Write "LOVE" on your arm...

Many of you have already seen me mention this on Facebook at least 3 times this morning, but it means a lot to me.  Today is To Write Love On Her Arms day.  What does that mean?

• 121 million people worldwide suffer from depression.  (World Health Organization)
• 2/3 of those suffering from depression never seek treatment.
• Untreated depression is the number one cause of suicide, and suicide is the third leading cause of death among teenagers. (NIMH)
• Depression is NOT discriminate among age, race, gender or class.
• Untreated depression can sometimes lead to self-injury.  Self-injury is also termed self-mutilation, self-harm, or self-abuse.  It can be defined as the deliberate, repetitive, impulsive, non-lethal harming of one's self.
• About 4% of the population has struggled with self-injury.
• The World Health Organizations (WHO) estimates that each year approximately one million people die from suicide, which represents a global mortality rate of 16 people per 100,000 or one death every 40 seconds.
• Mental health disorders are associated with 90% of all cases of suicide.
• Overall, suicide is the eleventh leading cause of death in the US, and the third leading cause of death among young people ages 15-24

Show your support and love to those with mental illness.  If you are reading this, you do, in fact, know and love someone with a mental illness!  (ME!)  Write the word "LOVE" on your arm today (and any other day you choose) to symbolically show your support of those in need.

Prevention is possible!  Help those in need seek treatment, show love and support, erase stigma, DO SOMETHING!

Graduate

The Wednesday after I got back from California (Aug 3), I graduated from the Dialectic Behavioral Therapy class I had been taking for the last year.  I'm sure I've mentioned it in my blogs before, but DBT is basically reteaching oneself how to understand, describe, and handle emotions.  It also deals with interpersonal communication skills as well.  Wikipedia has a pretty good explanation of it:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy.  You'll notice it does say it's used for patience who exhibit self-injury behavior.  And yes, that is me.

I supposed I don't need to get into complete details about my self-injury behavior, as to when specific incidents happened and what not.

Things you should know about MY cutting (and this is probably true for most other cutters as well, so DO NOT judge before you know the information):

• I'll tell you that I would cut my upper left arm with a knife in little half inch superficial slits. .
• Suicide was never the intent, nor was it really on my mind.
• Severe injury wasn't either.
• It was not an attention-getter, as I hid it from everyone anyway.
• To me, the cutting was a way of taking an inside pain that I had no control over and bringing it outside to where I did have control over it.  I caused it.
• And I will tell you I haven't done it in almost a year and a half

If you have questions about it, don't assume anything, just ask me.  Yah'll know, I'm an open book!

I've learned so much through DBT. 

It's helped me understand my emotions.  Instead of saying, "I just don't feel right," I can now specifically tell myself what emotion I am having because of physical sensations (such as teeth clenching, hot ears, chest tightening, etc) and thoughts/urges (such as wanting to cut, wanting to give up, wanting to curl up in bed, etc). It's an amazing ability to actually understand your feelings.  You have no idea how much that makes them actually tolerable.

I've learned how to handle my emotions, how to not make them go to the extremes (I'm so sad I want to die, I'm so anxious I want to give up, etc), how to talk to someone about them, how to get through a major emotional time (distress tolerance), how to feel the emotion and remember that it's not going to stay like that forever.

I've learned how to talk to people and how to understand that I don't know everything about them so I can't judge.  How to relate to them, how to sympathize, how to firmly request what I need and to accept when I am told no.

I've learned to love the little things in life.  I've learned that even though something shitty has happened in a day, there's probably something here and there that made the day worth while....and even if there wasn't, tomorrow will be better.  To see that a bad thing happening doesn't have to ruin the rest of the day.  That it happened, and I can't change that it happened, so I can move passed it.

I've learned to take time for myself to just reflect and think.  To not let my emotions take over my brain so that I can't think straight, and to not get too analytical so that I don't feel anything at all.  To not overreact, and even when I do over react to be able to step back and say, "I did that, now I can fix it."

My mother-in-law said something a couple months ago.  She praised me for what I have been doing over the last year to better myself and to get a hold on my emotions.  She said, "I'm glad to have my Taylor back."

Me too!

Mental Illness

For updates on Tyson, go here.

I've come to terms over the years that I have a mental illness and I will forever.  I can deal with that.  It's a disease like any others.  Instead of insulin to control sugar, I take antidepressants and mood stabilizers to control sanity.  I'm not ashamed of it, I'm not afraid of it...it's just part of me.

I've often considered the fact that my kids are likely to have it as well.  I've always watched their actions and behaviors closely for any signs that it's popping up so as to catch it before they don't know what's going on and lose all control.  I never ever thought I would be faced with it with my 4.5 year old son.

Two times this week the psychologist has said that Tyson's episodes (the sudden anxiety a few weeks ago, and then the severe depression this week) are indicative of bipolar disorder.  The psychiatrist said today that she believes he may have bipolar disorder and the medications made it present earlier than with anyone else by flaring up the extremes.  I braced myself for this news since my kids were conceived...but I can't help but feel like I did it to him.

