Sick In the Head (Part 1- Me)

Mental illness. I could go on and on about this. I don't even really know where to start. Maybe I should start by saying that I'm surrounded by it. My mother, most notably, my father, aunts, ex-wife (ok sure, I don't have an ex-wife, but my husband does and I have to deal with her bullshit enough that I feel like I'm allowed to call her my ex-wife too.) and my own. I suppose having to deal with it on a regular basis I feel qualified enough to discuss my experiences with those with mental disorders and how I cope.
I guess I should bare my soul and describe what I've gone through. Most of my life I've suffered from some form of depression or another. Even as a child I remember having many suicidal thoughts. I've been very fortunate to have had one thing or another prevent me from actually acting those thoughts out. In my late teens/early 20s it got considerably worse. I had bouts of paranoia, I was extremely anti-social, angry, irrational and I had a lot of silly OCD traits that controlled a lot of my daily behaviors.
When I was 18 I was put on anti-depressants. First was Prozac. Oh man that did a doozy on me. Sure I wasn't depressed anymore, but it certainly turned me into one heck of a robot. I wasn't sad, but I sure as hell wasn't happy. Next was Paxil. Hell I thought Prozac was bad. Paxil not only screwed me mentally as well, but physically. I packed on the weight, lost any inability to enjoy sex, and if I didn't take the pills on time every day I went through painful withdrawl symptoms that included feeling like I was chewing tinfoil, vertigo, yawning, immediately losing my thought process, feeling like lightning strikes were happening in my brain and two petite mal seizures. Suck ass, man. It never really occured to me that I was suffering all of these things because of course my doctor at the time didn't tell me. They just tried to treat the symptoms with other meds. Finally a coworker happened to mention that it was probably the meds when I complained about a symptom. Holy hell did that shed some light on the problem. I, being ignorant, decided to go off all meds immediately (NEVER DO THIS). I suffered for about 3 weeks physically and mentally until all withdrawl symptoms were gone.
During that time I realized that I do have control over myself and my emotions more than I thought I did. I was able to look back with clarity that I had not had before and see the behaviors that I exhibited or did exhibit at that time were NOT normal. I decided to take control of my life. I started small with some of my OCD issues. I used to only be able to read the newspaper in a certain order. If a piece was missing I couldn't even start the paper and it would put me into a rage and I'd be angry and bitter for days constantly fester about the articles I may have missed because someone took the Flair section out. This is small potatoes compared to people with full blown OCD, but it was small things like this that ran my life. I finally started forcing myself to read the paper out of order. It fucked me up, but after a few weeks I realized the anxiety and rage it created for me was slowly dissipating. So I start controlling other areas of my life. I became more concerned about my appearance and realized that I wasn't as ugly as I had grown up to believe. I began to drop negative relationships (NOT ALL OF THEM!-part 2 will come soon) with people who made me feel bad about myself. Slowly I acquired a "new normal" for myself. I realized that I did a lot of what was expected of me because I didn't have the slightest clue who I was. Breaking free from my life made really, really like who I was. It hasn't been a clean break.
As much as I ABHOR the idea of psych meds I KNOW sometimes it is a necessity (more on that later). I've had two instances where I had to go on Welbutrin short term. That was one of the few medications that allowed me to feel, but took the edge off a little. The most frustrating side effect of that one for me, was insomnia and not being able to finish sentence. I have weak moments. I get small bouts of paranoia and have to kick my own ass into thinking rational. I have some minor and sometimes very extreme anxiety over social situations. I get crazy anal about things that don't make sense and don't matter (oh man if you write on MY list in YOUR handwriting it is going to ruin my day!), but I work HARD to keep control over what is rational and what is not. I fear that if I do not maintain that control in my life that I will eventually lose control and get to the point where I cannot function without medication, or worse, lose control completely. I know I'm a control freak, I've tried to loosen up a bit, I know it's annoying, but just know that this is how I cope and this is how I keep myself healthy in the brain.


To be continued....