Life, Death, and In-between

I am grieving the loss of my nephew - a sudden, death of a young man. I am coming out of the deep darkness of a months long depression, a time when my own hold on life was precarious, and I pause to ponder the tragedy and gift that is humanity. He and I went a few times to some NA meetings, and had meaningful conversations before and after. I don't know yet if his death is related to chemicals, but I know we shared something in our personalities that revolves around using. He is gone, and I am here, and I don't know why some people 'make it' and others simply don't. Death has nothing to do with who deserves it, as I can point to many who deserve death and live long lives.

During my own depression I spent much time debating with myself whether or not death was a viable option. Logically it seemed like a reasonable choice. One of my doctors once said to me "sometimes medicine is a good choice, especially if it lessens the chance of suicide. Suicide certainly isn't of use." I looked her straight in the eye and said "suicide is an effective means to end the suffering." And I can't argue with that even when I feel good. But death affects the living. Death rips a hole in the fabric of a family. Death leaves a circle of friends incomplete. Death is the loss of a meaningful life, no matter whose life, no matter how the meaning is formed. So I grieve my nephew and watch his mother and father weep, his siblings weep, and feel an emptiness where his presence was in our lives.

I know the meaning of my own life in some contexts - mostly in relation to others. I do not understand the meaning of my life in relation to me. I know I used every coping skill I have developed over the past 30 years of therapy and perhaps I kept myself alive, with the help of all the supports in my life, but suffered nonetheless. And suffered deeply. So deeply I stand in amazement at me - and a little sadness - because I have worked so hard to create a meaningful life and the price I pay for being who I am is almost insane. My nephew suffered, I know from our talks, and his approach was to be simple and carefree. He lived a life of unrealistic hope and optimism, never working terribly hard to overcome his 'situation' and instead just played a lot of Xbox and drank. I think in a way I envy him that, as I contrast his coping with my own - unrealistic hopelessness that propels me into constant personal growth and change. He was loved deeply by all the same people that love me deeply. I wonder if he understood the meaning of his own life, or simply accepted, or lived in denial. I knew him well, but there are some aspects of our lives that others are never privy to.

No one will ever 'get' the suffering I experience, or the relief I feel when 'it' is over and I can laugh and think and live without impediment. No one will ever understand how deeply satisfying and pleasurable it is to walk in the woods those first weeks out of the shadow of depression. Our lives are so very personal, and the meaning we construct and the way we build that meaning and the very paths we walk so unique and individual.....yet there is something we share. I know we share it when we laugh together, or exchange an eye-to-eye look, or when there is death. Sometimes what we share is most poignant in it's absence.

Good-bye, nephew. I will plant flowers around the hole you left in the fabric of my life and every now and then when I hear an AC/DC song or run into a foolishly optimistic soul, I'll visit the hole and wonder about you.

Eating My Way to the Bottom

Imagine a huge ice cream sundae. Perhaps, if you know the ice cream parlor Bridgeman's, you know of the Lalapalooza Sundae. It's huge and I ate one once. I forget how many scoops of ice cream, but it doesn't even matter because once you are full and driven to continue eating you just simply eat. When I was eating my way to the bottom of that sundae, I lost my sense of taste. I lost my sense of fullness. I just ate because I wanted to be done. It's such a stupid thing to do, yet there are food challenges all over the nation and television shows and obesity. Just because something is stupid and meaningless doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Depression has no bottom. Just as I think I see the bottom, assume there are only a few painful bites left, the depression expands as if it is eating me and my life and not the other way around. A profound experience unfolds as depression eats my soul; I find my soul is infinite. I'm not about to launch into a philosophical/spiritual discussion of the eternity of the soul. Fuck that. Whether or not I turn to dust, get reincarnated, or enter the pearly gates I find that while alive, life is eternal. As such, depression knows no bounds and the eternity of being eaten alive by this deadly psychological phenomenon is profound. I can only take so much and not take my own life.

But I don't. Instead, I stand on the edge of the bottom looking down farther while I fall until with breathtaking precision my body shuts out the pain and the drive to survive makes me take a few more bites. Empty, stupid, meaningless eating of life in a banquet that has no end. I long, desperately, for an end. I need an end.

Just one more thought. Insanity is sometimes defined as "doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results." I feel like each breath I take is just that - an exercise in insanity. Perhaps all of humanity is insane as we inhale, over and over, with the fullness of expectation only to exhale and there is emptiness. I don't know if this thought is dark or if it is beautiful.

The difference between mental illness and physical illness

Engaging in a stirring controversial argument on a forum is scary. I was doing that, and dropped out, as my feelings were getting hurt. Instead I’ll hide behind a fake fucking name on a blog where no one knows me except by my dirtiest little secrets. But I won’t shut up, because I have something to say.

Here’s the controversial questions: Is there a difference between physical and mental illness? Does the difference or lack of matter?

