Mental health awareness

Good for you in having the courage to speak out and tell your story. All too often those with severe and persistent mental illness suffer in silence and deal with stigma. Your diagnosis does not define you, and as you pointed out there are ways to manage the symptoms. No one would choose to have the symptoms and there is no "snapping out of it". That message makes about as much sense as telling someone with a chronic medical condition to "snap out of it". It takes courage to ask for help and courage to work on being well in spite of the diagnosis.

 

Hello GP8 - I APPLAUD your courage to post such a personal story.

It resonates with me when people tell the truth and come from behind the BS shield of their "perfect" American life.

I am not religous but I offer you encouraging thoughts and this simple post.

As I have gotten older and the illusion of our consumer culture and the BS that encapsulates it has become clearer, I have retreated to
a few things that provide succor -

My two sons. (no wife / divorced)
My three wonderful sisters
My pets - 2 dogs and three cats, I can't begin to express my affection for them.
Gator Country and all things UF, particularily sports related.

I feed 3 - 4 does every day behind the Condo without fail. Over a year now, I have a certain "whistle" I do and they pretty much are either waiting for me after work or emerge when I whistle. I can't touch them "yet" but they allow me to get within 10' or so. I used to be an avid hunter but age has eliminated my lust to kill living things. I figure I owe the Whitetail species a little compensation.

My flower garden and tomato plants. Always fun.

I had some serious setbacks in life the last 7 years, - Health, Marriage, Career - so the above is my coping mechanism.

I quit the sugar (I have type 2 diabetes), quit smoking weed, (my previous coping mechanism) and am concentrating on learning more about history and archeology, which is immensely interesting and satisfying to me.

I have come to the conclusion that just about everybody in this country will "Hit the Wall" sooner or later, when the cultural attributes we are conditioned to live by in the ole USA is revealed to the individual to be complete bull-shit. Once the money runs out, friends and society hauls ass, and quick, in the other direction!

Anyway - I wish you well and always, ALWAYS enjoy the bond that UF and Gator Country, gives us Gators.

Be well.

 

I assume you are familiar with NAMI?

 

We love you, dear lady, and your posts.

 

I sure will GP8 - btw I like your dad's pic.................

Hey, it's odd how life can bring good or bad things in waves.
My hope for you is you get a wave of good things headed your way.

Hey, maybe the Gators will cheer us both up this fall! You never know.

Be well

 

It takes a lot of courage to talk about mental illness, especially when there is still a lot of stigma surrounding it.

It's great to hear that you have found acceptance and are no longer ashamed of your mental health. Acceptance is an important step towards recovery and living a fulfilling life.

You're absolutely right that we should not make people with mental illness feel ashamed or like they have the black plague. Mental illness is just like any other illness, and those who struggle with it deserve compassion, support, and treatment.

 

@GatorPrincess8

As I’ve posted elsewhere I have a daughter who is “bipolar” and a son who is autistic spectrum. It can be a difficult journey.

As to the “bipolar” she has had behavioral issues going back to 3 years old. We call it bipolar because there isn’t anything else that fits. However, the psychiatrist over the last few years has found, working with a local specialized cardiologist that many of his pediatric patients for the definition of joint mobility spectrum disorder, which includes POTS syndrome and Ehrlos Danos disorder. She has gone through testing and fits the criteria.

It’s not well known among the medical community. Most doctors have very limited definitions of POTS and ED. She also got lucky and by sheer chance found a PCP who is familiar with it because the PCP has it and has been to the same cardiologist.

Whether the revised diagnosis will lead to treatment changes remains to be seen.

Another poster in this board PMd me who has a relative with similar diagnosis.


There is a very good book about this:

Disjointed Navigating the Diagnosis and Management of Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders https://a.co/d/eXV4iEv

 

Speaking of mental illness, Biden was just asked about 'the key to success' by an Irish child.
Joe said..."get a COVID shot."

 

That sounds terrifying to me. Don't answer if you don't want to, obviously, but are you aware that they are hallucinations as they're happening or is it hard to tell?

I applaud you for sharing your challenges and progress.

 

We had an outside consultant come in and give an exec level briefing on mental illness. The red flags in our internal metrics have just exploded since late 21. Over a three-fold increase in employees utilizing employee resources than in that time. I learned a lot in that briefing on what to be looking for in terms of recognizing when someone is starting to struggle.

Having two buddies from UF with recent struggles that they have kept to themselves for 40 years I do applaud you Princess for having the courage to talk about it and bring awareness to many who may not have given it much thought. Please know that you have a community here that will support you through all and that God will continue to look after you. You are certainly not worthless in his eyes. Please keep the faith and fight back the demons. There are many more people in your life who love you than those who don’t care. God bless!

 

I cannot help but acknowledge the courage it takes to divulge personal struggles like Princess has. And I applaud the way she’s persevered through them.

That said, I find it ironic (and sad) that it is the labeling of struggles - common to man - as ‘mental illness’ has actually led to the stigmatization of those who struggle.

DISCLAIMER! DISCLAIMER! DISCLAIMER!

In questioning the subsumption of common struggles under the rubric of ‘mental illness’ I am in no way dismissing the reality of said struggles.

Indeed, as I have lived and/or worked with people so labeled, I can attest that the suffering attached to said struggles can be as debilitating, if not more so, than the suffering attached to organic diseases.

 

Everyone has some degree of what is termed as mental “illness”, but sometimes one is more biologically predisposed, or have had environmental factors that contribute to it being clinically diagnosed.

People personally identify much more with their minds and its content than their organs, and believe they should be able to control it. When one can’t, it can be easy to take it as you are broken or something is inherently wrong with you, which creates unnecessary shame and makes it a lot worse.

If you aren’t able to to manage it on your own, there is no shame in seeking treatment.

As another poster said in a different thread: Being left handed might be statistically abnormal, but it isn’t unnatural. Same applies to what we define as mental “illness”.

 

Wasn’t it John Bradshaw who said 97% of Americans are mentally ill ?

 

I suspect that autism, schizophrenia, bipolar, ADHD, tourette, and some other disorders have a common root and that these tend to overlap with immune system disorders. I don't have the knowledge of genetics or statistics to take it much further than that. But I have seen patterns in my own family and in others.

The common thread is oversensitivity. And what the hell that is I don't know. But I would loosely define it as some disregulation with how self engages with non-self.

Most people take sensations or emotions (both vague concepts) for granted, but there is what my body can be observed to be doing when I'm afraid or in pain, and my actual first person subjective experience of fear or pain, and connection between the two is nebulous to the extent that there is no general theory which explains how to the two are connected. Maybe there is a more primative connection there.