if this works for people with bipolar d/o. We certainly need emotional manageability. Do any of my blogging friends (Dyane?) know about this program? The picture is the mansion in Caron PA where the workshops and groups are held!
http://www.breakthroughatcaron.org/about-breakthrough-workshop
Life is full of ups and downs and most of us want to flourish and improve our lives and the lives of those we love. Breakthrough at Caron is a groundbreaking residential, 5-day program specifically designed for adults seeking a higher level of happiness and satisfaction.
Breakthrough at Caron has helped over 40,000 adults overcome obstacles that may have previously blocked their efforts towards developing healthier relationships, positive connections and emotional stability. One year follow-up studies conducted by Rutgers University have shown that this innovative program can promote change and maintain results leading to a healthier more rewarding life.
The Breakthrough program is held in a beautiful restored mansion in the hills of Eastern Pennsylvania. Unlike other programs, our program is offered every week of the year and staffed by a team of full-time therapists. Our focus is helping adults, 18 and older, who believe that life could be better and would like to gain the momentum or direction necessary to create the lasting change they want and need. Breakthrough utilizes a unique and time tested process of experiential group therapy where groups of 10, facilitated by 2 skilled full-time therapists, work together to identify previously unidentified and ineffective patterns and to develop healthier and more effective responses towards achieving personal goals.
All aspects of the program are designed to create a “real time” experience of changing unwanted patterns that interfere with healthy attachment. Using an individualized approach, methods include mindfulness training and psychodrama along with exercises to address complex grief and shame which may be inhibiting desired growth. Regardless of previous experience in a group, Breakthrough clients are able to expand their own comfort zone and take risks that they never dreamed were possible.
Although a referral from a therapist is not required, this program is intended as an addition to private therapy or outpatient counseling where individuals may accelerate their personal growth by examining and modifying long-standing patterns that interfere with their quality of life. At the conclusion of the program, Breakthrough staff provides each participant with direction for follow-up care and a referral to a therapist for individuals who do not yet have one.
Really hate this disease/illness/hell today. My adrenalin spikes are so high that when they happen, they make me behave in an extreme and obsessive and insane way. My friends, even ones who know I have this illness, find it extremely difficult to deal with me and understand why I am behaving this way. I don’t blame them, who wants a rash, obsessed, crazy person around. I mean when a friend says “You’re doing it again. Please settle down a little” it is a wake up call, and it is embarrassing beyond belief… And not only that, am I now supposed to contact this friend again? The issue that I was going on and on about is drowned in this manicky behavior and never gets addressed. It seems to be happening more this year than in the past years… Lithium, Seroquel, whatever, it isn’t controlling this manicky aspect of my illness. And then I feel like absolute crap that I behaved like a lunatic again. WTF am I supposed to do? Call my psychiatrist so he can add on a 3rd medication with triple the awful side effects? Oh My God. Leave me the eff alone, leave my brain alone. Why do I have to live in this hell? This hell of embarrassment and chagrin and fear? Fear because I am so afraid all my friends will leave me, all my family will leave me because of my strange, obsessed, extreme behavior. Tis the season, tis the season alright, of being as annoying, extreme, and frightening as I can be. Ho ho ho.
Is there not a positive way to look at this too? That a friend realized I was acting manicky and cared enough to check me thereby stopping me in my manic tracks? That means I have good, I mean GOOD friends. My friends, even though I am acting really annoying, recognize that that’s not me and give me a warning. Who could ask for better friends?
Even though I have this disease, I have friends and family who look out for me and let me know when I am behaving in a manicky way, so that I recognize what I am doing and stop. Ok, lets go with this version, where everyone is helping me overcome my illness’ symptoms and somehow banish, banish, banish the fear.
And if you readers have no idea what I am talking about, consider yourselves very lucky.
From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/18/bipolar-disorder-ellen-forney_n_5823138.html.