I know you are all going to say that I didn't do this as much as my mother and father didn't do it to me.  But that's not going to stop that feeling that I am responsible for my son's mental illness.  We all have those traits we carry genetically that we don't want passed on to our kids because they are a nuisance: frizzy curly hair, excessive freckles, allergies...  But like diabetes, no one would ever want their worst enemies child, let alone their own child's genetics to hold their mental illness.

And unlike diabetes, mental illness cannot be measured by blood monitoring and lab work.  It's all trial and error and close observation by a psychiatrist and psychologist and therapist and whatnot and so forth.  I can barely handle this with my own crap, let alone now having to watch it in my son as well.

Now I know what my mom felt when I was spirally downward in my teens....

Not always a ray of sunshine...

Let me preface this with the fact that I have bipolar disorder and have been battling severe clinical depression and bouts of mania for over 13 years.  My mental illness is under the care of a psychiatrist and therapists closely.  I take 3 medications--antidepressants and mood stabilizers, and I am in an intense therapy program.  I'm doing pretty well.  It's been almost a year since my last major depression cycle.  And I've learned to turn to my husband, therapists and psychiatrist when I feel a slide in my mood, which is very important when you have no control over which way you are going to go.  With that all said....I still have bipolar disorder and I always will.  I'm not ashamed of that in the slightest.

As I said, it's been almost a year since my last major depression cycle.  Last May, I hit one of the hardest depressions of my life.  I talked my psychiatrist into taking me off of a medication that caused me to gain weight because I was feeling good and didn't think I needed it.  I wanted to try a different medication instead.  Something that would allow me to not be fat (can you blame me?).  Turns out that medication was working very well in controlling my depressions and going off of it was a very poor decision (on my part, not my psych's).  I fell and I fell hard.  Since then, my psych has been very careful about watching me....and my husband is on me like a fly on shit.  But I like that.  I will concede to the fact that I need help with this.  I need them to back me up and make sure I can stand.  Because when I fall there's no way I can get back up without them.  Not just the medicine thing, but the support to get through the dip, just the reminder that this is a wave and soon I will be back to "normal" (whatever that may be). 

I'm a control freak....wait let's say that better....Hello, My name is Taylor Lee Sawyer, and I am a control freak.  "Hi Taylor!"  It has been about 3 seconds from the last time I have been in control....  For someone that needs to be in control so much, it's a cruel cruel joke that God plagued me bipolar disorder!  Or should we look at it less as a joke and more of a lesson?  I constantly need to remind myself that it is ok when I am not in control (especially about this) and it's ok when I have to ask someone to help me through this.  Luckily, I have the best husband EVER....and some pretty terrific friends and family too.

So it's been almost a year.  I've been doing fab.  I actually made it through a lot in the last year with out falling off the edge--my favorite uncle passed away after a long battle with cancer, I've had pneumonia and bronchitis twice this winter and then got slammed with Influenza B which STILL hasn't cleared up after 5 weeks, and so on and so forth.  So why in the hell am I slumping right now???  Is it that I turned 30?  Is it because Spring is having a really hard time beating Winter out?  Is it because I'm more busy with work than I have ever been (which is actually a good thing) and it's becoming overwhelming?  Or maybe I'm getting my period soon and I should just "get over it"...I have no clue.  But the fact is, I'm down.

For the first time in a year, I've had a really rough couple of weeks where I have longed for my bed and a dark dark room to wallow in.  I've been crying at the tip of a hat.  And sometimes the crying lasts a really long time.  I've been unmotivated and overwhelmed when faced with any task, even the minute ones like picking out clothes to wear.  I've even had thoughts of cutting again (but have not acted on them).

Rest assured, my husband and therapists are fully aware of my state, so I won't fall off the deep end.  But the fact remains that I'm stuck.  I called my therapist yesterday while laying on the floor in my closet when I got overwhelmed trying to find some clothes to throw on to run errands (see, I wasn't exaggerating with that example).  She said that no medicine or therapy is ever going to completely control these dips.  She reminded me that it will get better soon, so "Ride the wave", she said.  I have to trudge along trusting that there is a light at the end of the tunnel even though I can't see it right now.  That may seem like some shitty advice, but really, just someone understanding and admitting that this is real helped immensely.  I got dress...but I didn't shower because that was way too much work.  I went and did what I had to do.  And I felt better.  Granted after it was all done, I went back to wishing I was in bed and away from the world...BUT the big thing is that I know I can get through this and I will like I always have before.

When I used to blog, it was all about this.  Living with a mental illness.  When I started this blog, I decided that it wouldn't be all about this.  And I should remind you that I haven't felt like this in a loooooong time.  So don't worry.  I may throw this in now and again, but I'll be back to my normal wit and charm soon enough.  But maybe this will help you understand others who may be in my same predicament.