Mental Health Friday #8

I am diagnosed (at the moment) with rapid cycling bi polar type 2, extreme anxiety, agrophabia, fear of crowds, but that stems from the anxiety.

I feel I was lucky that I had been in my relationship for a while, before I got diagnosed, because for my partner he was suddenly dealing with a different person. Rather than the out-going, always smiling, high flyer, he had known for the previous two and half years, instead, he was dealing with a 6 month pregnant lady, who would cry at the drop of a hat, refused to leave the flat and couldn’t give a flying fig about her job

Due to the fact that I was pregnant, it was easy enough to get me to the doctors and luckily, I wasn’t that far gone and was still able to see something wasn’t right. At that point I was blaming the hormones triggering something, but the fact is I have always been a little bit quirky, shall we say, and thankfully my partner who had known me for nearly 20 years, knew it too.

The doctor sent me for CBT (Cognitive behavioural therapy) and by the time my son was born, I was not only very stable but with the support of my partner, had started up my own little business and we moved into a house with a garden.

Mental Health Friday: #1

I was first diagnosed with Early Onset Bipolar Disorder when I was five years old. At that time, my mother did not accept the diagnosis and moved forward with no help. At the age of 23, after I had my first child, I was diagnosed again. I did not accept my diagnosis at that time. At the age of 31, I was once again diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, ADHD and PTSD. I accepted my diagnosis’ and went for treatment.

Through my life, there have been great losses and broken relationships due to the stigma of mental illness. It amazes me when I come to realize how destructive ignorance can be. I wish the people in my life had been educated at least enough to know that mental illness, like any physical illness, is not a choice. It is not a moral issue. It has absolutely nothing to do with values and integrity. Mental illness does not mean less than.

There is so much brilliance hidden in people who are disregarded because of a diagnosis. So much courage, fortitude, loyalty and love. The creativity is endless. Just like anyone else, we are leaders, followers, teachers, friends, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters. We are parents who love our children and children who love our parents. We are human beings.

What I would really like to see, is a way for people to appreciate the value of a person with a mental illness. Just like everyone else, we each have gifts to give the world. Great gifts and it seems such a waste to throw away such assets, based on ignorant assumptions. Over the past fifteen years, I have struggled to accept, understand and become compliant with my diagnosis. Bi-Polar to me is not a bad thing anymore. I know what it means in my life and those around me and I know what I have to do to manage it.

Mental Health Friday #16

Today’s MHF is a continuation of Trae’s journey with Bipolar disorder. Up until now, we’ve seen her deal with her mother passing away, the negative effects of anti-psychotics and her relapse with addiction. We ended last time with Trae getting back her life with her decision to break away from abuse and her then husband.

When I came home from spending the night at my friend’s house the day after I had fought with my then-husband on the phone, it must have been late afternoon, because I sat on the couch and my now ex-husband said I needed my medication. He seemed concerned as though I had been through something although I saw no reason for him to feel that way. It was as though he saw this as solving the problem. He gave me my medication and I took them, not thinking that the dose he was giving me was what was directed on the bottle. One of those medications was Seroquel and he had given me 1200 mg of that along with my other medications. I was only taking 800 a day. My doctor had originally written the prescription out wrong, but I was never to take 1200 mg a day.

I don’t remember much after that. The next day, I woke up and as I sat on the couch trying to focus because I was so groggy, my now ex-husband was pacing back and forth in front of me, screaming obscenities and accusations at me in front of my sons. I could not respond. This was on June 15th of 2012. I don’t remember much of what went on in the house for the next three weeks, possibly due to being overmedicated and the stress level in the house was extremely high.

At some point, I went to my friend who I will call Kay. At the time, she lived in an apartment for sober women. She gave me the number to call and apply for a room of my own in the apartment, which I did. I was accepted, but my room would not be available until July 2nd.

Over the next couple of weeks, I believe my husband continued to give me my medications, but I can not say for sure. If he was, it would explain my foggy memory.

On June 30th 2012, two days before my room would be available, my husband told me he wanted me to leave now. I immediately called my Godmother and went to her house for the night. I spent the next night at another friend’s house and was in my room at the sober women apartment the next day. I did not feel as though I had left a home, I felt free.

It was a very small room, furnished with a bed, a coffee table and a chair. Kay was now my roommate and I confided my feelings about my life to her. She was a good friend.

At this point, I continued to have coffee with John, the man I originally had coffee with on June 13, 2012 and talk to him for hours. He listened without judgment and never offered any opinion on what I told him. He listened, never pushing me in any direction with my thoughts. I told him my entire life story, over and over until I began to hear the words I was saying and realized so much more about the situation I was in. It is true that you never really see how bad things are until you are outside of the situation.