About 2.6 percent of American adults — nearly 6 million people — have bipolar disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). But the disease, characterized by significant and severe mood changes, is still dangerously misunderstood.
Bipolar disorder is vastly different from the normal ups and downs of everyday life, but many have co-opted the term to refer to any old change in thoughts or feelings. The mood swings in someone with bipolar disorder, sometimes also called manic depression, can damage relationships and hurt job performance. It has been estimated that anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of people with bipolar disorder attempt suicide at least once.
Artist Ellen Forney detailed her diagnosis with bipolar disorder in the graphic memoir Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me. Forney previously shared her story with us, specifically detailing how her bipolar disorder has affected her creative work.
Below are some poignant pages from the memoir, the memoir, along with unique commentary into how these panels came to be and what they mean to Forney, in her own words.
So true and empowering.
During the Holidays, everyone is heading home. What is a home? Is it simply where you live? The structure of walls, doors, and windows? Or is it more than that? Is it the place where your friends are? Is it, as they say, where the heart is? Is it the place where you feel happy, where your positive emotions reside with you? Is it familiar and well known, where you know all the places around and don’t feel like a stranger? Is it where your loved ones are close by? Yes, yes and yes. All yes. And I feel very sad and still am having a very difficult time having moved out of Buffalo.
Buffalo still feels like home, except I don’t have a home here. and after a year, Louisville still does not feel like home, and funnily enough I do have a home there. I have friends there, new friends. Friends I’ve made within the last year. Friends who are very welcoming and warm, but with whom I have no history. They haven’t known me since I was a preteen. They don’t know much about me. Maybe that’s better, haha! My friends in Buffalo are friends of my childhood days. There is such a connection here in Buffalo, I come back all the time and connect with my friends, but it is temporary, because in a week, in ten days, I leave again. It is a disjointed, disconnected, disassociated existence. I know full well I have a beautiful home in Louisville. I know I am fortunate and blessed that I have friends in Louisville and in Buffalo and that financially I can afford to visit Buffalo as I want to. Of course, Aral’s here. And sometimes I miss him terribly. I think I have no right to complain, everything is going well. Aral is doing so well in Law School, knock on wood! Our condo in Louisville has been totally renovated and is just beautiful. I am happy about that of course. I don’t know. Discontent seems to be the mood of the hour. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.
We people with mental illnesses have to take the scariest drugs/meds. There are mood stabilizers out there (see Saphris, Latuda) whose side effect is sudden death!!! When I was put on those meds and I looked up their side effects and saw “sudden death” as one of them, I literally laughed out loud. And yet there it is!! Of course everyone has heard about the black box warning on antidepressants, which says they can cause suicidal thoughts and actions. Psychiatric medications have the most horrendous side effects!! There is diabetes and blindness for Seroquel, which I an currently on. I also get awful muscle cramps in my legs, so bad that they wake me up at night. Actually that’s pretty minor. My friend Andrew had bad tardive dyskinesia (uncontrollable movements,) so extreme that he doesn’t leave his home. Lithium can cause kidney failure. Doctors rarely want you to decrease your dose of meds if your mood is stable. However if the side effects are intolerable, then the dose has to be decreased. You have to walk the tight rope between least number of symptoms and least number of side effects, and hope you don’t fall off performing your little high wire act.
