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Undiagnosed I'm Still Figuring Out If I'm Allowed To Be Here

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JessicaLee

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Although it's been years, I still struggle to feel entitled to my pain. It sounds silly, but I attribute it to part of the stigma surrounding mental illness. In fact, I've started this post four times already and closed the tab. I'm more likely to respond to other people in support than ever talk about my own struggle.

For the better part of 5 years I endured strange and difficult situations. They were difficult alone or as a handful, but there were relentless, so they really beat me down. It took me a year and a half to fall into unrecognized depression, and I shrugged it off, because I was never physically harmed and I never experienced loss, so what did I have to be depressed about? It was a lot of emotional abuse from others, and it snowballed, with each situation adding to the weight. It involved stalkers, sexual harassment, restraining orders, legal battles, threats to ruin my career, bad relationships that I couldn't recognize as abusive until later, and being completely isolated from my family because of where I lived. I mean that's a really surface level description, but hopefully it gives people an idea of what I'm talking about. I took on responsibilities that required significant mental endurance, furthering my exhaustion, taking more and more from me. My best friend with a history of mental illness (that was severe) was the first person to say out loud that I'm depressed and I should get help.

So after living with depression and not feeling like I was allowed to be I finally walked into a doctors office and figured out I was dealing with major depression. It still took me six more months to get on antidepressants. Mind you, the entire time I was taking on more responsibility than I probably ever will. I was multitasking between graduate school, teacher credential training, and full-time teaching at about 75% of a teacher salary in one of the most expensive places to live.

I was very isolated and alone because of where I lived, and I didn't have any decent support. It made it that much worse when difficult situations would come my way because I had no one to count on. Before I started antidepressants I was so empty and lifeless. I would go to work, put on a good face and when I got home I get in bed until the next day when I would go to work. I had nothing inside me and my mom begged me on the phone to do something because she knew I was going to die if I didn't. Antidepressants helped a little bit. Unfortunately, my best friend had really developed a codependent relationship with me and I didn't know how influential she was, in a very negative way.

There were periods of good, very few, but I was a fighter so when I did have a win it was very empowering. Honestly, if I wasn't teaching I don't know that I would have had the strength to do it for so long. I really credit the kids for making me strong, because I could and would not EVER bring what was going on in my mind into the classroom. I did the "fake it til you make it" thing. I did make it. I saw a psychiatrist who tried prescribing other medications in addition to antidepressants, all of which seemed to do nothing. Even with a few wins along the way I wasn't getting better.

I hit rock bottom eventually, having some kind of a breakdown. I was in an emotionally abusive relationship but I didn't recognize until later and it did cause so much additional harm that it pushed me over the edge. The months that followed were absolutely horrible. Even though I could feel at that point, I felt extreme loss and worthlessness. I knew that I had to do something to change my circumstances, and it just hit me in the face one day that I was the only one keeping myself in my circumstances. No one was forcing me to live thousands of miles away from my family where I had no support, in a place that, by nature, would continue to cause pain. It was a relief to know that I was going home, so I went. I sold off my entire life, quit my job sooner than I would have liked to, and moved to my parents home where I could heal and recharge. I have not been depressed in a very long time. I wanted to go off antidepressants and I've been tapering for a while very successfully. It's been very slow, but the clarity that has returned to me is incredible. I'm really happy that I'm going off of the medications because I know I'm ready. The rest can be worked out through therapy.

