If you're a new reader, and would like to "skip to the good stuff"....this page contains links to the blog posts explaining K's story, and a couple written by different K's.
The Lost Blog Post (history of our mental health as told by a different K)
Major Breakthrough or Break From Reality? (K has an important realization)
The Discovered Diaries (clues to our past and present)
The Mystery Blog Post (written by a different K)
Help From Afar (an email from the ex-boyfriend to my husband, regarding my switching)
Peeling Off An Old Label (life-changing news about our diagnosis)
How I Became A Walking Drugstore (a breakdown of our past diagnoses)
How To Be Our Friend (tips on how to get to know us)
What's Wrong With Us? (we talk about Dissociative Identity Disorder)
Another Day, Another K (switching)
My Own Reality Show (what it's like inside our head)
Showing posts with label diagnosis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diagnosis. Show all posts
Friday, June 1, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Diagnosis Timeline
WHEN I WAS DIAGNOSED WITH WHAT (yes, I know some of these are the same thing but with a different name; I've seen about 13 different doctors)
- Manic Depression----------------------------------------------Age 16
- Anorexia Nervosa----------------------------------------------Age 17
- Major Depressive Disorder-------------------------------------Age 19
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder-----------------------------------Age 20
- Panic Disorder--------------------------------------------------Age 21 (?)
- Bipolar I-Rapid Cycling-----------------------------------------Age 22
- Bulimia----------------------------------------------------------Age 23 (?)
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder---------------------------------Age 24
- Social Anxiety Disorder-----------------------------------------Age 25 (?)
- Schizophrenia---------------------------------------------------Age 27
- Body Dysmorphic Disorder-------------------------------------2002
- (unspecified personality disorder)-------------------------------2002
- Borderline Personality Disorder---------------------------------2004
- Multiple Personality Disorder------------------------------------2005
- Dissociative Identity Disorder------------------------------------2007
- (unspecified mood disorder)--------------------------------------2010
- (unspecified dissociative disorder)--------------------------------2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
My Psychiatrist is Making Me Crazy!!!
So I don't know which disorder I have, only that I have a great deal of trouble with dissociation and amnesia and losing time and dozens of other symptoms which you'd think she could use to give me a motherfucking specific diagnosis. FUCK ALL THIS SHIT!!! Just fucking say what you want to say for God's sake. I am upset with my psychiatrist because she refused to give me a specific diagnosis. I want a label. I need to know who and what I am. This shit can't be normal. I've been pretending my whole life and we're absolutely exhausted by it at this point. I don't think I can fake it anymore. I don't think I can paste on a smile and be whomever you need me to be without blowing my cover, so to speak. I need to be ME, who happens to be an US. And I'm OK with that.
Obviously there must have been something terrible in my childhood to mess me up in the head this badly. We can't even discuss this shit with our doctor. To my horror, we talked about psychiatric hospitals, and she pretty much said that if it comes down to it and we get worse, she won't hesitate to hospitalize me. NOT what I wanted to hear. I've had some horrific experiences in mental hospitals over the years. Most important question I asked her was this: "Do I have to remember the childhood abuse in order to get better?" I was relieved to hear that no, it isn't always necessary or desirable. I don't think I could handle the truth anyways.
Fuck this shit. Just fucking take a pain pill and go to bed. Your head feels like it's been hit with a hammer. You've been in a manic state and haven't slept but 3 out of 48 hours. I've eaten one meal this whole week. I think I might be dying. And FUCK ME I haven't told you the rest of it. How Hubby says I'm spending too much time on the computer and he says I don't do anything else anymore. Nothing. No eating, no sleeping, no sex. He says I'm obsessed. He's right. I'm obsessed with learning about my mental illness so that I can take better care of myself and live a better quality of life.
FUCK ALL THIS SHIT just fucking give it up. You're beyond help. You can't even talk to your own husband about your true feelings because it freaks him out. None of your Real Life friends know you're sick, except for some depression. I'm living a LIE. Our life is a sham. I'm not K, I'm an imposter. I don't know who or what we are anymore. Just want to sleep away the pain.
(The Next Day:)
Which I did. Took a handful of pills and slept for 12 hours straight. God I needed that. Still, woke up feeling frustrated and angry, at everything it seemed. To make things even worse, Mom had a talk with me about how I'm being a terrible wife and am going to lose my man if I don't stop spending every minute on the computer. Apparently, I'm ignoring him, the housework, cooking, laundry, etc. I don't mean to. It just seems less important to me than this project I'm on, this project of self-discovery. I just need some support from people who understand some of what I'm experiencing. I'm going through a major mental health crisis right now. I mean, I just found out that the diagnosis I've had since 1998 is incorrect. I'm NOT Schizophrenic. It's going to take me some time to realize that I'm not that person anymore. As soon as the diagnosis was stuck to me, I became that. This is why my current shrink says she won't label a patient; she says they become the label.
So how am I supposed to fill out forms which ask about my mental health? Just put down "non-specific madness"? Or "Sometimes psychotic weirdo who's kept heavily sedated"? Every so often, paperwork comes in the mail to reassess my mental health for The System. I just hope that Dr. H refusing to give me a clear-cut diagnosis doesn't cause me to lose my benefits, i.e. my health insurance. FUCKFUCKFUCK What a miserable day. Too much worry about being hospitalized, too much worry about losing my husband, too much worry that Twitter has taken over my life.
