Psychiatrists as Pieces of Toast?

Well, what am I going to say? Why has it taken me a whole week to write a post? The weather has been unremittingly gorgeous, and I have been unremittingly tired. And busy. And tired. Just finished a whole bunch of editing and am excited to be writing more, thinking about my thesis! I'm excited for the Kachemak Bay Writers Conference, which starts this coming Friday. The keynote speaker is someone I've dearly wanted to meet and know for years now. We would have so much to talk about; I so hope I do get to talk with her.

Almost more importantly, I'm excited I get to go at all.

This time last year, I was at Foie Gras Farm, and I was missing the conference I'd been so looking forward. to. Yes, it's been over a year. And obviously I'm doing at least somewhat better, since I'm here. But how much better are we all doing? I was "inside" a couple weeks ago on the actual anniversary of going down to AZ. Several of my cohorts have gone back inside. The person with whom I've kept the most in touch was doing extremely badly last time we talked and is no longer answering her phone, which is pretty darn scary.

(And not too long ago at all, I was walking on this lake with the dogs.) How I'm doing with the food thing is much much better than last year. Maybe that's not always saying a whole lot but really, it is. I've become expert at showing the weight they want to see but have been 'rumbled' on that a couple times in the Place of No Shoelaces where you don't get to be in charge of preparing for the scale.My lithium levels are good, so I maintain (ha!) that my weight is fine.

And now, I'm about to make a gluten and animal-product-containing analogy. Stand by, and see if you can see these little fish in the unfrozen lake.

Imagine five toast "soldiers" off the same piece of bread dipped into runny egg yolk. If they all get soggy at the same rate, it wouldn't be surprising, right? Now imagine five "toast" soldiers from five different kinds of bread--white bread, wholegrain bread, sprouted multigrain bread, gluten free bread, manna bread, dipped into the runny egg yolk. If these ones all get soggy at the same rate, it might say something objective about the specific viscosity of the yolk, right?

Okay. If you have a mole on your back and five different dermatologists in different places and with different characters say it's a melanoma, would you be inclined to believe them? Are they five different kinds of bread or from a single slice?

Now. If you have certain mental health issues and five different psychiatrists say you need to be taking a certain class of medication in addition to what you're taking already, would you be inclined to believe them? Are they soldiers all from one piece of toast, or might they differ with their respective age, gender, location, training, approach?

I've had the same strong recommendation from five psychs now. Maybe six. With support from other kinds of practitioners too. I would much rather not add a medication and I would much rather not add this class. But then I remember I was against going on lithium, and it's been a godsend. But I wasn't already on other meds then. Okay, actually I was. Still. Why is it different when five dermatologists or surgeons or oncologists tell you the same thing on the one hand and when it's to do with your mental health on the other?

Since mental health issues are now known to have physiological components that can be seen on brain scans and verified in terms of chemistry, many doctors and therapists are encouraging people to think of treatment for these conditions as analogous to treatment for asthma or diabetes or cancer or other chronic health conditions. The fact that there's a continuum from migraines to bipolar to schizophrenia to epilepsy in terms of commonly used medications, the difference only being in the dosage, also strongly suggests the reality and commonality of these conditions. I have to keep telling myself this; the "it's all in your head" story is so strongly ingrained.

With all these conditions also, the meds don't carry all the weight. With all these conditions, whether they're perceived as primarily mental or primarily physiological, it's important to take care of things like diet and exercise, good relationships, a healthy spiritual practice, and other nurturing and healing ways of being. She says.

That said, sometimes in order to be able to do that, you need help getting your chemistry into that space.

I haven't decided to go on this medication for sure. But I do have a prescription. And I do think these advisers come from different pieces of toast; they're not all cut from the same slice. It's been a long time since I've gone on a medication and been in a position to blog about it. If I do go on it, I might just share, if it sounds like something interesting. Wanna see what happens?

Where is the Lie? HAWMC #16

Am I able to Lie? Or is the denial too deep?

Today’s Prompt:

• Tell us three things that are true about you, your condition, or your Health Activism.  Tell us one lie. Will we be able to tell the difference?

On which side of the screen does it lie?

• I believe great art can also be great health activism.
• I believe the purpose of art is to make the audience feel the artist's pain.
• I am diagnosed with two conditions both of which hold a significant freight of denial.
• I believe the effectiveness of a medication or therapy is more important than whether it proves that I (or whoever) have the disease.

Which one is the lie?

HEADS UP: Tomorrow is Wordless Wednesday. On Monday, I promised a post about my "verklempitude" but have so far failed to deliver, perhaps because rather than verklempt I've been verrueckt! (But wait, that was only yesterday?) So, resanified (does that -ify suffix make the re- prefix redundant?), I undertake to add a wordy, non-HAWMC post to Wordless domani.

Brain on the Fritz -- HAWMC 7

 Say WHAT!? What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve heard about health or your condition?
Where did you hear it and what did you think?

Well, lots of options here! I think I'll leave the anorexia comments alone this time, as anyone could think them up--from s/he just needs to snap out of it to it's all about the fashion industry to it's purely a result of undiagnosed food allergies to no one with  anorexia really has food allergies, they just cut everything out and end up with oversensitive systems, which situation reverses if they're crammed with bland and calorie-dense pabulum for months... OK, so I mentioned a bunch.

But perhaps the most surprising thing I heard about bipolar disorder was actually at an ED treatment center, and said by a psychiatrist. The fact that he said the exact same thing about PTSD makes it even a little more suspect to me. He said bipolar disorder consists of seizures in the brain. That the brain simply goes on the fritz and causes the bipolar behaviors. I'm not sure how that plays out when bipolar behavior consists of being depressed for a year; I guess it's easier to see when someone's charging around being manic. It's true, some of the medications most commonly used for bipolar disorder were initially classified as anti-seizure medications. But that doesn't mean seizures are all they treat (think taking aspirin as a blood thinner, and many other examples).
The part of this that makes me chuckle is that this psychiatrist eventually said to me, in exasperation, "You just need to stop doing crazy things!!"