/cancel hermit
Yeah, uh... hi.
The hospital was HARD. The treatment following it makes me just about as miserable as pre-hospitalization with the bonus that in the process I'm learning skills to deal with the world in a much better way than I have done in the past. Certain behavior patterns have stayed the same, most noticeably to you folks my pattern of dropping off the map when I change something big in my life, to surface months or years later looking sheepish and apologetic. I hope to work on this behavior as I've worked on others. In the meantime, I'm very sorry--I know I keep saying that, but my habit of alienating by absence the very support systems I need most to survive is a self-harming behavior that I appear to be addicted to. I have thought of those of you on my friends list often, collectively and individually. I expect I have a lot to repair, and I will do whatever I need to to do so.
So, without further ado, a bit of a recap:
Women's IOP, DBT, and CBT
However stubbornly I sometimes refuse to USE the skills they teach at the Women's IOP, I have to admit that Dialectical Behavior Therapy, which is a type of cognitive behavior therapy--it's really amazing! The theory behind it is that everyone is born with an Emotion Regulation System just like we're born with Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Systems--and just as some people have weak hearts or more sensitive lungs, some of us are more sensitive emotionally. While many people mature and eventually learn how to deal with some crisis situations well, I'd have to say that a lot of people don't have a full complement of skills that enable them to handle anything that life throws at us. Certainly I ended up with a pretty easily recognizable lack of ability in regards to dealing with personal crisis. These skills really are things that help everyone, and a lot of them are skills you and I have been using for years without knowing that someone took them, defined them, and gave them a title.
What sets the Dialectical Behavior Therapy set of skills and system of teaching them apart is the language and understanding used. Sensitive people react negatively to all sorts of 'triggers,' whether it's being called stubborn or being told to calm down. Something we all have been told at least once in our lives in some way or another is 'get over it,' right? Well, actually, sometimes we DO have to just get over things, but telling someone in crisis 'just let it go' isn't very helpful to anyone unless they're made of stone. DBT takes that and turns it into 'Radical Acceptance,' telling us that when we're stuck in a situation where there isn't anything we can do to change it, we HAVE to be able to accept it as it is, and work from there. This is essentially telling us 'get over it,' but in terms that a person in misery can accept and use, rather than feeling as though they've been told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps even though their legs have just been blown off by a land mine. Stubbornness becomes 'willfulness,' 'use your common sense' turns into 'use your wise mind,' and so on. If you guys are interested in this stuff I can definitely impart some of what I've been taught in future entries.
The downside of this, and the source of a lot of the misery is--these groups are in the form of support groups, even though at the time I chose to enter the system, I was told on no uncertain terms that they weren't. I don't tend to get on well with women, and certainly not when I am forced in the guise of therapy to share with them stuff that's none of their business, while being simultaneously forced to listen to their business. For most of the women there, hearing others' issues and how they've been able to better handle them through the skills we're being taught (or how they threw the skills down the drain and got drunk, alternatively) is helpful, but I found no real connection with anyone there, not enough to manage to take something other than gossip (not that I'd go around gossping with it, mind) from their turn to share. I also do not get on at all well with the woman in charge of the group (there are three members of the treatment team, a psychiatrist, individual therapist, and group therapist), so that is also difficult. After a week or so, I got my diagnosis, which they told me was tentative, just the results of what they'd seen in me so far. I'd never realized how very agoraphobic my behavior really is, so that was interesting. Friday is my last day (after 7 weeks, I think, 3 days a week, 3 hours a day, 2 1/2 of which is usually wasted on sharing, with 15 minutes for skills until I pitched a fit and we got 45 minutes of skills after that, heh), after which I transition to having a therapist of my very own if she ever calls back for an appointment scheduling.
No Caffeine Sucks, But So Did Sleeping Like A Psychotic Vampire!