Well, this morning, I started my hand-written diary, just as my psych told me to do. I didn't know what I was going to say, but it took 7 pages front and back anyway. And I'm 99.9% certain that I'll be writing in it some more tonight. Man. I wish I could talk to someone in Real Life about this, someone who also dissociates, someone who also doesn't recognize them self when they look in the mirror half the time. Someone who won't be freaked out if I switch and start speaking differently or acting differently. Fuck. This just fucking blows. I'm not important enough to wear a label I guess. And the kicker is, I've always resented the labels. I've worn so many over the years....it's ironic that I'm now label-free and feel lost without one. Who the hell are we and what the fuck is wrong with us?!? Be specific, doc. We need to know.
Incidentally, while I was in therapy, I asked my shrink what her job was and why I come to see her. (I'm not sure which K was at the session, but she had a ton of information and questions and wanted answers) She told me that the reasons I came to therapy are whatever I want them to be. She said it's her job to help me anyway she can, but that what I got out of it depended upon what I put into it. Once again, non-specific answers. Fuck this! I think I"m just going to get trashed tonight and be pissed off and drink til I pass the fuck out. Yeah, that sounds like a plan. And I bet I'll be an angry drunk tonight. Oh fun.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Twitter to the Rescue
[I still have the second half of my two-part blog post called "The Evolution of My Self-Mutilation" ready to go. It really should probably be posted here, now, but I still don't have the courage to publish it. I'm just too ashamed, too embarrassed, too humiliated to let people read about the secrets contained in that post. I might just sit on it forever.] So instead... I've been racking my brain trying to think then of what subject would best follow two posts (really just 1 1/2) about self-harm. I've decided that I don't know, and I'm just going to empty my head and see what this post ends up being about. My mind is working at a furious pace right now; I can't even put into words how fast the thoughts are coming at me and the voices are all excited and talking at once and I'm overwhelmed when I pause to listen to the inner workings of my brain, to all the conversations. This is exhausting, all this thinking. I never went to bed last night because of it, because of all the noise in my head, all the ideas bouncing around in my skull. I believe it started yesterday afternoon but it could have been the day before. I just can't remember. All I can say for sure is that I've been reading, researching, studying, Googling, Wikipedia'ing obsessively about dissociative disorders, especially Dissociative Identity Disorder. I've also tried to develop some friendships online, and more importantly, I've been seeking out others who suffer from dissociative disorders such as I do. Keep in mind that my Social Anxiety Disorder makes it unbelievably difficult for me to reach out to people, to talk to people, and especially to initiate communication with strangers. So I must pat myself on the back for making the effort. (only one person I tried to talk to was rude to me) It seems to be paying off in ways I hadn't even imagined. Not only have I met a few people online with whom I enjoy chatting and who I'm hoping to one day call my friends, but I'm beginning to develop a bit of a support system, which I desperately need. I've never had a support system before. I've hidden my mental illness from everyone, my whole life, so I don't have any real-life friends I can talk to about it, I've never confided in a boyfriend, hell my own sister didn't even know I was ill until just a few years ago. My father never understood how I could have everything a person needs and still be depressed. Now, it's just my mother, and she's too old and set in her ways to be open-minded enough to even talk to about all of this. So I hide my symptoms from her. I avoid her when I'm having an especially hard time. Sometimes I just have to disappear. Wow, I guess that sentence takes on a whole new meaning when it's used in reference to someone who may be suffering from DID.
You must remember that this is all new territory for us-I'm still in a state of shock about my psychiatrist telling me the other day that my Schizophrenia diagnosis was incorrect. I wore that label for more than a decade, and I suffered discrimination and ridicule and self-hatred because of it. It's been a heavy diagnosis to bear, and I am beyond thrilled to find out that it is wrong. I am NOT Schizophrenic! So then, what am I? Well, my shrink tells me that I am definitely suffering from a dissociative disorder, she just doesn't have enough information yet to properly name it. I found my diary from 2004 wherein my doctor first attached the possibility of DID to my chart, and I've been reading about all the "episodes" I'd forgotten. My psychiatrist wants to use that diary in our sessions. It seems I've been in denial for the past 8 years. I've been doing some reading on the different types of dissociative disorders, and more importantly, I actually found a few people on Twitter who suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder or who have problems with dissociation. These ladies have been wonderful and have helped me tremendously in a very short period of time. I learn a great deal from reading their blogs. I had some basic questions which they were happy to answer for me. One of them put me in touch with another one who directed me to a Yahoo group specifically for people suffering from this type of disorder. As I said earlier, my doctor hasn't officially diagnosed me as having DID, but from what I've read, from what I've been told by people who have it, and based upon my symptoms, I'd say DID is a good fit. In fact, I've never found a disorder which seemed to describe me as well as DID does. So, for the moment, I'm going to study all I can about Dissociative Identity Disorder. If it turns out I have something else, well then we'll just study that instead when the time comes. But I really and truly feel that I'm closer than I've ever been to being properly diagnosed and treated for my mental illness(es).