This June it will make a year I've been home, and I've done everything in my power to move forward, but I'm stuck. The last couple years of my life haunt me. My anxiety has a lot of power over me, and I struggle to feel allowed to have posttraumatic stress. Once again it's that "Well I didn't have it too bad so I should be able to move forward." All of the horrible things that happened, when put in perspective seem minor, but I know that I should not compare my pain to others, especially to minimize my own feelings. It doesn't make it less real, it just stops me from helping myself. I don't trust other people and I give up on people very easily. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. People will disappoint me and hurt me so when they do I know I'm right so I pull back and isolate myself even further. The mental block I have is so powerful that I can't overcome even though I've overcome much harder things. I can barely leave the house, and I can't go on time. When I go to sleep, sometimes my anxiety holds me hostage, and the things that haunt me will just flash into my mind and it feels like being punched in the stomach. I have nightmares reaffirming how worthless I am. I can't bring myself to initiate the things I need to do to have a full life like reaching out to friends, family, doing anything that would resemble a normal life outside of being a recluse. I have to let go of what's left of those years and I can't on my own right now. I've always been so capable of rationalizing and understanding my experiences. In many ways I've been my own therapist and I've been very successful. But I don't seem to be able to let go of my pain. I can't rationalize it away because it's just the reality of life. I don't have unrealistic expectations or a skewed perspective. If anything, I understand it extremely well and it is just the way life goes. So at this point, I need to let it go. All of it. I need to be capable of having a normal life where I can leave my house, be social, and go to bed at night knowing that it was just a regular day. I don't know how to feel closure and the only thing I can think that would help is to start initiating a regular life because I think things will fall into place as I do move on. I don't feel like I'm allowed to be so traumatized. I am, but I don't feel like I should be. I don't know where to go from here. I don't have health insurance and I don't have the money to pay out-of-pocket for therapy. I reached out to a clinic that uses a sliding scale so therapy would be affordable. I called twice and they never returned my calls. It's not hard for me to give up, it's almost second nature at this point.

I really hope I can find the closure I need through some support here. Thank you for reading.
 
Soooo glad you posted here.

This may not apply to your life at all so ignore if needed, but does your financial situation allow you to go under Obamacare while we still have it? I would be dead without assisted medical aid and since this may be the last year we have it, I'm using it like CRAZY - several times a week with several practitioners so I can heal before it might be taken away from me and I have to do something drastic (move/marry etc.) to get the care I need. Again, this may not apply to your situation.
 
Soooo glad you posted here.

This may not apply to your life at all so ignore if needed, but does...

Hi! Thank you for responding so quickly.

I did a little research into getting coverage that way when I first moved home, but at the time my income was still existent because I was a teacher and my paychecks went through the summer. It was not affordable then, although to be honest with myself, I didn't try that hard because of that sick need to feed my own worthlessness and helplessness. I considered looking into disability because undoubtedly I couldn't have held down a full-time job, I can barely bring myself to apply to jobs. I had a part-time job for less than two months and I resigned because I just couldn't truly do it. I was still consumed with anxiety. Instead I did something really irresponsible (in the long run), I cashed out my retirement from three years of working in the DOE and I'm paying my bills with it, mostly student loans and an auto loan for a car I don't even drive 90% of the time. Oh the joys of poor decision-making skills that are affected by emotions! (humor is one of my coping skills)

Now that we're talking about a new year and I don't have income, it's probably worth looking into again, especially since this clinic has not called me back and I called twice in the last week. Thank you for your encouragement, I will look into it, although one of the reasons I haven't tried is because it could be repealed and it could be more troublesome than it's worth if I can't get coverage anyway or if it's a month of coverage. That's just Negative Nancy talking me out of helping myself, however. My parents offered to pay out-of-pocket although they can't really afford it and I can't let them do that because the guilt would eat away at me. I told him if they were going to throw that much cash at me that I would prefer it was in the form of Lasek eye surgery or something else that would improve my quality of life haha.

Maybe I'll do a little research; it's not like I don't have the time! Thanks again :)
 
I hear you! My issue is disability - it's near impossible for my situation to get and that's driving me nuts that I don't even have the physical ability (slightly impaired right now with my illness) to look that up myself and my friend who wanted to help is dragging her feet and it's hard for me to ask someone else to do it for me. So I get it!!!! SO FRUSTRATING! :) And I love humor - please keep it up!!! That's what I use too. I always make fun of myself being some useless sack of meat so I get it :) WE all get it and lots of love and a hug if you're ok with that!!!
 
