Mental health diagnoses are funny. I don't mean funny ha-ha, I mean tricky; these disorders are so difficult to identify, diagnose and treat.
I am not a doctor or mental health counselor. I am just a 44 year old woman in pajamas covered with little foxes who is writing to you on my newish laptop that I sat on a few months back, breaking the touch screen. And, I had wanted a touch screen so badly! Well, I do have one. It just doesn't work.
But, given the fact that I'm a plump kind of chick, I'm lucky the outcome wasn't worse. Seriously. I'm a couple Ding Dongs short of a motherboard fire.
The Universe gave me a gift that day -- a bitchy reminder to watch what I'm doing ( I have a hard time staying in the moment and not being distracted. Look! There's a squirrel!), but not a full admonishment in the form of breaking it completely. So, I have to keep reminding myself to pay attention. Forty-four years of that message, and I'm still busting things with my ass.
So, that's me. I will unfurl the flag that is my unusual life as we go along in my new blog.
I opened Making Love in the Psych Ward as a New Year's offering. I don't want to make resolutions this year. I always break them, probably because anything I have been wanting to do better at I am either already doing better, or else have failed, failed again and have recently failed, but much worse, sooooo I will get back to it when I freaking want to. A date on a calendar will not make one toss the Friendly's Jubilee Roll that's still in one's freezer (plus the one in the back), or to remind one to get one's fat ass in bed at 11:00 and not 3AM.
Obviously, I am the one.
ANYWAY -- back to what I came here to write:
As I assemble this blog (as you can tell it's quite new), I will provide information in an informal, conversational way. I will openly discuss my experiences, both horrible and good - though you'll see the one that starts with "h" more frequently.
My road has been long and it might as well be yellow, because yellow is a bright, cheery color, and why not be bright and cheery tonight?
(Because my life has really sucked for the last few weeks with no end in sight - but, one thing I can promise you when you're coping with a mental illness, or your loved one has a mental illness and you're totally lost and scared, you gotta try to find something good, or funny, or heartwarming to get through the experience or day or hospital stay or whatever -- some kind of thread that winds through your life and experiences that you can touch/hold to/reach for when you're having a hard time.
I am 44 and was diagnosed with depression and anxiety in my teens, and bipolar disorder when I was 19. At the age of 26, I was "labeled" in my medical file as schizo-affective, which is not the case. Imagine when surprise when I saw it.
But, that was before I had done much swimming in the murky swamp of coding and insurance billing. The "steeper" the diagnosis, the better the rate. Garden variety depressives aren't even a blip on the screen anymore.
Or something like that.
Everything in this blog is based on my own opinions and experiences, unless something is based on other's opinions and experiences.
I am not a doctor or therapist or even someone who sells them their coffee in the morning I don't want any lawsuits. Not that you will get anything good, though I might still have a few nuts left over from Thanksgiving.
I will also provide more formal information such as statistics, historical information about mental health, media issues - that will be fun! - doing the best I can to make it
interesting and readable.
We don't want a bunch of TL;DRs on here, but this post is already super long, so I'm sure a few of you have dropped off along the way. Those who have hung in there, awesome.
Though, that's assuming that anyone is here at all and by the looks of my stats, I am talking to my cat.
OK, I'm gonna go watch the Travel Channel and snuggle with my great white shark pillow. His name is Junior, but you have to pronounce it JUNE-YA!
I have no idea why, but that's the rule for tonight.
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