I've been going from doctor to doctor since 1986, and each one gave me a new diagnosis and a different explanation for my thoughts and behaviors. And then there are the medications-Oh the thousands of pills I must've consumed at this point. Anti-depressants, tranquilizers, SSRI's, anti-psychotics, sedatives, hypnotics, sleeping pills, uppers, downers. So many pills. I wonder sometimes-a lot of the time actually-what I'd be like if I didn't take the medication. Now to be realistic, I am far too ill to go "all natural" and give up all medications. I have gone down that road many times, thinking each time that I could do it, I could handle it, I could live without chemical assistance. Each time, I failed miserably, and always ended up feeling much, much worse than I'd ever felt even before I began taking the pills. The truth is, I have something wrong with my brain. It does not work as it's supposed to. I am destined to take some sort of medication for the rest of my life. But what kind? Which pills? My sister believes I'm overly-medicated and wishes I'd take only the bare minimum. Just what I need to function day-to-day. But how do we figure out which pills those are? I currently take seven prescriptions, a dozen pills a day. Surely some of those are unnecessary, wouldn't you think? I mean, if I'm not really Schizophrenic, it seems we should be able to drop some of the pills I'm taking everyday. But instead of cutting down on our meds, at my last therapy session my shrink actually added a prescription to my regimen. Maybe she's just trying to pull me out of this pit of despair I've been living in since October. I don't talk much about my depression, because it really is one of the lesser of the mental evils for me at this point in time. I've been depressed my whole life. I'm used to it. I know how to do it. I'm good at it. But I must admit, my traditional holiday blues this year have lingered, as they're usually over by mid-February. So yes, I guess I AM more depressed than usual, and struggling to maintain my sanity. I find it extremely hard to get out of bed, to shower, to get dressed. Mostly I sit around in my pajama's, reading and talking to myself and wallowing in our misery. My energy level is at zero. If my body worked out as hard as my brain does, I'd be built like a supermodel. (except much shorter) All this excessive thinking, this obsessing, has me physically exhausted. Yet sleep doesn't come easily, especially when it's supposed to. No, whenever I lie down to catch up on my rest, that's when my brain seems to be at its most active. Maybe someone inside me is doing this on purpose to get my attention. We don't know what to think anymore. I'm a hundred emotions all at once-I'm excited, I'm scared, I'm sad, I'm worried, I'm eager, I'm anxious... I just want to get to the meat of the matter. I want to know what is wrong with me and I want to know how to get better. If that means pills, OK. If it means weekly therapy sessions, OK. I am willing to do whatever it takes to get to a point in my life where something makes some sort of sense, because nothing ever has before.
You must remember that this is all new territory for us-I'm still in a state of shock about my psychiatrist telling me the other day that my Schizophrenia diagnosis was incorrect. I wore that label for more than a decade, and I suffered discrimination and ridicule and self-hatred because of it. It's been a heavy diagnosis to bear, and I am beyond thrilled to find out that it is wrong. I am NOT Schizophrenic! So then, what am I? Well, my shrink tells me that I am definitely suffering from a dissociative disorder, she just doesn't have enough information yet to properly name it. I found my diary from 2004 wherein my doctor first attached the possibility of DID to my chart, and I've been reading about all the "episodes" I'd forgotten. My psychiatrist wants to use that diary in our sessions. It seems I've been in denial for the past 8 years. I've been doing some reading on the different types of dissociative disorders, and more importantly, I actually found a few people on Twitter who suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder or who have problems with dissociation. These ladies have been wonderful and have helped me tremendously in a very short period of time. I learn a great deal from reading their blogs. I had some basic questions which they were happy to answer for me. One of them put me in touch with another one who directed me to a Yahoo group specifically for people suffering from this type of disorder. As I said earlier, my doctor hasn't officially diagnosed me as having DID, but from what I've read, from what I've been told by people who have it, and based upon my symptoms, I'd say DID is a good fit. In fact, I've never found a disorder which seemed to describe me as well as DID does. So, for the moment, I'm going to study all I can about Dissociative Identity Disorder. If it turns out I have something else, well then we'll just study that instead when the time comes. But I really and truly feel that I'm closer than I've ever been to being properly diagnosed and treated for my mental illness(es).
I've been going from doctor to doctor since 1986, and each one gave me a new diagnosis and a different explanation for my thoughts and behaviors. And then there are the medications-Oh the thousands of pills I must've consumed at this point. Anti-depressants, tranquilizers, SSRI's, anti-psychotics, sedatives, hypnotics, sleeping pills, uppers, downers. So many pills. I wonder sometimes-a lot of the time actually-what I'd be like if I didn't take the medication. Now to be realistic, I am far too ill to go "all natural" and give up all medications. I have gone down that road many times, thinking each time that I could do it, I could handle it, I could live without chemical assistance. Each time, I failed miserably, and always ended up feeling much, much worse than I'd ever felt even before I began taking the pills. The truth is, I have something wrong with my brain. It does not work as it's supposed to. I am destined to take some sort of medication for the rest of my life. But what kind? Which pills? My sister believes I'm overly-medicated and wishes I'd take only the bare minimum. Just what I need to function day-to-day. But how do we figure out which pills those are? I currently take seven prescriptions, a dozen pills a day. Surely some of those are unnecessary, wouldn't you think? I mean, if I'm not really Schizophrenic, it seems we should be able to drop some of the pills I'm taking everyday. But instead of cutting down on our meds, at my last therapy session my shrink actually added a prescription to my regimen. Maybe she's just trying to pull me out of this pit of despair I've been living in since October. I don't talk much about my depression, because it really is one of the lesser of the mental evils for me at this point in time. I've been depressed my whole life. I'm used to it. I know how to do it. I'm good at it. But I must admit, my traditional holiday blues this year have lingered, as they're usually over by mid-February. So yes, I guess I AM more depressed than usual, and struggling to maintain my sanity. I find it extremely hard to get out of bed, to shower, to get dressed. Mostly I sit around in my pajama's, reading and talking to myself and wallowing in our misery. My energy level is at zero. If my body worked out as hard as my brain does, I'd be built like a supermodel. (except much shorter) All this excessive thinking, this obsessing, has me physically exhausted. Yet sleep doesn't come easily, especially when it's supposed to. No, whenever I lie down to catch up on my rest, that's when my brain seems to be at its most active. Maybe someone inside me is doing this on purpose to get my attention. We don't know what to think anymore. I'm a hundred emotions all at once-I'm excited, I'm scared, I'm sad, I'm worried, I'm eager, I'm anxious... I just want to get to the meat of the matter. I want to know what is wrong with me and I want to know how to get better. If that means pills, OK. If it means weekly therapy sessions, OK. I am willing to do whatever it takes to get to a point in my life where something makes some sort of sense, because nothing ever has before.
