Monthly Archives: May 2014

I am a 31 year old woman of color and mother of 3 living with mental illness. My official diagnosis is “rapid cycling bipolar disorder type 2 with OCD and anxiety.”

I can trace the anxiety back to my childhood. My father was emotionally and verbally abusive and physically violent during my childhood and teen years. When I was able to leave and move in with my mother at 17, I was sexually abused and mistreated by my stepfather.

I can trace the depression to my 13th birthday when I had my first suicidal thought.

In 2009-2010, at age 27, I found myself severely depressed while pregnant with my second child. After his birth, the depression mostly manifested as rage, the anxiety led to panic attacks, and my way to try and feel in control of the spiral I was in was to organize, arrange, clean, and obsess over things being in their proper place at all times. At 10 months postpartum, I found myself so desperate for relief from my symptoms and so wracked with guilt over not being “good enough” for my children, that I was suicidal.

Getting treated for postpartum depression and anxiety led to the eventual diagnosis I listed at the very beginning. Treatment in the form of talk therapy was helping, but both the Zoloft, and anti-anxiety medication I had been prescribed didn’t seem to be keeping my moods from cycling at such a frantic and scary pace. It became so debilitating, cycling between both manic and depressive symptoms, I could barely function. When I fell deep into another well of suicidal thoughts in July 2011, I found myself at the VA mental health clinic with my 15 month old sleeping soundly on my lap while I bared my soul and struggle to the intake psych. I left that day with a new diagnosis, a new treatment plan, and a new hope that I wasn’t “crazy”-I would be ok.

I was told that day what I was experiencing was a result of both nature and nurture; due to trauma in my childhood and teen years, as well as a family history with mental illness, I was basically a walking list of risk factors, a breeding ground for mental illness to develop.

My grandfather, my mother’s father, is schizophrenic. Depression? Runs rampant on my mother’s side of the family. My mother? Was hospitalized for psychiatric reasons after suffering a breakdown when I was 2 years old. Her diagnosis? She won’t say. Medications were a suggested course of treatment, but she refused them and has maintained her faith is all she’s needed to keep her mentally sane all of these years since. My father? Not only was he abusive and violent towards me, he himself was the result of a traumatic childhood, but was never treated. His mother is also believed to be suffering from a mental illness, but what it is, no one knows.

And those are the problems within my family: no one knows and no one gets treated. Trauma and other risk factors for mood disorders are highly prevalent, but there is no awareness, no steps are taken to educate the next generation about susceptibility. I was never put in therapy. My stepfather assumed he could “fix” me himself and my mother…I think she just assumed my “issues” at 17-20 were beyond her understanding and that somehow along the way, God would just fix me.

I don’t know why no one in my family talks about mental illness. I don’t know why despite all of the education and degrees they have, there’s still so much ignorance about mental health. I just know that silence has not helped us thrive. I just know that no one knew that with a family history of schizophrenia, the probability of bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety impacting future generations is significant. I just know that I grew up so ill informed on mental illness that I was unaware of the risk factors that can lead to its development.

Now, though, I know. I’m aware. I’m informed. I know that with my grandfather being schizophrenic and myself having bipolar disorder that the chances of my children developing some form of a mood disorder is as high as 20%. I knew that due to previously having PPD and having bipolar disorder, my chances of relapsing or developing postpartum psychosis after I delivered 7 months ago was as high as 80%.

I know, now, and that knowledge gives me the power to make informed choices regarding my health and treatment. It empowers me to advocate for myself, and to make my mental health as much of a priority as anything else I’m responsible for as a mother and wife. And it enables me to being extremely vigilant and mindful of the type of environment I provide for my children, and the kind of relationships I have with them. I do my best to be honest about my struggles when they ask while still shielding them from when I’m at my lowest. When I was hospitalized in October 2013, I was honest with them when they came to see me, letting them know I was there because I was sick, needed help, and was getting it there so I could come home and be the mommy they needed me to be. They know I take medication and see a therapist when necessary. They know I advocate for other moms who suffer from postpartum mood disorders.