While I was in the looney bin, I got a very lucky chance to speak with one of the heads of the Sleep People (for lack of the actual department name, which escapes me) Department. He spoke to me at length (which NEVER, EVER happens in the psych ward. You get 15 minutes and if you've got more to bring up, bring it up tomorrow)--I think he used his lunch break, lord bless him--and his suggestions were very helpful and well received. He suggested that the Confusion Arousal Disorder very likely could be exacerbated by the messed up Circadian Rhythm sleep schedule, and that if we could manage to address the latter first, we may find the former to start melting away. As for the memory bits, he told me that the best way to find out if it was a serious problem was, for the time being, to act as though it had no power over my thinking or my emotions. In short, ignore it--maybe it'll go away, or at the very least, die down to the point where I'm not miserable. He was right, too! Essentially, I still have the problem where I forget words, and I do end up saying the opposite word than I meant, but by telling myself 'this is normal, stay calm' I manage to usually just say the correct word or keep calm enough to think clearly until the word I'm searching for comes to me.
The best way to detox from excessive caffeine, I am now convinced, is to be incarcerated somewhere where you go cold turkey but you're so miserable for other reasons that you barely notice.
Seriously though, I came out of there and as much as I want caffeine, water is just fine, and I ended up losing a decent amount of weight by stopping my intake of it completely. I'm now one of those annoying people who just drinks water and fruit juice /hides.
Ironically, DBT Was Created To Treat Borderline Personality Disorder--And That's What They Think I Have
The person who created the skillset that we're taught in IOP created it because of her work with a certain subset of Personality Disorders--Borderline. Back in Freud's day, 'Borderline' meant that the people studying a certain group of folks identified as having a Personality Disorder... well, they simply couldn't tell if these people were psychotic or neurotic. So, they named it 'borderline.' Nowadays, the meaning of the B in BPD has less to do with the dictionary and more with tradition. According to wikipedia (though I prefer the above link with the tilde and the llama in it...) BPD is 'a serious mental illness characterized by pervasive instability in mood, interpersonal relationships, self-image, identity, and behavior. This instability often disrupts family and work life, long-term planning, and the individual's sense of self.' One of the biggest diagnostic criterion is the belief that everything is either one thing or its opposite--'black and white thinking'--and boy, that's me all over.
I'm not as much scared at the seriousness of this, because... well, I AM the same person I was before they sat me down and told me their findings. What scares me is a mixture of the behavior patterns expected and demonstrated by others with this diagnosis and the fact that... I thought I was just depressed. I mean, going from a relatively non-stigma'd bout of depression to stand in the ranks of psychotics, narccisistics, and hystrionics is frightening. Not because I'd be afraid of them but because I'm afraid people will somehow be able to guess or something. I suppose being told that 10% of the folks with BPD succeed in suicide (not even looking for attempts stats, thanks) doesn't help either.
I've always seen myself as kind of malleable, like what they state in the first BPD link. It's very difficult for me to pick something and say THIS is who I am, because I change so much, and many times because of my on- and offline influences. Spending time with quilters causes me to quilt more, spending time amongst fanfiction makes me want to write. I'm good at both, but I was good at poetry, too--and at the mere hint of my fiance's possible dislike of poetry, I stopped writing it altogether and haven't written a word of it in 8 years. I don't really blame G for it--I just didn't ever feel like writing poetry again. I guess I'm afraid that instead of this being a little odd quirk of mine, it's a sign among many that I don't look at the world the right way--and how many more things will I discover? (note: as of 12/14/06 I've known of this diagnosis for 4 days, so I'm sure this will change)
To Sum Up...
So in the end, most of what I have to tell you guys is that I've gone through a roller coaster ride of emotions the past month and more--so much so that I was afraid to post on LJ. Afraid because, if I was having a good day, would I have a bad day the next day and then edit or delete the post? Afraid because, if I was having a bad day, should I record it and possibly ruin my mood when reading it on a good day? While internally I know that the process of getting better is very much like the process of cleaning one's room--you end up making a bit more of a mess while organizing things than it looked when you started--I still end up feeling like I'm spending a lot of time being miserable to FIX the fact that I'm miserable. Then on top of that I find out that I've got more than depression going on... it's a lot to handle. The biggest challenge on LJ is the strong desire to hide rather than be communicative. However, I still like the same things I liked before all of this, and I don't intend on giving up on any writing projects--I just don't want to write when I've got such a severely pendulum swingingly negative to positive (the latter I refer to my husband as 'Happy Happy YAY' because he keeps claiming being happy is worth living for) viewpoint on everything. No screwing up the characters or plotline because the author is depressed!