Friday, January 20, 2012
How I Became a Walking Drugstore
Since the diagnosis which I've had for years has practically been scratched off my chart, so to speak, I figured this was a good time to review what disorders we DO have, or at least the ones we've been branded with, be them true or false. Now my mind is still reeling over the statement Dr. H made yesterday ("I don't think you have schizophrenia") and I can't help but wonder if maybe some-or all (?!) of the doctors from my past have been wrong.
The first time K ever saw a psychiatrist was when her parents had her committed, at the age of 16, to a psych hospital, for what they deemed my being inappropriate and out of control. Bizarre behavior led my parents to believe that I was on hard drugs (which was ridiculous; I'd never even smoked pot) when in fact I was just suffering through major depression with suicidal tendencies. I think I tried to kill myself for the first time somewhere around this time, but that memory just won't come back to me no matter how hard I try to remember. So, I tried to kill myself plus my parents thought I was strung out on heroin, hence I ended up being committed to a hospital. First psychiatrist of my life, Diagnosis: Manic/ Depressive (a couple of years later called Bipolar II). This woman put me on Lithium and suicide watch, then proceeded to tell me that I wouldn't be so depressed if I'd just wear more colorful clothing. The audacity! I was hospitalized for 3 months, during which time I was given a handful of different medications and yet I continued to dress all in black, and I kept writing gloomy and dark poetry. I think they released me after they decided that I was no longer suicidal, or else they were just sick of me. I continued to see that same psychiatrist (she had a different sports car for every day of the week, and I can't stand people who are obsessed with money and possessions) until the day came when we had a family session, and my parents were told by this shrink that they, in part, helped contribute to my mental problems. My father was furious, and my mother was angry and in shock. They were good parents, they really were. They grabbed my arm and pulled me out of that office and I never saw that doctor again. (although I realize now that my parents probably did have something to do with my problems, even though they always had good intentions)
The next doctor proclaimed I had Major Depressive Disorder and put me on a handful of antidepressants. I can't remember how long that lasted. When I graduated from high school, I moved to a new city and was without a doctor for a while. Bad idea. Two intentional overdoses followed Freshman year at college. After the second overdose, I decided it best for me to seek help with my mental "issues", and so I went to the local hospital and inquired about mental health services for low-income persons (I was just a student after all). I don't remember that, but I somehow know that it happened.
K found a psychologist who worked on a sliding-scale fee and who was near her apartment and she began to see this man every week. Sometimes he would make us take tests, all sorts of tests, sometimes written tests with questions, other times it was puzzles for K to solve, and one time he simply asked us to fold a piece of paper. Believe it or not, this was one of the more difficult tasks for us, for it had to be PERFECT and it took me a long time to fold the paper; these tests led to our new (additional) diagnosis of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and some new medication. K's OCD is easy to spot, although she's not your stereotypical hand-washer or compulsive cleaner. (Actually, one of the K's is a cleaner who's afraid of dirt) K is an organizer, a list-maker...with a compulsion to turn the toilet paper around so that it rolls over the top rather than being pulled out from underneath. Silly things like that. K saw this psychologist for about a year, until the day came when he told her that she needed medication and he was going to have to hook her up with a psychiatrist, but all of that would have cost money, money which K simply did not have. So we left that place and went unsupervised and unmedicated ("all natural") for what seemed like a long time...but we can't be sure how long.
K had gotten married at the age of 19, and pretended to be "normal" and went "all natural" and thus didn't take any medication or see any therapist during the year that her marriage lasted. After the messy divorce, K became very manic-her worst episode ever up to that point-and went a bit crazy and started partying and dating lots of guys and going shopping and doing a lot of risky, stupid things such as dabbling in drugs and driving really fast. This lasted for a couple of years, and K thought she was happy and having fun, like a regular college student...and then she crashed at the age of 23. She fell into a deep, dark pit of despair, the likes of which she'd never known and from which it seemed she'd never crawl out of. Somehow, someone helped us find a new doctor. I can't remember much after that, I know there were more pills and more labels (Borderline Personality Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Bulimia, Panic Disorder) and this pattern of going from doctor to doctor and getting pill after pill went on until K abruptly disappeared and turned up on the other side of the country.
K didn't go there alone-she was much too insecure and frightened by being out in public. She had a friend with her, who knew she had a history of depression but who had no idea the extent of K's illness. They lived in this big, new city for a couple of months before K had a freakout and her friend had to take her to the hospital. (K got lost coming home from work; she totally forgot where she lived and had to call her roommate to come get her) They poked and prodded and questioned K all night. When it was finally over (a couple of days later? I don't recall), K had a pocketful of prescriptions and the name of both a psychiatrist AND a neurologist. The neurologist took pictures of our brain, and determined that K was having little mini seizures in her head, and I believe these seizures are what destroyed much of K's memory.