When I moved into my new room at the sober women’s house on July 2, 2012, I was mandated to attend thirty A.A. meetings in thirty days, without exception. It had already begun that people in the program were treating me differently although I did not know why at the time. I felt uncomfortable going to the meetings, in addition to the fact that being forced to go made it difficult with my defiance issues. I have never been in a detox or other facility where I was told what to do. John went to the meetings with me and I now found it very difficult to sit through the hour meeting now that it was mandated as opposed to being my own choice. To be continued

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Guest Writer: Trae from (TripleClicka.com). I’m honored to have Trae participate, help spread mental health awareness and blur out stigma by sharing her story, here on Mental Health Friday. She’d be back in two weeks with a continuation.

If you’d love to contribute and share your story on Mental health Friday, I’ld love to have you. You can contact me on My email address is: mykahani@yahoo.com . Image credit: HealthyPlace.com

Mental Health Friday #10

“Seeing my ex-husband handle himself so well with my mother leads me to believe that maybe if he had more understanding of my illness, my invisible illness, he would have reacted differently to me.”

The above is an excerpt from my last post here. My mother had just passed away from bone cancer. If my ex-husband had been more understanding of my illness, maybe I would not have been in the state that I was in at that point. It was just a year before that my ex-husband had asked me why I was doing so well and when I answered him that it was because I was doing it for myself, he got very upset and yelled at me. He couldn’t seem to understand the concept of doing anything for myself and so, I gave up. At this point, I already knew that nothing I ever did was good enough and so, rather quickly I had shut down. The chronic pain I was experiencing did not help and my defiant nature brought me to a point of being unable to eat. On the outside our marriage looked good, but only because I questioned him on nothing.

My physical state was sad at best. My muscles were weak and I did not trust my legs. I had problems with depth perception, balance and coordination. I had vertigo and severe cramping in my muscles. I was over medicated and still not sleeping. I was having trouble swallowing and due to a Barium Swallow test it was found that my wind pipe was not closing correctly, causing me to choke on my food.

My husband and I decided at this point to quit smoking and we went to our doctor for a quit smoking aid called Chantix. We did quit smoking for three months, but I became suicidal. One weekend in August, my husband took the five boys to Six Flags and I stayed home alone. I knew no one would be by the house while they were gone. That night, I had myself set up to sleep on the couch, where I always slept at this point, with my medications on the table beside me. I figured I could go to sleep and never wake up. I was all settled in when one thought came to me. I would die on my son’s birthday and my two sons would be the first two to probably walk into the living room when they came home.

At that point I decided it would have to be another time, somewhere away from home. The time gave me a chance. I had been telling my psychiatrist that I was depressed, but he just said it was because I quit smoking and I would stay that way for a year. I knew I wouldn’t make it a year, but I did not tell him that. Now though, I decided to make a switch in doctors and the day I walked into my new doctor’s office he changed every medication I was on. He looked at my list and the first thing he said was that I would not be taking Ritalin anymore. I didn’t move in my seat. I thought if I protested he would know I was abusing it. The drastic change in medications saved my life. Within days, I was no longer suicidal, nor was I having thoughts.

It was during this time that I remember a conversation between my ex-husband and one of my step sons. He was saying to my ex-husband, “You say she is miserable in the morning, but it is you I hear yelling at her everyday.”

Within a month of that conversation, my stepson was out of my life with no explanation other that my ex-husband telling me that he was angry at me. I was devastated and lost 27 pounds in a week. Six months later one of my other step sons and his wife and baby where out of our lives again, with no understanding by me of why.

During the Spring of 2008, my husband and I started to smoke Marijuana. We smoked a few times over a period of six months and then my husband stopped. I went on to smoke another six months before my husband realized and we then went back to the program of A.A. We originally met there when I was three weeks sober, May 25th of 1996. We had not abused alcohol or drugs since then and saw Marijuana as a relapse. The twelve steps of A.A. can be applied to more addictions than just alcohol and we both knew that.

This started a new period of our lives. More losses and a new way of life through the steps. To be continued…

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Guest Writer: Trae from (TripleClicka.com). I’m honored to have Trae who’s been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, participate, help spread mental health awareness and blur out stigma by sharing her story, here on Mental Health Friday. She’d be back in two weeks with another insight
P.S, her blog link is above, let’s spread some love :). IMAGE CREDIT: HealthyPlace.com

If you’d love to contribute and share your story on Mental health Friday, I’ld love to have you. You can contact me on My email address is: mykahani@yahoo.com . For more information, visit this post.

Mental Health Friday #9

Shortly after I was diagnosed with Bi-Polar disorder in 2001, my life changed and I crashed. My husband at the time had been complaining quite a bit about the behavior of my son, who had also been recently diagnosed. My husband was also looking at me differently. He became quite controlling as though I were a child and everything I wanted to do became something he doubted I could do. Life went on this way for a year and a few months and then, life changed.

The above is an excerpt from my last post here where I mentioned, it was July of 2003 that my husband and I bought a house. He had started his own business and our life was quiet. What you don’t know is that my husband had three sons from a previous marriage. He had signed open adoption papers before I met him and we visited with them every six months. The two oldest, twins, came into our lives on a more constant basis in 2004 after they had turned 18 that summer. I couldn’t have been happier to have them there.