I talk to them as openly as I can and show them I’m compliant in my treatment because I want to model for them what wasn’t modeled for me. I want them to be able to talk openly and honestly about any struggles they’re having with their mental health, and know it’s okay to ask for and need help to thrive. I want them to know that it’s possible to live with mental illness yet still be a productive person with a full, healthy life. I don’t want them to live in shame or fear of stigma. I don’t want stigma or ignorance to keep them from seeking help if and when they need it throughout their lives.

I want them to know everything I didn’t. I want them to live empowered, unashamed and aware of all the parts of their being-even the ones that malfunction through no fault of their own.

Stigma shames. Stigma silences. Stigma turns a blind eye. Stigma kills. It’s not taking me nor my children. Here’s to setting new patterns for my family. Here’s to thriving.

A’Driane Nieves is a Postpartum Depression and Anxiety survivor who writes about navigating the nuances of motherhood and Bipolar Disorder Type 2. A’Driane is also a USAF disabled veteran, writer and artist best known for her love of Prince (He re-tweeted her once!), and her hot pink streaked afro. You can read her mind at her blog Butterfly-Confessions.com, and read her random thoughts on Twitter (@addyeB). She was most recently named one of BlogHer’s Voices of the Year for 2014. She lives in Austin, Texas with her futurist husband and three boys.

July 2011

I arrived at the ER in pain like a rabid badger in my guts. Hunched over, shuffling, I had a little paint bucket in my hands because I wretched continuously. I sat in the chair across from the receptionist, my bucket between my feet, and passed her my insurance card. She said, “I’ll get you through this just as quick as I can,” and passed me a few pages, holding them still so I could sign consent to treat and privacy forms.

When I was done signing, a young man appeared with a wheelchair. He pushed me into one of the examination rooms and there, the nurses and lab techs bustled around me while I heaved unceasingly into my bucket.

Someone helped me into a gown. A tech drew vial after vial of blood. A nurse started an IV. She pushed a syringe into one of the ports and said, “Anti-nausea medicine is coming now, hon. A nice, big dose. There’s pain medicine, too, and there will be more as soon as we get some idea what’s happening.”

Someone rinsed my bucket and returned it to me, and someone brought me wet washcloths and wiped my face and my neck. I knelt, hunched, on the ER gurney and when the puking slowed, I was wheeled for a scan, and another scan, and someone said pancreatitis, a diagnosis that was not familiar to me, but my family was there so I sank low, low into my body, to deal with all that was happening in me.

“More pain medicine, hon. Lots of it this time. You can’t have anything at all to drink or eat for a few days, OK? Then you’ll have surgery. But for now, you’re going to feel better. You can go to sleep and when you wake up you’ll be in your room.”

A hospital room was exactly where I woke up, and I lay there for three days while nurses came every few hours to pump me full of opiates, anti-nausea medicine, and antibiotics while I slept on and on. The techs on the floor came and helped me to the bathroom when I rang and eased me into a chair every day so they could put clean sheets on my bed.

October 1989

I arrived on the unit with my head down and I didn’t realize where I was until I heard the noisy clunk of a steel door behind me. Someone officious sat me in a mustard-yellow plastic chair under a row of pay phones and asked me many questions, many of which had to do with the timing and sequence and timing of my symptoms.

“How is your appetite?” she asked, and “Are you sleeping?” She wanted to know, “Would you say you feel sad rarely, some of the time, most of the time, or all of the time?” Lifelong good girl that I was, I tried to answer her questions. “My appetite is fine,” I said, and “I haven’t slept in a very long time,” and, “I’m sad all the time.”

“Oh, come on, you can’t be sad all the time! Something must make you happy!” she chirped, and I cried harder, a stinging river of tears on my hot, raw face and I couldn’t answer, wouldn’t answer her. Naughty, naughty me. Bad, confused, lying me, causing all this fuss and surely there was something that made me happy.

For weeks, I had thought of nothing but death. When I closed my eyes to sleep, I saw murder and torture and it seemed as much fantasy as nightmare, so I sat up at night staring at The Donna Reed Show, Lassie, and Green Acres in endless, stupid succession while I sharpened all the knives in the house. I didn’t eat because I was lower than a worm. During the day I sped my tiny roller skate car up and down the mountain roads near my Arizona home, seatbelt unbuckled, daring myself to sail off the cliff.

