Polarize Me, Please

 I have absolutely no idea how to create a “mental disorder.”

That sucks, because if I knew how to create one then I’d probably know how to uncreate it.

I do know that for most of my life, at least since early adulthood, and in spite of being an intellectual focused monkey – or maybe because of it – I’ve had what some psychologists (who should know) call a mental illness. For the longest time, I was completely oblivious to that concept (mental illness), as I just assumed my problems in life were the result of my parents being bat shit crazy, and thus causing me much childhood trauma.

Now, I wasn’t wrong about that – indeed it happened that way – but as I later learned, that wasn’t the whole story.

See, it turns out that a brain is as a brain does – or doesn’t do, as the case may be.

My brain’s favorite thing to do, ever since I (it?) can remember is fantasize. I could spend thousands of these blog posts breaking that word apart, but the upshot is I loved to avoid reality like it was a plague. I would concoct not just other lives to live, but all the possible solutions (so I thought) to every problem there is, was or will be in this world. And my brain did this at lightning speed (so I thought).

What I thought was wrong. My fantasizing brain at seeming warp-speed to me turned out to burn way more time than I estimated, with the clock racing ahead like a mad hatter.

I honestly thought at the time that it was just a normal way to live. That was before I got knocked sideways by the mirror image of that high-speed mental style. I can’t remember exactly when it was (somewhere in early middle age) or where I was (some sort of park attached to a medical facility). Without warning or any apparent reason, very suddenly, my will to exist evaporated. If you haven’t experienced this, there’s no way to fully explain it to you. There were no thoughts involved at all. My body and brain together simply went into “collapse on the bench” mode. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do.

That was my earliest introduction to what I call the American mental health system. Let me point out here that I actually think that the American mental health system, in the general sense, is actually pretty good. I won’t say that it’s always been “pretty good,” nor that it’s good for everyone. It’s certainly not perfect, and there are lots of ways it still needs fixing. What I can say is that when I got serious about getting help, the help, perfect or not, was there.

The problem I described above was addressed by my HMO (Health Maintenance Organization – an old-school “health plan” – closest thing these days would be Kaiser Permanente) with a referral to a therapist for some talk therapy, which helped greatly. We decided that I was probably suffering from clinical depression (I don’t know what it’s called today), and that I should talk to their handy (HMO) psychiatrist. I did so, and on to Prozac I went. I didn’t hate it, and I didn’t have any recurrence of the bench collapse event. I figured the Prozac must be doing something helpful, so I stuck with it.

I can say today that there was something missing there.

Remember the Warp Speed 9 (“Cyaptain, me beautiful warp engines will explode!”) fantasy stuff from earlier? Well, that was still going on, and it took a lot of alcohol to convince me I needed better doctor style advice rather than alcoholic slumber. I mean a lot of alcohol. A decades lot.

So, I was talking to YAOMPT (Yet Another Of Many Previous Therapists) describing how hyped up and magical flowers and bees joyful trapesing I did to get to her office, and how alcohol seemed to convince the bees to fly off to other flowers, and she suggested it might not be just clinical depression I had, but possibly Bipolar Disorder. Meaning not just down, but up and down and up again ad infinitum.

Back to the next available psychiatrist I went, and got myself a shiny new diagnosis, and a fancy new prescription. I was (and am) Bipolar II – the milder form, as I hadn’t gotten into wrestling matches with walls and statues.

It’s been a long road going up a steep hill to get to where I am (mental health wise) today. Lots of bumps and jumps in and out of lots of “facilities” with lots of different medications applied to the Bipolar problem, but between all those interventions and a solution for getting Alcohol (addressed here later) out of the picture completely, I’m quite well and stable emotionally – as long as I take my mental health seriously every day and stay on top of my treatment plan. Without the support system I’ve gathered around me, I wouldn’t stand a chance.

Disability? – check.

Next: https://fullyanchoredblog.blogspot.com/2024/11/itching-to-sneeze-allergies.html