If you have a mood disorder then you surely know all about this! Thoughts that pass regularly through my head are: Am I getting too angry? Am I getting angry too often? Am I being too emotional? Am I too sad and weepy? Am I too irritable? Are my thoughts flitting from subject to subject? Even the thought “Am I too happy” crosses my mind, although this is a rare occurrence. Depending on the answer to those questions which I ask myself regularly, sort of reflexively after 28 years, one or more of my meds has to be increased. But eventually these meds’ fuses will come down if the side effects are too intolerable… Lithium and Seriquel. These two stalwart pillars in my treatment regime. Zoloft used to be one of my meds, but as I have said in the past, is no longer in my repertoire of meds as it causes cycling and mixed mood phases in people with bipolar 1 d/o like me. Now if I go into a depression, I am hoping that Vit. D, and Omega 3 fatty acids along with Zumba and other vigorous physical activity will help me come out of it, or better yet, prevent me from going into a depression altogether. One can always hope! 😉
I said I am always monitoring my mood. This is actually not an easy feat. It’s hard to judge my moods as I am judging my moods with the same organ that produces these moods, namely the brain. So it is hard to be objective. But I do s fairly decent job of it. At least that’s what I think. Haha. So anyway, anger, irritability, flight of ideas, insomnia (not a mood but easier to gauge) are all signs of mania. So is weight loss. Irritability, somnolence weight loss or weight gain are signs of depression. So we people with mood d/o’s have to be hyper vigilant in monitoring our moods so that these phases don’t get carried away from us and end up in a hospitalization. For me hospitalization is definitely defeat. I will go into the hospital like I did in 2009. But it is the mood disorder winning and me losing when that happens. Probably s strange thought to some, but that’s what I think. Perhaps it’s really is an unreasonable way to think, but my objective is to stay well enough, by being treated with meds and being hyper vigilant about my mood changes, to stay out of the hospital and live a normal, happy life with no mood upheavals. In reaching this objective, my doctor is my ally and I trust and depend on him. But I am also my own best advocate as I know my illness really well and I know what’s going on inside my head… really wish I didn’t live there but I do,,, oh well c’est la vie, n’est pas?
Well that’s all for now.
Below is an analysis of 10 studies that show that taking Vitamin D and Omega 3 Fatty Acids alleviates the symptoms of seasonal depression (SAD), major depressive d/o and bipolar d/o. In fact, in countries where diets were high in Vitamin D and Omega 3’s, there were lower rates of depression and suicidal thinking. Time for me to start taking my Vitamin D and Omega 3’s regularly! Please consult your doctor before going on any medicines, natural or otherwise.
The review is below.
Clinical Studies Show Fish Oil & Vitamin D May Alleviate Symptoms of Seasonal Depression and Bi-Polar Disorder
Read more: http://m.digitaljournal.com/pr/2369723#ixzz3Ksk65i8X
There have been some recent Meta-Reviews of Scientific Research into the role of Fish Oils and Vitamin D in combating the symptoms of Depression and Bi-Polar Disorder. Researchers pooling the results of 10 randomized trials involving 329 patients found that omega-3 fatty acids (found in fish oil) improved depressive symptoms in patientswith either bipolar disorder or major depression compared to placebo. It is of interest that countries whose populations consume the most amount of fish oil in their diets have lower rates of major depression and suicidal thinking.
In a study performed by Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dept. of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Researchers found that the Omega-3 fatty acid patient group had a significantly longer period of remission than the placebo group. In addition, for nearly every other outcome measure, the Omega-3 fatty acid group performed better than the placebo group. Omega3 fatty acids were well tolerated and improved the short-term course of illness in this study of patients with bipolar disorder.
In another well noted study, researchers at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, found that Supplements containing EPA = 60% of total EPA + DHA, in a dose range of 200 to 2,200 mg/d of EPA in excess of DHA, were effective against primary depression. Omega-3 Fatty Acids are not alone in being an all natural aid to alleviating these symptoms, as Vitamin D has also shown great promise in these treatments for depression. At the 2014 meeting of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders, researcher Baseok Cha discussed the importance of vitamin D supplementation in bipolar patients, who often have deficient or insufficient levels. People receive 50 to 90% of their vitamin D from sunlight, and the rest from diet and supplements. Too much sunscreen can be a problem if it prevents a person from receiving enough vitamin D from sunlight.
Nutrusta has created an Omega-3 Fatty Acids Formula that contains therapeutic doses of both Omega-3’s and Vitamin D3. When taken together, the effect is significantly enhanced.
Read more: http://m.digitaljournal.com/pr/2369723#ixzz3KsjvQGVr
Bipolar1Blog 