Would you say you are sad rarely, sometimes, most of the time, or all the time?

I was eventually sent to the day room while the nurses looked through my luggage Once there, I cocooned myself the best I could with a hospital blanket in one of the ultra-light molded plastic chairs. My 1:1 babysitter sat next to me, dutifully lighting my succession of cigarettes while she read the newspaper.

The other patients swirled around me, interacting with their hallucinations, asking me questions, changing the channel, banging on the glass that surrounded the nurses’ station shouting, “I need more valium. More Valium, goddammit! You didn’t give me enough valium, you bitch!”

July 2011

Returned to my room after surgery, my pancreas calm and my gallbladder gone, I was allowed ice chips, then water, and finally a little food. I felt dreadful, the cumulative effects of the original illness plus several days of near-total immobility and huge doses of opiates to ease the pain of a pancreas that was actually digesting itself.

My guts were so full of fluid that when I was removed from supplemental oxygen, my blood saturation levels plummeted to potentially fatal levels, so I had to stay in the hospital longer than expected. I wanted to go home the way a newborn pup wants to be close to its mama, so I rang the tech every two hours all day and night. She hustled to my bedside, helped me sit up, put my slippers on my feet, and switched me over to the portable oxygen tank from the outlet on the wall. She dragged that oxygen tank behind us 5, then 10, and finally 15 minutes as I slowly walked the halls to hasten the removal of all the fluid that was preventing me from breathing.

October 1989

Late on my second night on the unit, the charge nurse motioned me to come outside with her. She lit my cigarette, then lit one of her own and asked me, “I hear you want to die. Why would you want to die? You’re young and pretty and you have everything going for you.”

I shrugged.

“Well,” she said, “you know that we can’t really help you, right? I mean, if a person really and truly wants to die, there’s not much we can do to stop them.”

May 2014

When I think of stigma, the first thing that comes to my mind is not misrepresentation in the media or criticism from friends and family, but my experiences of accessing mental health care for myself and my children.

Stigma is in the mustard-yellow ugliness of psychiatric hospitals. It’s in the peeling paint and the torn seat cushions.

Stigma is in the long waits, patients “boarded” in emergency rooms while other patients with illnesses of similar severity are moved quickly to inpatient beds as I was when I had pancreatitis.

Stigma is in the impatience of psychiatric staff. It’s in the system that leaves them too overwhelmed with work to care about individual patients, and undereducated about the nature of mental illness.

Stigma is in restrictive visiting hours when a patient is receiving psychiatric treatment. Stigma is in insurance company’s refusal to pay for adequate treatment, and in the system’s hyper-application of privacy laws for psychiatric care compared to all other kinds of medical care. But most of all, stigma is in our cultural unwillingness to take mental illness seriously before it’s a crisis.

Our health care system is a reflection of this cultural reality: we deny treatment, or make treatment so difficult to access that we may as well be denying it, until there is a crisis. How much kinder, to treat mental illness the way my pancreatitis was treated. How much more humane, to greet a mentally ill person when she or he seeks care the same way my son was greeted when he presented with a broken elbow.

How much suffering could we prevent?

Adrienne Jones lives in Albuquerque, NM with her Deadhead husband, their outrageously cool kids, and Doodle the Wonder Pug. You can find her vacillating between radical idealism and self-righteous anger at No Points for Style and find links to other things she does on the internet at about.me/AdrienneJones.

Once upon a time in a land that doesn’t exist, a girl crawled into a police station and says four words that only the bravest of the brave could ever say: “I was just raped.”

The girl looks like she’s been roughed up: eyes swollen and filled with tears, her clothes dirty and disorganized and her hair a tangled mess. Her fingers are bloody and her knuckles are white as she clings to the front desk. Perhaps fearing that the girl is just a breath away from passing put, an officer emerges from behind the desk. He places one hand upon her shoulder. She is reassured. She feels safe. She finally lets out a shaky breath of relief as her chin quivers and fresh tears threaten. The officer leads her to an interview room and hands her a glass of water. Moments later, the girl relays her tragic story, sparing no detail. The officer is calming and compassionate; he leaves the girl in the care of her doting family, determined to find justice for her.