The psychiatrist made us fill out a mountain of paperwork and assessment tests and then there were hours of interviews and therapy sessions, and in the end, he gave K (who was 27 by this time) her new, improved diagnosis: Schizophrenia. That word scared the living daylights out of K, and she went into a state of bewildered shock. She turned up hours later at a girlfriend's apartment; apparently K had walked miles from the hospital to the girl's place (this was K's best friend, whom she trusted with info about her mental illness) and K burst into tears when she got there and had a meltdown and proclaimed that she didn't want to be schizophrenic, that it was too serious a condition, that it frightened her. It took her a very long time (years) to come to terms with that particular mental health label. How twisted it is that I've now been told I don't have this, after it took so long for me to accept that I did have it. (sigh)
And so that diagnosis stuck, and after that wherever K went and whenever K would change doctors, she'd fill out all the required forms and papers and she always had to list her mental problems and so she wrote down what the doctors had always told her, and for the most part, each new doctor simply looked at her chart, took it as fact, and prescribed more medication: anti-psychotics and mood stabilizers and anxiety meds. This is how she lived her life throughout her young adulthood. See a therapist, take medication, get better, quit taking the meds, have a meltdown, repeat. In the spring of 2002, K had just found a new therapist. This therapist she found listed in a local new-age magazine, and K, being quite superstitious, took that as a "sign". This therapist, Patty, was the best one K ever had. K liked her from the start, and they connected and K trusted her and she truly seemed to care about K's mental health and quality of life. She worked in tandem with a psychiatrist who prescribed even more medication for K. This situation remained constant for 7 years. During those years, K would get to a really good, stable place and then she'd quit taking her meds and have a meltdown and have to start over with the pills and she went from one extreme to the other-either drowning in a sea of despair or elated to the point of skipping down the sidewalk. Patty was there to help K deal with her obsessive thoughts, or depression, or fears...she sometimes gave K homework assignments designed to provide insight into the mind of K and her subconscious. One of these assignments was to draw a picture of what K believed herself to look like. I believe this was a self-image/self-esteem test. At the next session, K showed up with at least half a dozen different pictures. Now I didn't realize this until just recently, but about 2 years after K first started seeing Patty, the term Dissociative Identity Disorder came out of her mouth. K wrote about it in her diary, but then forgot about it. Perhaps it was just more than she could handle, so she removed herself from the reality of this diagnosis and went on with her life and blocked out anything that had to do with that disorder. Therapy during those years is difficult for us to remember, but I have little snippets of memories, like a few seconds of film; one of these mini-memories is Patty asking us what our name was. We didn't know the answer to the question...we were K, weren't we? In another partial memory, Patty is telling us that different people have come to therapy in our body. All of this was news to K, or at least I think it was...damn this memory loss! We were just starting to make strides in this therapy, these sessions which focused on who K was and what had happened to her as a child (she clearly had all the classic symptoms of sexual abuse). I believe Patty might have suggested K had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, I remember someone said it.
Just when K seemed to be making progress, just when things were beginning to come out, just when K was starting to open up and be completely honest with Patty....well that's when the unthinkable happened. K got dumped. She drove to her therapy session that day, just as she did every week or every other week if she was doing well, just as she'd done for 7 years. When she got there, she was eager to talk to Patty, she had a lot to say, but Patty sat her down and got all serious and told K that she had missed an appointment the week before. At this particular mental health facility, they had a rule: you can only miss 3 appointments. After that, you are automatically dropped for being a non-compliant patient. Well, K remembered that one day she had been trying to call them to change her appointment but no one would answer the phone. We called repeatedly throughout the morning and afternoon. It was Memorial Day, so K determined that they must've been closed for the holiday. This is why K missed that last appointment. She really did try to call and reschedule, honestly she did. But she was being dumped, and this HURT, terribly, K takes everything so personally, and so it hurt her feelings that Patty didn't want to see her anymore. From somewhere deep inside us, this angry K suddenly appeared and acted like a total bitch and said horrible, insulting, rude things to Patty. I watched from outside my body, and couldn't believe what was happening. It just didn't seem real, it couldn't be true. K stormed out of Patty's office, got into her car, and hauled ass out of the parking lot. She started bawling almost immediately, and did so for the entire hour's drive back to her home.
K's world was turned upside down. Since her psychiatrist worked together with her therapist, K certainly didn't want to see that psychiatrist anymore. She called and cancelled her next appointment. For the first time in seven years, K was without a doctor or a therapist. She had some medication, but would soon run out. She started frantically trying to find a new doctor. But it is harder than you'd imagine to find a psychiatrist who accepts Medicare and Medicaid. We were losing hope, then we called Dr. H's office, and the lady on the phone was so nice and helpful and we explained to her that we really needed to see the doctor, that we'd run out of medications and we were having some withdrawal symptoms as well as feeling unstable. They got me in quickly, and even though my medical records had not been faxed from the other doctor's office as had been requested, the doctor met with me and we talked for over an hour. I left feeling hopeful.
