There are many people in this country that are not convinced that mental illness is a real, physical disability, which in many cases is very successfully treated by medication. I run into folks like this all the time. And frankly, I envy them their lack of hands-on experience in this area.
I am a survivor of what is often jokingly referred to as a dysfunctional family. My parents did the best they could do raising me, given the hand they were individually dealt in life. But my mother was seriously mentally ill, as were probably many of her ancestors before her, with what was then called Manic-Depressive Illness and is now known as Bipolar Disease. It affected her behavior in some pretty scary and unpredictable ways. I can honestly say that there were days I came home from school and put my key in the front door not knowing whether I was going to be offered some homemade hot chocolate or grabbed by the hair and screamed at about missing spots in whatever had been my assigned house cleaning chore the prior day.
There were at least as many good memories as bad ones for me, though; probably more good than bad, since apparently I tend to completely block out really bad events in my early life. But I digress.
Mom was a very tortured soul; in addition to her wild mood swings, she was addicted to cigarettes and to some degree to alcohol, the second being mostly in the form of self-medicating. From the 1950s, when my parents married, until the 1980s there were very few options for medications for mood leveling. My mother was under the care of three or four different psychiatrists during my early childhood before she found one that was really good.
There is apparently a very strong hereditary component to mental illness, as with so many other unfortunate traits (such as my late father’s poor distance vision and inability to play well with bifocal lenses). My only sister and I both suffer from some fairly severe mental illness and have since adolescence. In her case, she drew the shorter straw and got the full-blown bipolar nightmare. In my case, I lucked out with mere chronic depression – lows without euphoric highs.
I was able to be mostly functional despite my blackest depressions throughout my school years and into my working life. I rarely missed a day of work, although I’m sure some of my coworkers were less than enchanted with my tendency to complain about everything and turn my own life into the saddest story ever told. I was even able to get married and keep up some pretense of a successful romantic relationship for over 4 years in my late 20s and early 30s – but only my ex-husband knows the real truth. There’s a reason we didn’t stay married, and at least 50% of that was my moods. The other 50% was his moods; but that’s another whole story.
Sometime in my mid-30s, after my divorce in 1992 and the untimely death of my dear father in 1993, I was first introduced to an anti-depressant called Zoloft. This was not inexpensive, but my psychiatrist (who was also my mother’s excellent psychiatrist that did as well with her as anyone could) felt convinced that it would benefit me and help get my life back on track. Not that my life was all that far off track; I had a very successful career of over ten years working as a mainframe programmer and always got good reviews. Beneath the surface, however, was a lonely woman full of grief, self-doubt, and an endless supply of complaints to whoever would listen.
The Zoloft made a night and day difference in my behavior to those who were close enough to observe this difference. My mother and my best friend, who comprised my primary emotional support system at this time, were delighted in the change, as was I. Honestly, the medicine felt to me like being able to run and move freely in the fresh air and blue skies, after years of swimming through black water every day.
Variations on a mix of Zoloft and a later drug, Wellbutrin, were able to keep me well in the “normal” mood range for well over ten years, during which time I was able to handle the death of my mother in 1998 and actually meet a man shortly before that who was to become my second husband. I was also able to continue to excel in my career, even as I had doubts about whether I wanted to remain employed in the corporate world for life. Even after loss of my former livelihood and the move to Florida to buy a business that later turned out to be the worst investment of our lives, I remained optimistic.
However, after everything that has happened to us after buying this business, it’s not unexpected that the depression might return. I had known that in times of true life difficulty, sometimes these medications lose their effectiveness and require change or supplementation. With some urging from a great counselor here in town, who has helped me through a real crisis and been kind with the financial side as well, I made an appointment to see a psychiatrist in Lakeland, about 50 miles from here, in order to get on a new medication called Abilify. I knew it was a long drive, and I also knew that it was not going to be cheap – a serious consideration when one has no income at present like myself.
I have been on the new drug for about 10 days now, and I can already say that the visit to the psychiatrist was the best couple hundred bucks I have spent in a long time. So, Merry Christmas, everyone – I’m back among the emotional living this year.
Amen!
ReplyDelete