Hugs,
Darsy
The hospital was HARD. The treatment following it makes me just about as miserable as pre-hospitalization with the bonus that in the process I'm learning skills to deal with the world in a much better way than I have done in the past. Certain behavior patterns have stayed the same, most noticeably to you folks my pattern of dropping off the map when I change something big in my life, to surface months or years later looking sheepish and apologetic. I hope to work on this behavior as I've worked on others. In the meantime, I'm very sorry--I know I keep saying that, but my habit of alienating by absence the very support systems I need most to survive is a self-harming behavior that I appear to be addicted to. I have thought of those of you on my friends list often, collectively and individually. I expect I have a lot to repair, and I will do whatever I need to to do so.
So, without further ado, a bit of a recap:
Women's IOP, DBT, and CBT
However stubbornly I sometimes refuse to USE the skills they teach at the Women's IOP, I have to admit that Dialectical Behavior Therapy, which is a type of cognitive behavior therapy--it's really amazing! The theory behind it is that everyone is born with an Emotion Regulation System just like we're born with Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Systems--and just as some people have weak hearts or more sensitive lungs, some of us are more sensitive emotionally. While many people mature and eventually learn how to deal with some crisis situations well, I'd have to say that a lot of people don't have a full complement of skills that enable them to handle anything that life throws at us. Certainly I ended up with a pretty easily recognizable lack of ability in regards to dealing with personal crisis. These skills really are things that help everyone, and a lot of them are skills you and I have been using for years without knowing that someone took them, defined them, and gave them a title.
What sets the Dialectical Behavior Therapy set of skills and system of teaching them apart is the language and understanding used. Sensitive people react negatively to all sorts of 'triggers,' whether it's being called stubborn or being told to calm down. Something we all have been told at least once in our lives in some way or another is 'get over it,' right? Well, actually, sometimes we DO have to just get over things, but telling someone in crisis 'just let it go' isn't very helpful to anyone unless they're made of stone. DBT takes that and turns it into 'Radical Acceptance,' telling us that when we're stuck in a situation where there isn't anything we can do to change it, we HAVE to be able to accept it as it is, and work from there. This is essentially telling us 'get over it,' but in terms that a person in misery can accept and use, rather than feeling as though they've been told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps even though their legs have just been blown off by a land mine. Stubbornness becomes 'willfulness,' 'use your common sense' turns into 'use your wise mind,' and so on. If you guys are interested in this stuff I can definitely impart some of what I've been taught in future entries.
The downside of this, and the source of a lot of the misery is--these groups are in the form of support groups, even though at the time I chose to enter the system, I was told on no uncertain terms that they weren't. I don't tend to get on well with women, and certainly not when I am forced in the guise of therapy to share with them stuff that's none of their business, while being simultaneously forced to listen to their business. For most of the women there, hearing others' issues and how they've been able to better handle them through the skills we're being taught (or how they threw the skills down the drain and got drunk, alternatively) is helpful, but I found no real connection with anyone there, not enough to manage to take something other than gossip (not that I'd go around gossping with it, mind) from their turn to share. I also do not get on at all well with the woman in charge of the group (there are three members of the treatment team, a psychiatrist, individual therapist, and group therapist), so that is also difficult. After a week or so, I got my diagnosis, which they told me was tentative, just the results of what they'd seen in me so far. I'd never realized how very agoraphobic my behavior really is, so that was interesting. Friday is my last day (after 7 weeks, I think, 3 days a week, 3 hours a day, 2 1/2 of which is usually wasted on sharing, with 15 minutes for skills until I pitched a fit and we got 45 minutes of skills after that, heh), after which I transition to having a therapist of my very own if she ever calls back for an appointment scheduling.
No Caffeine Sucks, But So Did Sleeping Like A Psychotic Vampire!