Our last psychiatrist, who'd worked alongside Patty, well, we hated her. She was an evil bitch who didn't seem to give a rat's ass about me and how I was doing, she just wrote out my prescriptions; when I came in crying, she'd increase my dosage. I never felt anything but distaste for that woman. This new doctor, Dr. H, well she had shown me more compassion in one session than that other shrink had shown me in years. I had medication refills now, and I was eager to start therapy sessions with Dr. H. That was 2 years ago. It took Patty two years to label me DID, and it took two years for Dr. H to find out about my dissociative disorder. That brings us to the present day. We have had 2 sessions in which we discussed dissociative states. She's ready to get to work it seems; she asked me to bring the diaries which are the evidence of our illness. I'm terrified, yet excited at the thought of beginning the healing process, of accepting what and who we are, and of learning to love K as she is, in spite of her faults.
The first time K ever saw a psychiatrist was when her parents had her committed, at the age of 16, to a psych hospital, for what they deemed my being inappropriate and out of control. Bizarre behavior led my parents to believe that I was on hard drugs (which was ridiculous; I'd never even smoked pot) when in fact I was just suffering through major depression with suicidal tendencies. I think I tried to kill myself for the first time somewhere around this time, but that memory just won't come back to me no matter how hard I try to remember. So, I tried to kill myself plus my parents thought I was strung out on heroin, hence I ended up being committed to a hospital. First psychiatrist of my life, Diagnosis: Manic/ Depressive (a couple of years later called Bipolar II). This woman put me on Lithium and suicide watch, then proceeded to tell me that I wouldn't be so depressed if I'd just wear more colorful clothing. The audacity! I was hospitalized for 3 months, during which time I was given a handful of different medications and yet I continued to dress all in black, and I kept writing gloomy and dark poetry. I think they released me after they decided that I was no longer suicidal, or else they were just sick of me. I continued to see that same psychiatrist (she had a different sports car for every day of the week, and I can't stand people who are obsessed with money and possessions) until the day came when we had a family session, and my parents were told by this shrink that they, in part, helped contribute to my mental problems. My father was furious, and my mother was angry and in shock. They were good parents, they really were. They grabbed my arm and pulled me out of that office and I never saw that doctor again. (although I realize now that my parents probably did have something to do with my problems, even though they always had good intentions)
The next doctor proclaimed I had Major Depressive Disorder and put me on a handful of antidepressants. I can't remember how long that lasted. When I graduated from high school, I moved to a new city and was without a doctor for a while. Bad idea. Two intentional overdoses followed Freshman year at college. After the second overdose, I decided it best for me to seek help with my mental "issues", and so I went to the local hospital and inquired about mental health services for low-income persons (I was just a student after all). I don't remember that, but I somehow know that it happened.
K found a psychologist who worked on a sliding-scale fee and who was near her apartment and she began to see this man every week. Sometimes he would make us take tests, all sorts of tests, sometimes written tests with questions, other times it was puzzles for K to solve, and one time he simply asked us to fold a piece of paper. Believe it or not, this was one of the more difficult tasks for us, for it had to be PERFECT and it took me a long time to fold the paper; these tests led to our new (additional) diagnosis of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and some new medication. K's OCD is easy to spot, although she's not your stereotypical hand-washer or compulsive cleaner. (Actually, one of the K's is a cleaner who's afraid of dirt) K is an organizer, a list-maker...with a compulsion to turn the toilet paper around so that it rolls over the top rather than being pulled out from underneath. Silly things like that. K saw this psychologist for about a year, until the day came when he told her that she needed medication and he was going to have to hook her up with a psychiatrist, but all of that would have cost money, money which K simply did not have. So we left that place and went unsupervised and unmedicated ("all natural") for what seemed like a long time...but we can't be sure how long.
K had gotten married at the age of 19, and pretended to be "normal" and went "all natural" and thus didn't take any medication or see any therapist during the year that her marriage lasted. After the messy divorce, K became very manic-her worst episode ever up to that point-and went a bit crazy and started partying and dating lots of guys and going shopping and doing a lot of risky, stupid things such as dabbling in drugs and driving really fast. This lasted for a couple of years, and K thought she was happy and having fun, like a regular college student...and then she crashed at the age of 23. She fell into a deep, dark pit of despair, the likes of which she'd never known and from which it seemed she'd never crawl out of. Somehow, someone helped us find a new doctor. I can't remember much after that, I know there were more pills and more labels (Borderline Personality Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Bulimia, Panic Disorder) and this pattern of going from doctor to doctor and getting pill after pill went on until K abruptly disappeared and turned up on the other side of the country.
K didn't go there alone-she was much too insecure and frightened by being out in public. She had a friend with her, who knew she had a history of depression but who had no idea the extent of K's illness. They lived in this big, new city for a couple of months before K had a freakout and her friend had to take her to the hospital. (K got lost coming home from work; she totally forgot where she lived and had to call her roommate to come get her) They poked and prodded and questioned K all night. When it was finally over (a couple of days later? I don't recall), K had a pocketful of prescriptions and the name of both a psychiatrist AND a neurologist. The neurologist took pictures of our brain, and determined that K was having little mini seizures in her head, and I believe these seizures are what destroyed much of K's memory.