The officer and the other investigators are quick to gather evidence and nab the perpetrator. Soon after, the girl stands up in court, points to her attacker and tells her awful story, detail by painful detail. She’s nearly broken several times as the Defense council seeks to discredit her, but the Prosecutor acts as her valiant protector. The attacker is convicted of rape. The girl can finally rest easy.

She moves on with her life, finds love, happiness and fulfillment and never thinks about that awful time again. In other words, she lives happily ever after.

This is a fairy tale; it’s a non-existent best-case scenario. This might even be the way the sleeping world believes rape cases actually happen. But it’s not. Or, at least, that hasn’t been my experience.

… A girl crawled into a police station

When I was raped, I didn’t tell anyone. For months. It’s been a couple years and there are still only a handful of people who know. Going to the police station in the middle of the night didn’t even really cross my mind. I didn’t see that as an option.

…“I was just raped.”

I still haven’t admitted this to anyone. Not in these words. I have never said the words, “I was raped” out loud. I hate the word rape; I don’t want it to be a part of my being.

…The girl looks like she’s been roughed up

I had no plainly visible physical signs of having been jumped by two men while I was out running one night. I had spent an undetermined amount of time with two men taking turns (or not) restraining and having sex with me as I disappeared somewhere else… but you could not tell that by looking at me. They were sexually violent but not physically violent. They didn’t even have to get rough with me when I was fighting with all my might, because I was outnumbered.

…He places one hand upon her shoulder

Please… don’t touch me. Anyone. Not without my permission. Not without some indication that I want to be touched. Do not reach out and try to grab my hand when I am telling you something hard. Do not try to comfort me when I am crying unless I know you really well. Do not touch me. Please and thank you.

…She feels safe

I was scared. I was confused. I was alone. I wasn’t safe. I didn’t feel safe. And feeling alone and unsafe after something like this is not a treat. I cannot even describe how every part of my life has changed.

… She is led into an interview room where she relays her story

I haven’t been able to verbally tell my entire story even once. At first I didn’t want to. Sometimes now, I do want to and I still can’t seem to. Sometimes parts come out. Sometimes parts get stuck.

…Investigators are quick to gather evidence and nab the perpetrator

This does happen; I know it does. But I didn’t have any faith of this happening in my case; perhaps that was wrong of me to assume but I had no hope that I would ever be able to help put these men behind bars. They were strangers. It was the middle of the night; it was dark. There were no houses or people around. It just doesn’t seem feasible that in this populated of an area, the perpetrators are findable.

…The girl moves on with her life, finds love, happiness and fulfillment and never thinks about that awful time again. In other words, she lives happily ever after

I am standing firm on the idea that this happens.

Moving on…

It is still a bit hard for me to come to terms with the fact that our world really hasn’t changed that much over the last several decades. Women have not come as far as we think. When the issue of sexual assault, sexual harassment or any kind of sexual violence is on the table, it’s like we are back where we were when a man couldn’t even be charged with raping his wife.

Women barely report sexual assaults; I don’t think this is because after they’re raped, they’re thinking “our justice system is so broken, I’d just be wasting my time”. That statement is how I justify not reporting NOW. It has nothing to do with why I didn’t report then. There is just a stigma to being sexually assaulted, regardless of whether you report. But in reporting, you’re pretty much guaranteeing that people will know what happened.

I want to be normal. I don’t want to be a rape victim. I certainly don’t want to be a “survivor”. I do not want to be a label or a statistic. I do not want to be someone with a “history of trauma”. I do not want my behaviour to be explained or justified by this event. I don’t even really want to acknowledge that this thing even happened.

I just want to be that nice, normal, empowered, non-reactive, hug-loving, cuddly, snugly girl who did not lose her virginity (in more ways than one) to two douchebags who overpowered her.

That girl is so far from what I am today, and I really want her back.

I had a dream. My dream was to get married to the love of my life and have a family. I lived the good life in my 20′s. I worked in the music industry, hung out with rock stars and just had fun. When I reached 30, I knew it was time to say goodbye to the single days and get married. So, I met my husband, three months later we were engaged and ten months later we were married. Five months after we said “I do,” we found out I was pregnant. Two of my biggest dreams were coming true in one year! How lucky I felt.