While I was in the looney bin, I got a very lucky chance to speak with one of the heads of the Sleep People (for lack of the actual department name, which escapes me) Department. He spoke to me at length (which NEVER, EVER happens in the psych ward. You get 15 minutes and if you've got more to bring up, bring it up tomorrow)--I think he used his lunch break, lord bless him--and his suggestions were very helpful and well received. He suggested that the Confusion Arousal Disorder very likely could be exacerbated by the messed up Circadian Rhythm sleep schedule, and that if we could manage to address the latter first, we may find the former to start melting away. As for the memory bits, he told me that the best way to find out if it was a serious problem was, for the time being, to act as though it had no power over my thinking or my emotions. In short, ignore it--maybe it'll go away, or at the very least, die down to the point where I'm not miserable. He was right, too! Essentially, I still have the problem where I forget words, and I do end up saying the opposite word than I meant, but by telling myself 'this is normal, stay calm' I manage to usually just say the correct word or keep calm enough to think clearly until the word I'm searching for comes to me.
The best way to detox from excessive caffeine, I am now convinced, is to be incarcerated somewhere where you go cold turkey but you're so miserable for other reasons that you barely notice.
Seriously though, I came out of there and as much as I want caffeine, water is just fine, and I ended up losing a decent amount of weight by stopping my intake of it completely. I'm now one of those annoying people who just drinks water and fruit juice /hides.
Ironically, DBT Was Created To Treat Borderline Personality Disorder--And That's What They Think I Have
The person who created the skillset that we're taught in IOP created it because of her work with a certain subset of Personality Disorders--Borderline. Back in Freud's day, 'Borderline' meant that the people studying a certain group of folks identified as having a Personality Disorder... well, they simply couldn't tell if these people were psychotic or neurotic. So, they named it 'borderline.' Nowadays, the meaning of the B in BPD has less to do with the dictionary and more with tradition. According to wikipedia (though I prefer the above link with the tilde and the llama in it...) BPD is 'a serious mental illness characterized by pervasive instability in mood, interpersonal relationships, self-image, identity, and behavior. This instability often disrupts family and work life, long-term planning, and the individual's sense of self.' One of the biggest diagnostic criterion is the belief that everything is either one thing or its opposite--'black and white thinking'--and boy, that's me all over.
I'm not as much scared at the seriousness of this, because... well, I AM the same person I was before they sat me down and told me their findings. What scares me is a mixture of the behavior patterns expected and demonstrated by others with this diagnosis and the fact that... I thought I was just depressed. I mean, going from a relatively non-stigma'd bout of depression to stand in the ranks of psychotics, narccisistics, and hystrionics is frightening. Not because I'd be afraid of them but because I'm afraid people will somehow be able to guess or something. I suppose being told that 10% of the folks with BPD succeed in suicide (not even looking for attempts stats, thanks) doesn't help either.
I've always seen myself as kind of malleable, like what they state in the first BPD link. It's very difficult for me to pick something and say THIS is who I am, because I change so much, and many times because of my on- and offline influences. Spending time with quilters causes me to quilt more, spending time amongst fanfiction makes me want to write. I'm good at both, but I was good at poetry, too--and at the mere hint of my fiance's possible dislike of poetry, I stopped writing it altogether and haven't written a word of it in 8 years. I don't really blame G for it--I just didn't ever feel like writing poetry again. I guess I'm afraid that instead of this being a little odd quirk of mine, it's a sign among many that I don't look at the world the right way--and how many more things will I discover? (note: as of 12/14/06 I've known of this diagnosis for 4 days, so I'm sure this will change)
To Sum Up...
So in the end, most of what I have to tell you guys is that I've gone through a roller coaster ride of emotions the past month and more--so much so that I was afraid to post on LJ. Afraid because, if I was having a good day, would I have a bad day the next day and then edit or delete the post? Afraid because, if I was having a bad day, should I record it and possibly ruin my mood when reading it on a good day? While internally I know that the process of getting better is very much like the process of cleaning one's room--you end up making a bit more of a mess while organizing things than it looked when you started--I still end up feeling like I'm spending a lot of time being miserable to FIX the fact that I'm miserable. Then on top of that I find out that I've got more than depression going on... it's a lot to handle. The biggest challenge on LJ is the strong desire to hide rather than be communicative. However, I still like the same things I liked before all of this, and I don't intend on giving up on any writing projects--I just don't want to write when I've got such a severely pendulum swingingly negative to positive (the latter I refer to my husband as 'Happy Happy YAY' because he keeps claiming being happy is worth living for) viewpoint on everything. No screwing up the characters or plotline because the author is depressed!
Hugs,
Darsy