The psychiatrist made us fill out a mountain of paperwork and assessment tests and then there were hours of interviews and therapy sessions, and in the end, he gave K (who was 27 by this time) her new, improved diagnosis: Schizophrenia. That word scared the living daylights out of K, and she went into a state of bewildered shock. She turned up hours later at a girlfriend's apartment; apparently K had walked miles from the hospital to the girl's place (this was K's best friend, whom she trusted with info about her mental illness) and K burst into tears when she got there and had a meltdown and proclaimed that she didn't want to be schizophrenic, that it was too serious a condition, that it frightened her. It took her a very long time (years) to come to terms with that particular mental health label. How twisted it is that I've now been told I don't have this, after it took so long for me to accept that I did have it. (sigh)
And so that diagnosis stuck, and after that wherever K went and whenever K would change doctors, she'd fill out all the required forms and papers and she always had to list her mental problems and so she wrote down what the doctors had always told her, and for the most part, each new doctor simply looked at her chart, took it as fact, and prescribed more medication: anti-psychotics and mood stabilizers and anxiety meds. This is how she lived her life throughout her young adulthood. See a therapist, take medication, get better, quit taking the meds, have a meltdown, repeat. In the spring of 2002, K had just found a new therapist. This therapist she found listed in a local new-age magazine, and K, being quite superstitious, took that as a "sign". This therapist, Patty, was the best one K ever had. K liked her from the start, and they connected and K trusted her and she truly seemed to care about K's mental health and quality of life. She worked in tandem with a psychiatrist who prescribed even more medication for K. This situation remained constant for 7 years. During those years, K would get to a really good, stable place and then she'd quit taking her meds and have a meltdown and have to start over with the pills and she went from one extreme to the other-either drowning in a sea of despair or elated to the point of skipping down the sidewalk. Patty was there to help K deal with her obsessive thoughts, or depression, or fears...she sometimes gave K homework assignments designed to provide insight into the mind of K and her subconscious. One of these assignments was to draw a picture of what K believed herself to look like. I believe this was a self-image/self-esteem test. At the next session, K showed up with at least half a dozen different pictures. Now I didn't realize this until just recently, but about 2 years after K first started seeing Patty, the term Dissociative Identity Disorder came out of her mouth. K wrote about it in her diary, but then forgot about it. Perhaps it was just more than she could handle, so she removed herself from the reality of this diagnosis and went on with her life and blocked out anything that had to do with that disorder. Therapy during those years is difficult for us to remember, but I have little snippets of memories, like a few seconds of film; one of these mini-memories is Patty asking us what our name was. We didn't know the answer to the question...we were K, weren't we? In another partial memory, Patty is telling us that different people have come to therapy in our body. All of this was news to K, or at least I think it was...damn this memory loss! We were just starting to make strides in this therapy, these sessions which focused on who K was and what had happened to her as a child (she clearly had all the classic symptoms of sexual abuse). I believe Patty might have suggested K had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, I remember someone said it.
Just when K seemed to be making progress, just when things were beginning to come out, just when K was starting to open up and be completely honest with Patty....well that's when the unthinkable happened. K got dumped. She drove to her therapy session that day, just as she did every week or every other week if she was doing well, just as she'd done for 7 years. When she got there, she was eager to talk to Patty, she had a lot to say, but Patty sat her down and got all serious and told K that she had missed an appointment the week before. At this particular mental health facility, they had a rule: you can only miss 3 appointments. After that, you are automatically dropped for being a non-compliant patient. Well, K remembered that one day she had been trying to call them to change her appointment but no one would answer the phone. We called repeatedly throughout the morning and afternoon. It was Memorial Day, so K determined that they must've been closed for the holiday. This is why K missed that last appointment. She really did try to call and reschedule, honestly she did. But she was being dumped, and this HURT, terribly, K takes everything so personally, and so it hurt her feelings that Patty didn't want to see her anymore. From somewhere deep inside us, this angry K suddenly appeared and acted like a total bitch and said horrible, insulting, rude things to Patty. I watched from outside my body, and couldn't believe what was happening. It just didn't seem real, it couldn't be true. K stormed out of Patty's office, got into her car, and hauled ass out of the parking lot. She started bawling almost immediately, and did so for the entire hour's drive back to her home.
K's world was turned upside down. Since her psychiatrist worked together with her therapist, K certainly didn't want to see that psychiatrist anymore. She called and cancelled her next appointment. For the first time in seven years, K was without a doctor or a therapist. She had some medication, but would soon run out. She started frantically trying to find a new doctor. But it is harder than you'd imagine to find a psychiatrist who accepts Medicare and Medicaid. We were losing hope, then we called Dr. H's office, and the lady on the phone was so nice and helpful and we explained to her that we really needed to see the doctor, that we'd run out of medications and we were having some withdrawal symptoms as well as feeling unstable. They got me in quickly, and even though my medical records had not been faxed from the other doctor's office as had been requested, the doctor met with me and we talked for over an hour. I left feeling hopeful.