The last couple years of my life haunt me. My Anxiety has a lot of power over me, and I struggle to feel allowed to have posttraumatic stress. Once again it's that "Well I didn't have it too bad so I should be able to move forward
No, it sounds like you've gone through a lot of very tough stuff.

Have you been diagnosed with PTSD? I ask because of the way you phrased the above.

Anxiety all on its own can be a seriously debilitating medical condition; so can depression. What matters most is that you get into the right kind of therapy so that you can get relief from your symptoms and then re-evaluate what your prospects are.

Trauma therapy can also be useful even for people without PTSD.
 
No, it sounds like you've gone through a lot of very tough stuff.

Have you been diagnosed with PT...

Hello,

I have had a very poor experience with doctors and diagnoses and one of the things I hope to clear up in the next few months is what is a misdiagnosis and what is not. I don't like this long and likely inaccurate lists of diagnoses following me around. So yes and no. The last psychiatrist I saw sort of put everything on the diagnosis list. She said I don't really fit into the bipolar box but it's sitting there on my medical record. She said there was PTSD to a certain degree, so it's on my medical record, but we never really got into it because I left. She also put down OCD, generalized anxiety, major recurrent depression... I can't even remember the rest of the list without getting it and reading it. I'm not saying it's all false, I'm saying that it's a very superficial list. I had insurance, but they really could not accommodate me. So it was almost like a bunch of diagnoses based on very little interaction. My experience with therapy is they could only get me in once every five weeks. So, of course that was really ineffective.

So far my experience with trying to see a therapist here has really amounted to nothing. First I talked to a doctor who my mom wanted me to talk to, and he told me that it probably wasn't worth the money so I should go to an income-based clinic. That's not really the kind of discouragement I needed, but OK I'm used to this game. So then I called the one that would be affordable and they completely ignored my request for help. If I was in a worse state I would take that and walk away from my attempt to help myself completely. So it's kind of a work in progress right now, but I need to see someone regularly because I know that if I don't form a relationship with that person, every single visit is going to be an introductory visit.

I know there is a complex relationship between the different things going on in my mind, and hopefully I will be able to speak with someone who can actually help understand that relationship better. I can say with confidence that I have not been stuck in a depressed episode for a very long time, probably for about 11 months, a few months before I came home, and it seem to be prompted by my decision to move home. Coming home has not been easy, and if anything, it was almost more disappointing than the life I was living because I came home for unconditional love and support and I kind of didn't get that. My mom has had a huge learning curve because she does not "believe" in behavioral health in terms of getting care. It comes from her own discomfort and inability to acknowledge that she has needed help for a long time.

I know I've come a long way because being hurt by other people did not stop in coming home, and it was from those who should have had good intentions. My mom, with all her love, is a raging bull. It makes me really angry because every other adult is responsible for themselves and their actions and words, but since she doesn't believe in helping herself, she kind of has a lifetime pass to be excused from accountability. It's a huge source of our arguments. But, the point of me saying this is that somehow it didn't leave me depressed. I mean, I'm fighting isolating myself and rebuilding self-worth, and she told me I was an embarrassment to myself, them (my parents), and the rest of my family. Since then, I have not really tried very hard to be a part of my family. In fact, I started looking into moving away again. It took me like three months to tell her that she broke my heart, but what was really surprising is that I wasn't depressed. I was sad and disappointed and hurt and angry and sick to my stomach, but it wasn't depressed. So the nature of what I struggle with today is very different. I'm really happy coming off of medication. I've taken it so slow and I don't taper unless I'm in a period of stability.