I struggled with DID and depression and PTSD to the point of hospitalization. These are mental illnesses. I was trained to believe that since mental illness was “in my head” I could somehow get them out of my head. My theory was that if I could understand WHY  I was depressed, multiple, and freaked out then I could deal with the emotions related to that WHY and “let go” and get better. In the psych ward it was explained to me in a way I could finally understand that the reason I was multiple, sad, and had emotional reactions proportionately out of whack was because as a two year old I was sexually traumatized over a 6 week time period during which time my brain became hard-wired to do this shit. I’m not sure I have all the medical facts straight, but it has something to do with my hypothalamus getting too much adrenaline at a crucial developmental phase in its actual physical development and in a sense became physically brain damaged. Therefore, when I am undergoing periods of ‘normal’ stress, my brain reacts ‘abnormally’ and I freak out. One psychiatrist described it as my ‘hypothalamus throwing a big party.’ That’s a physical thing, folks. And it will never go away. The brain damage will never repair. Finally I WAS able to ‘let go’ of my old ideas of how to heal and I began to put into practice the cognitive behavioral therapy I was learning about – how to recognize when my body was over stimulated, how to breathe so that I could calm my physical self down so that my emotional self would follow, how to wait out a panic without contributing to it, how to change my life so that my stress levels could remain in a safe zone, and on and on. Where’s the line between physical illness and mental illness???? It seems pretty blurry to me. Especially considering I can take medicines that also help with these mental problems. If medicines help, which seems like a physical thing, how can the issues be simply mental? Is it dumb to even try to separate the two?

A dear friend once said that a physical illness comes from a physical cause and a mental illness comes from an emotional cause, hence my emotions caused my trauma and therefore I have a mental illness. I pointed out that schizophrenia has a physical origin, but is considered a mental illness. She said she considers schizophrenia a physical illness….so……

There’s these hypothetical twins. Genetically identical. Separated at birth. One twin grows up in a great home and starts smoking at 15 and gets cancer at 40. Physical illness, right? The other twin gets molested a few times by a neighbor, but otherwise grows up in a great home. His PTSD causes lots of anxiety, stress, and physical changes in his body and he has a compromised immune system because of it. All those factors cause this twin to also get cancer. But the twins live in a society that treats illnesses that are mental differently than they treat illnesses that are physical. And the society has determined that cancer from smoking is a physical illness and cancer from stress is a mental illness. The twin with the physical illness goes to one hospital where people treat him nicely, compassionately, and he gets cards from his co-workers that say “get well soon!” and “we miss you!” That twin gets a benefit that raises all sorts of money for his treatment because there is an outpouring of community support. Everyone on his street wears cancer awareness ribbons for a month while he heals. His strength and courage is noted in a touching news story. His wife talks about how hard it is and everyone listens and helps her out with daily living. People show they care.

But the other twin, the one with cancer because of mental stress, well, he doesn’t tell anyone what is wrong because he is afraid he might lose his job. Most people kind of know what’s wrong, but no one says anything openly. When he goes to the hospital for treatment even the staff, jaded and overworked, treat him as if he is to blame for his problems. No one except his mom visits him and he gets not one single get well card. His illness is pretty hush-hush, because mental illness has a stigma. People all SAY that it wasn’t his fault. People all SAY there is no stigma, but the fact remains that he didn’t get any get well cards and NO ONE wants to talk about his cancer. His isolation and lack of support drive him to a deep depression. His wife, working hard to be his sole support and take care of the house and do all the chores gets teased because her husband doesn’t contribute. She carries the burden silently, because there is no other option. No one shows they care openly, they only look upon her with pity once in awhile and in quiet voices occasionally ask how she’s doing, but it’s pretty obvious they don’t really want to know. Her husband’s guilt over what his sickness is doing to her does not help the cancer treatment. Which twin is more likely to heal? Or doesn’t that matter to you?

This hypothetical story is not over dramatized for effect. In fact, I toned it down because unless you have been to a psych ward, unless you have suffered a lifetime of mental illness, you wouldn’t believe how shitty the reality of social stigma is.

I have narcolepsy, too. That’s a neurological disorder with a physical cause. It’s a physical illness. Do you know that because of narcolepsy, I don’t get deep sleep? I am chronically sleep deprived. It’s like how you might feel after staying awake for 2 nights in  a row, only I feel that way every day. I had psychologists tell me my tiredness was due to emotional factors. But I had one doctor who insisted I seek a physical cause, and I did. I currently take a medicine that knocks me the fuck out at night and I get deep sleep. My mental illnesses have subsided tremendously. Deep sleep has given me healing like no cognitive behavioral therapy could ever give me. My emotional symptoms have shrunk down to so minimal, I don’t think I’d qualify as mentally ill anymore. Treating a bona fide physical illness has made my mental illness completely manageable. Where’s the line between physical illness and mental illness in that scenario???? Does it matter? Maybe not to you, but it does to me. Because should I stop getting my medicine covered by insurance or should it stop working, I might go bat shit crazy again. Then, like the poor cancer twin who had to go to the mental illness hospital because his cancer was caused by emotional trauma, I will have to seek medical help from the mental health professionals that treat me differently than the physical health professionals. And they do. Believe me, they do. And so does society. And friends. And family. They all do. Because they maybe don’t get that the stigma really exists and really does matter. And it wouldn’t exist if people would realize that the line between physical and mental illness is non-existent. There’s no line, folks. There’s a really blurry gray zone if anything. As science progresses, that gray zone will probably disappear. When will the stigma?

So stop saying it doesn’t matter if it’s a physical illness or a mental illness. You’re perpetuating the myth that there are two separate and distinct kinds of illnesses, and as long as there is a distinction there will be stigma. And I fucking HATE going to the psych ward and not getting any get well cards. It fucking hurts.