One evening a few months later, my husband and I sat at the kitchen table. He cried that evening as he told me how sorry he was. He said the way that I treated his sons as though they were my own made him feel terrible for the way he had acted with my son. He promised to talk to my son and to make a change. He did. His relationship with my son became something I never thought I would see. Still though, I found him being partial to his own sons in ways. Christmas shopping for example. I had to fight with him to put each present in the cart for my son. I believe my husband continued to work on that and did make progress. His relationship with my son grew. Ours did not.

In March of 2005 my mother sold her house and moved in with us. Another big adjustment. At that time I experienced a relationship with my mother that I had never had before. I am grateful for that.

In July of 2005 I suddenly became sick. I had foot drop in my right foot, I couldn’t stand on my right leg at all due to weakness. There was pain in my legs and feet that I couldn’t explain and I started to fall a lot. There was a feeling of nausea that ran through my entire body. It was debilitating and I was scared. It took months of going to doctors and finally a Neurologist to find out that I had peripheral neuropathy with no known cause.

For myself I look to see a cause. Was it years of stress. Was it the large amounts of Ritalin I was prescribed for ADHD. Was it the long period of time when I became so defiant that I refused anything for myself that I could. The period of time when I refused to eat. I will never know. What I do know is that my body was failing me. I was scared and my husband was scared, he shut me out again.

In December of 2005 my mother was diagnosed with bone cancer. She stayed at home with us until she passed away March 24, 2006. Cancer is a disease that you can see. You can see it in the faces of terminal patients, I know this. My husband could see and he helped me to take care of her. I was amazed at how good he was with her.

Seeing my husband handle himself so well with my mother leads me to believe that maybe if he had more understanding of my illness, my invisible illness, he would have reacted differently to me.

To be continued…

Guest Writer: Trae from (TripleClicka.com). I’m honored to have Trae participate and help spread mental health awareness and blur out stigma by sharing her story, here on Mental Health Friday. She’d be back in two weeks. Here are here previous entries: part 1, part 2, part 3
P.S, her blog link is above, let’s spread some love :).  IMAGE CREDIT: HealthyPlace.com

If you’d love to contribute on Mental health Friday, I’ld love to have you. My email address is: mykahani@yahoo.com . For more information, visit this post.

Mental Health Friday #7

If we truly do want stigma gone, we have to start treating ourselves better. We need to stop seeing ourselves the way stigma says we should. Acceptance and compliance to treatment does not make us weak, it means we see our limitations and that is a part of strength. Compliance to treatment says we are not ashamed. If I want to be treated well, I must first treat myself well. If I want someone to believe in me, I must first believe in myself. If I want someone to understand something, I need to first understand it myself. That is my responsibility.

This is an excerpt from my last post here on Ameena’s blog. I can not tell you that I have always treated myself as well as I do now. I can not even say that I treat myself as well as I should. What I can say is that I have learned on an extremely difficult road that if I don’t treat myself well, no one else will. If I don’t like myself I will change myself for other people. If I change myself for other people, I will never be with people that actually like me. If I am with people that don’t actually like me, how will I know it is ok to like myself? It sounds like a trap and it is. We trap ourselves, every time we accept less, we trap ourselves.

It is hard to step back and look at the trap we are in. No one around us sees us any better than the way we treat ourselves and so, when looking to our fellows for reassurance, which is normal by the way, we get none.

The thing is, we know. We know we are capable, yet we doubt ourselves when we look for reassurance from others and it is not there. In my life I have allowed myself to feel so low about myself and my life that I was spending my time just waiting to die.

Shortly after I was diagnosed with Bi-Polar disorder in 2001 my life changed and I crashed. My husband at the time had been complaining quite a bit about the behavior of my son, who had also been recently diagnosed. My husband was also looking at me differently. He suddenly decided I wasn’t good at paying the bills, although I hadn’t had any problems doing so. He became quite controlling as though I were a child and everything I wanted to do became something he doubted I could do. Driving the hour to Boston, especially at night. Everything became something I should doubt that I could do and I did doubt myself. As I failed and the behavior of my son got worse, my husband and I argued all the time, me constantly defending my son. Everything just seemed to fall apart and the stress level was at a dangerous point.

I went to my son’s therapist and with her sitting with me, I called the Department of Social Services and reported myself. My claim was that I was afraid I was going to hurt my son. When I met with the woman at DSS, she asked me if I wanted her to open a case and I told her I did. I went through investigation and my claim was unfounded. However, this did get some help to come out to my house. I was then deferred to an organization called MSPCC. A woman was sent to my house to sit with me and help me to get respite services for my son.

Before I go on, I want to say that I do not believe any of this situation was directly caused by my son’s behavior. I believe more that his behavior was worsened to a great degree by the stress in the house.