Our last psychiatrist, who'd worked alongside Patty, well, we hated her. She was an evil bitch who didn't seem to give a rat's ass about me and how I was doing, she just wrote out my prescriptions; when I came in crying, she'd increase my dosage. I never felt anything but distaste for that woman. This new doctor, Dr. H, well she had shown me more compassion in one session than that other shrink had shown me in years. I had medication refills now, and I was eager to start therapy sessions with Dr. H. That was 2 years ago. It took Patty two years to label me DID, and it took two years for Dr. H to find out about my dissociative disorder. That brings us to the present day. We have had 2 sessions in which we discussed dissociative states. She's ready to get to work it seems; she asked me to bring the diaries which are the evidence of our illness. I'm terrified, yet excited at the thought of beginning the healing process, of accepting what and who we are, and of learning to love K as she is, in spite of her faults.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
My Newest Obsession
I've mentioned before that K has an obsessive personality and tends to go overboard when she gets an idea in her head. Well, the idea currently inhabiting her brain space is the possibility-nay, likelihood of her being diagnosed with a dissociative disorder. Based on the clues which I seem to be leaving myself-notebooks, lists, folders on my laptop filled with helpful websites, and the all-important diaries-I was first labeled MPD/DID back in 2004. I'm looking at the calendar and seeing that it is now 2012, which can only mean one thing: I've been in denial for about 8 years, or so it would seem. My theory is that the paranoia took over and I refused to accept the diagnosis, for I certainly didn't want to be THAT crazy... I've been under a doctor's care-regularly, without a break-since 2002. So that must mean that it took my therapist and psychiatrist roughly 2 years to figure out what was going on with me. Apparently I've been misdiagnosed over and over again, for all these years, ever since I saw my first psychiatrist at age 16. Every doctor I see takes notes and makes a diagnosis based upon the "me" that is sitting in the doctor's office. I can't say for sure how many of the K's went to therapy, with that wonderful therapist whom we loved so much, (who later dumped me after 7 years together) but I have recalled a memory or two in regards to that period of time and my current state of mind. I thought I'd share these memories with you (plus, it'll help me remember again in the future)
I remember one time going in to see the therapist (this was about 5 years ago) and she asked me to do a homework assignment; I was to draw a picture of the way I viewed myself. I think the assignment was supposed to help me with my Body Dysmorphic Disorder and self-esteem issues. Well, she was blown away the next week when I showed up with a whole handful of pictures of different K's, each with her own fashion sense and musical tastes and hobbies. I didn't get what the big deal was; I just did the exercise as it was assigned to me. Now I'd give anything to get hold of those drawings again. I can see some of them in my mind, but it's all fuzzy, like it was a dream. I think perhaps I'll do this exercise again and see what happens next time. I wonder how many drawings there will be...?
Another interesting memory is really several similar memories, all taking place at different points in time. I remember my therapist asking me what my name was. I remember that well.... in fact she asked me for my name on half a dozen or so occasions that I can recall. I never knew what to say. I never knew the answer to the question. Although the question stirred something within me, I couldn't put my finger on the point of it all. So I forgot about it, until recently. Now it's true that I've probably developed an unhealthy obsession with Google and Twitter and the web in general. In fact, I'm so focused on doing "research" on the subject of DID that it pisses me off I have to stop for eating and sleeping. There's no time for such trivial matters! I'm working on a deadline here! I don't know how much longer I can stick around and take care of things. All I can remember clearly about my being here, in this "lifetime" is that I once had my own office and kept lots of photos, to remind me of my life-literally-and when everything fell apart, (as it always inevitably does) I ran away to a different state and became a different ME. And that's how I usually handled working a job-stay and do well until the pressure builds and we snap and disappear, go away. But I've totally gotten off the track of our subject! Damn! I HATE when that happens, when I "lose my place" and have to reread everything I've written and try and figure out where I left off. Sigh.
I can't remember what the point of all this was, I just wanted to share with you my theory about K. I think she's got DID, and I think she's been in denial for years because it's too frightening a diagnosis for her to bear. Also, I've been researching and have found that DID is the same as MPD, so those 2 diagnoses, made by different doctors at different times in my life, were actually the same thing and thus gives us more reason to believe that K does in fact has this disorder. I just wish I had read all those diaries and journals I've been keeping all my life. So much time has been wasted at this point already...
I remember one time going in to see the therapist (this was about 5 years ago) and she asked me to do a homework assignment; I was to draw a picture of the way I viewed myself. I think the assignment was supposed to help me with my Body Dysmorphic Disorder and self-esteem issues. Well, she was blown away the next week when I showed up with a whole handful of pictures of different K's, each with her own fashion sense and musical tastes and hobbies. I didn't get what the big deal was; I just did the exercise as it was assigned to me. Now I'd give anything to get hold of those drawings again. I can see some of them in my mind, but it's all fuzzy, like it was a dream. I think perhaps I'll do this exercise again and see what happens next time. I wonder how many drawings there will be...?
Another interesting memory is really several similar memories, all taking place at different points in time. I remember my therapist asking me what my name was. I remember that well.... in fact she asked me for my name on half a dozen or so occasions that I can recall. I never knew what to say. I never knew the answer to the question. Although the question stirred something within me, I couldn't put my finger on the point of it all. So I forgot about it, until recently. Now it's true that I've probably developed an unhealthy obsession with Google and Twitter and the web in general. In fact, I'm so focused on doing "research" on the subject of DID that it pisses me off I have to stop for eating and sleeping. There's no time for such trivial matters! I'm working on a deadline here! I don't know how much longer I can stick around and take care of things. All I can remember clearly about my being here, in this "lifetime" is that I once had my own office and kept lots of photos, to remind me of my life-literally-and when everything fell apart, (as it always inevitably does) I ran away to a different state and became a different ME. And that's how I usually handled working a job-stay and do well until the pressure builds and we snap and disappear, go away. But I've totally gotten off the track of our subject! Damn! I HATE when that happens, when I "lose my place" and have to reread everything I've written and try and figure out where I left off. Sigh.
I can't remember what the point of all this was, I just wanted to share with you my theory about K. I think she's got DID, and I think she's been in denial for years because it's too frightening a diagnosis for her to bear. Also, I've been researching and have found that DID is the same as MPD, so those 2 diagnoses, made by different doctors at different times in my life, were actually the same thing and thus gives us more reason to believe that K does in fact has this disorder. I just wish I had read all those diaries and journals I've been keeping all my life. So much time has been wasted at this point already...
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