I had a long and exhausting pregnancy. I didn’t exercise. I didn’t eat well. I lived off of Jerry’s Deli chocolate chip cookies and pasta. I was sick a lot. I would fall asleep as soon as I sat down. I’d wake up hours later and not know what happened to the day or if I remembered to eat or drink. The days became a blur. The one thing I always remembered though was “OMG I HAVENT FELT THE BABY MOVE IN AN HOUR. I HAVE TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL.” I was obsessed. I would sit down and wonder how my unborn son was doing in my stomach every second of every day (unless, of course, I was asleep).

I knew what depression and OCD was. I experienced it at age 19 when I had to leave college and stay in bed for months while we figured out what medication would work for me. But, I was stable and good to go for years. I stayed on my one anti-depressant while I was pregnant. The doctor said it was safe. What I did not see, though, was how bad my OCD had gotten while I was pregnant. I drove my husband crazy. I drove my OBGYN crazy since I was calling her multiple times a day. I had too many ultrasounds to make sure the baby was still in there alive and kicking.

As my husband and I drove to the hospital on May 13th, 2008, to deliver the baby, we were calm. After all, we knew what was going to happen. I would be given something called Pitocin, which helps induce labor. I knew I wanted that epidural for sure. Then we just thought I’d push, and our beautiful baby would finally be with us. Our lives would be even more complete. Our dreams fulfilled. Off into the sunset.

But, we had it wrong. Epidurals, Pitocin, drugs. Pushing, not pushing. Episiotomy. Two days later, my son was born. The first day was fine. The second day was great. We had lots of visitors and I fell in love with this little angel. I was tired but I was happy he was with us. Lots of happy pictures were taken with family and friends. Smiles and more smiles.

On the third morning, we were released from the hospital. Besides some pain, I was ok. I was eating and sleeping. I was also in love. The first night home, the three of us went to bed. The next morning, the old Lindsay was back. As I went downstairs to see my parents (who were staying with us) I suddenly wanted to cry. I sat down on the couch and stared at the floor. I was depressed. But this time, I had a baby to take care of. I looked at my mother. She saw it. No more eating, no more sleeping, no more happy Lindsay. I could handle that. But, what I couldn’t handle was how I now felt with my son. I loved him. I wanted to be with him, but I couldn’t. And, the internal voices had started; the same depressed feeling was back: How am I supposed to care for this baby? I can’t do this. I need a do over. I shouldn’t have had a baby yet.

That was the beginning of my journey with PPD.

Six years later my son is beautiful, smart and so sweet. He became a rock star – more so than the ones I used to work with. Me however, I’m still working on it. I’m not a rock star yet. I still have PPD, but I’m ok. I know what’s real and what’s not. I know that I need to take medication, eat right and sleep right. I don’t always follow those rules but when I do, I feel better

Three years after I had Hunter I met Jamielyn Lippman and Tanya Newbould, two women who were producing a documentary on PPD. They interviewed me. It felt so great to be heard and to tell my story. I also volunteered at Postpartum Support International. I knew that others could learn from my experiences.

And, so, now I’m a subject and co producer in a documentary, called “When the Bough Breaks.” It is a film designed to blow the lid off this silent condition; a film which will raise awareness about this illness. Too many women do not know that they can get this after they give birth. They do not know that 1 in 7 women get PPD after childbirth. Their one moment of joy can turn to total depression, with seemingly no way out.

Who are the faces of PPD? This illness does not discriminate with race, age, gender or economic status.

This film reveals the stories of some incredibly brave women with PPD. It asks the questions that need to be answered: Why do more women not know about PPD before they have a baby? Why do OBGYN, pediatricians and hospitals not inform new mothers about PPD? Why do hospitals not provide support to women giving birth for the first time? What options of recovery are there?

There are so many questions which have previously gone unanswered. We hope to do it with this film.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/When-The-Bough-Breaks-a-documentary-about-postpartum-depression/357261354412414

Originally posted on motheringinthemiddle.com. Reprinted with permission.

