It’s Just My Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown

To quote the Stones. Over on Crabby’s blog she wrote about her first nervous breakdown (which was really more like a freeing of her soul from what she describes) and her possible preparation for a second.

I’ve had two complete nervous breakdowns in my life. And I do mean total, absolute, ready-to-slit-my-own-throat breakdowns.

It actually took my good friend “I” to point out to me during the first that I wasn’t crazy, I was sick. She dragged my dysfunctional ass to my doctor (lovingly known as Dr. Hibbert ‘cause that’s exactly who he’s like) who verified her diagnosis and told me I had what was known as bipolar disorder. No, I wasn’t crazy or weak or a total whiner, I was legitimately sick.

Wow. What a breakthrough. And to find out that it wasn’t even totally my fault was very liberating. Turns out bipolar disorder is (in Dr. Hibbert’s words) a condition where the brain doesn’t fire properly and what’s basically normal, livable stress for most people becomes physically debilitating anxiety attacks. Yup, that was me alright!

I went on drugs for a while that seemed to help. I was able to function, he counseled me and made me feel, well, “normal” for lack of a better word. Then I finally went off the drugs because I hated the thought that my entire mental and emotional stability was dependent on a couple of funky coloured pills that I took every day. Things in my life were stable enough at the time that the doctor agreed to I was drug-free for a few years.

Then it happened again. Sigh. Back on the pills, more counseling and a bit more time off work. Thank the gods for my husband and my friends, though, who were above and beyond understanding and supportive. I was so afraid everyone would look down on me as weak and a failure, busily making sympathetic noises to my face and then rolling their eyes behind my back, but no one did. It was very freeing too hearing about other people who had similar problems. Funny how no one still wants to talk about mental illness, but if you’re daring enough to open up about your own issues, everyone around you lets down their guard and almost seems relieved to tell you about their problems and/or their brother’s/mother’s/sister’s/father’s/third aunt twice removed’s problems.

People don’t feel like they’ve failed if they have asthma or diabetes, why should those of us who suffer from mental illness feel that, somehow, all we are is “crazy?” I’ll openly talk about my migraines or my hypoglycemia, but still admit to feeling a little nervous talking about my other “issues.” I worry when I start a new job that someone will find out, tell all my co-workers, and no one will look at me the same again. It’s my own fears and phobia that I have to get over as much as everyone else’s.