Disorder? what Disorder?
About 1.5 years ago, I was having chasing thoughts...my then partner took me to our GP who referred me to a Psychiatrist (named after an Irish Brewery - what a name for a doctor of this discipline) who deemed me suffering a "manic" episode, I was "locked" in a psychiatric unit for almost 3 weeks, being drugged with olanzapine (20mg) every day.
That unit had about 20 inpatients...19 and me...19 beautiful souls and me...all drugged up with nasty chemicals to ....save our souls. I became friend with 3 of them. One of the them, he was a teacher but when he was younger he smoke all the cigarettes of his Mum's shop! The other one, was a young single mum with nowhere to stay...being in the unit till a council house was found. The other one was a farmer suffering from stress.
After about 18 days in the unit, I could go home but not to work for another 3 months. I was on this bloody drug olanzapine for many months...my mind being so dizzy, going to bed at 8pm every evening, not being able to talk to my family, not being able to write anything (me who has written 8 books and numerous articles, papers, poems etc etc)...In two words, it was just hell!
The hell stopped when I stopped it this bloody drug...
The point of this post is double...
1.please, please, do not trust your psychiatrist ; drugs have some strong side effects...and educate
yourself...so you can understand the Biology of your illness and
2. seek talking therapy support as soon as you can!
I was told by my brewery that I suffer from Bipolar Disorder,
type 1? type 2? type 69? Nobody knows!
You know why?
Because even the psychiatrists do not know... they talk now about bipolar spectrum...
In the meantime...they think that the mental health system is healthy...a system that does not support us with any talking therapy (proper talking therapy! one2one not these crappy therapy groups!) and does not re-evaluate you, me, us.
It took me few months to find a way through the useless medical system to get referred to a second psychiatrist...
[2b continued]
Laertis
P.S.
Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds on which you lay,
but also those desires for you
that glowed plainly in the eyes,
and trembled in the voice—and some
chance obstacle made futile.
Now that all of them belong to the past,
it almost seems as if you had yielded
to those desires—how they glowed,
remember, in the eyes gazing at you;
how they trembled in the voice, for you, remember, body.
– Constantine P Cavafy
– Translation by Aliki Barnstone
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