Lindsay Lipton Gerszt was born and raised in Miami, Florida. In 1997, she graduated with a BA from the University of Miami, where she majored in Communication and Sociology. Because of her love for music and the arts, in 1997, she began her career in Los Angeles at Aerowave Records. In 1999, she worked at MCA records and in 2003 she worked as a music manager at The Firm. Lindsay had the pleasure of working with, managing and doing PR for some of the biggest artists in the music industry. In 2007, she stepped back from the music industry to begin her beautiful family. It was at this stage in her life, that she came face to face with postpartum depression. She has now committed herself to raising awareness for PPD, it’s many faces and the path to a healthy life and family. Her commitment to PPD has included working on the important documentary…When The Bough Breaks. This work has included fund raising, filming and telling her story, along with helping other women tell their story. This effort has become her passion.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

By Jack A.

I have always been meticulous by nature. Not in a Felix-Unger-neat-freak kind of way, but in a stickler-always-by-the-rules kind of way. I remember one incident, when I was in sixth grade; I was utterly exhausted. I was struggling to stay awake at the kitchen table so that I could do my math homework. My mother encouraged me to go to bed, offering to write my teacher a letter of explanation. I wouldn’t have it because my sixth-grade math homework simply HAD to be done. Inflexible, sure, but that inflexibility got me a straight-A average from grade school through grad school.

Some time in my twenties, however, things started to get out of hand. I was married with two very young children (my youngest had not yet been born), working as director of admissions for a small Liberal Arts college in New York, and I developed a compulsive checking habit. The main sources of my checking were: (1) Is the door locked? (2) Is the coffee pot turned off? and (3) Is my car where I left it?

You would not believe how disruptive this can get. I would leave my house through the front door, checking the knob to see that it was locked. I would get to the bottom of the stairs, then go back up to double check. Sometimes, I would get to the corner and go back to triple check. There were a lot of “sometimes.”

It was bad enough getting out of bed to look out the front window to make sure that my car was still there, but going to, say, a doctor’s appointment was much worse. Even if I knew I was legally parked in a lot, I would leave the waiting room two or three times “just to make sure.”

The OCD manifested in other ways. I traveled a lot for work in those days and I would regularly pull over on my way to the airport “just to make sure” that my luggage was in the trunk.

The coffee pot, at least, I know how it started. Someone at work (Hi, Joyce!) once left the pot on over a three-day weekend. The coffee had all boiled out and even the power cord was hot to the touch. We were extremely fortunate that we didn’t have a fire and after that I was determined to always make sure that the coffee pot was turned off when I left for the day.

It was also the coffee pot that convinced me to get help. One Friday, I took my younger son – then maybe three or four years old – to the office, and I was the last to leave. I checked the pot. I opened the door and checked again. I went down in the elevator, came back up and checked again. And again. And again. I must have gone down and back up to check (a) that the coffee pot was off and (b) that I locked the door after checking the pot. Fortunately, junior was still too young to know that daddy was going a little cray-cray.

I went to see my wife’s therapist, who prescribed a drug called Luvox (generic name: Fluvoxamine). Happily, in my case, ongoing therapy wasn’t needed, as the drug cleared my problem right up. I only needed to see the doctor a few times to get the dosage right. After a few years, I was able to scale the dosage back to a fraction of what it had been.

Taking medication to control my OCD doesn’t change my personality. I’m still a stickler for rules (I don’t speed, much to my wife’s chagrin when I’m going 50 mph on the Belt Parkway and everyone else is doing 70). I’m still meticulous; I don’t make careless errors. I’m an excellent proofreader and I’m convinced that my OCD tendencies are at least part of why I’m so good with the rules of grammar. And yes, sometimes I still double-check that the door is locked or the oven is off – ONCE. Nowadays, I can even use my OCD powers for good. For example, after years of an unhealthy, sedentary lifestyle, I have become quite the exercise buff. My personality simply isn’t to blow off a scheduled workout because I’m tired or it’s raining. We can teach ourselves to channel these urges in more productive ways.

OCD, like ADD and Tourette’s, is one of those disorders that people still consider an acceptable punch line. “I have CDO – it’s like OCD but in proper alphabetical order, as it should be.” People only know what they see on TV, and on TV it’s a source of humor. Sorry, folks. In real life, it’s simply not that funny. It disrupts lives. But I know firsthand that it can be controlled. One just has to acknowledge when it goes from being a personality trait to a real problem.

Jack A. is a professional theologian, a writer and an educator.