My anxiety still is really bad and it haunts me. I put up a pretty good fight, but really it is just some kind of counterattack on what is happening, not preventing it in the first place. Like nighttime before bed, if I don't stay kind of mindful, I'll realize that my entire body is tensing up and my eyes are so wide open staring into space that I'm going to give myself a migraine. So I learned to put my tongue in between my teeth so I can't clench my jaw. Then the rest of my body relaxes from there until I divert my attention and I tense up again. It's a constant battle of back-and-forth. Then, I have to stop myself when I get into negative thoughts spirals. I don't have closure on things but I know that I cannot allow myself to fall into a downward spiral by concentrating on it and giving it all my energy. I've always been my biggest critic. Before I go to bed, I have the least amount of power because I'm not distracted and I'm not active, and it's like letting the defenses down because I'm trying to go to sleep. All of the things that I hate that make me feel awful just start flooding back in like a broken dam. It's even things that I know are not true, but for some reason I put them on repeat. My last boyfriend was so damaging to me and I know better than anyone that I shouldn't believe anything that he said because he was a narcissist with the most disgusting superiority complex, but I still replay the things that broke me down that he said. Or my past mistakes will come flooding back in and these waves of regret will hit me so fast and hard, and I don't even know why I'm thinking about it. I have rationalized that regret is worthless, and you should take what you can learn from it and move forward and not hate yourself. I just can't fully practice what I preach. I hate the way it feels, like I'm gonna throw up, like I just got punched in the solar plexus. I know I'm strong, because I can fight it when it comes and I can win, but I can't stop it from happening in the first place.

Other times I'm absolutely powerless, like when I need to leave the house and I can't, and when I can't commit to going to bed. I have fallen into the bad practice of keeping myself awake, and then I feel anxious that I won't let myself go to sleep and it's this like weird internal battle of control until I finally accept that I have to go to sleep and that's when the anxiety takes over. When I won't let myself go to bed it's not because I'm just watching TV or something, I'm actually busying my mind and literally learning about anything that pops up because I like to fall down wormholes on YouTube and google. After having so much responsibility in the past my brain likes the stimulation and I really do like learning so I like to challenge myself. I was in school for so many years that I don't think I do anything better than learning, so I don't know how to stop now, and that's mostly a good thing. For some reason I cannot apply that assertiveness to making my life better, like by applying for jobs etc., but I will read papers from medical journals and in Spanish just to make it a little bit harder. It actually makes me laugh that I do that. Sometimes Portuguese, because that's even more challenging. To put it in context, I did my undergrad in biology then a graduate program in conservation biology and environmental science, and then I moved into the realm of teaching and I finished my grad program in December so I think I'm just filling my mind with stuff to do to just add to what I know. I feel like if I learn as much as possible then I can apply it to my understanding of the bigger picture of how the world works. If I can understand people and if I can understand their actions and their behavior, then I can understand how to solve the world's problems. I think about it a lot, and although it's going slowly given my emotional setbacks, I'm working to get into education reform in some capacity because I am wholeheartedly motivated by my passion for it. I don't think it's a coincidence that it's a very good distracting tool before I let my mind go wandering uninhibited before I go to sleep. Wow... I need a better hobby... now that I read that back to myself hahaha.

I've actually come to enjoy being alone much more than being around other people. Part of it comes from where I lived for seven years. You just don't make it that long out there unless you come to enjoy your own company because you're isolated in every sense of the word. Think: rural island surrounded by thousands of miles of ocean. I mean it was great for like the first three or four years but it has a shelf life. This is kind of a piece of the puzzle of why culturally I do not fit into where I am now and why my mom would say something so awful like I'm an embarrassment, when in reality I just not like most of the people here. I have dogs. My two dogs are my source of oxytocin. And I stretch a lot. That feels good too. I also set goals when it comes to my body and fitness and meeting those goals is a very rewarding thing, but it's all rooted in control. That's the part I'm not sure about. It could be very negative but shrouded in something healthy and positive. I'm 29, and I like companionship. I want a partner and to have a family. But with my current practices, I won't meet anyone, friend or partner, and I recognize that.

So, that's a peek into my life. It's clear that my brain sometimes just makes it all worse. If I can move away my past, I think I can really have a great life because I can apply myself to better things. I'm proud of myself for where I am today because I wanted to give up for years. But today I can fight anxiety and I'm not depressed, I'm just kind of under constant attack from my own mind like I've been poisoned.

Thank you for reading. I know I write essays ☺
 
That's an amazingly cogent and self-aware response, @JessicaLee - nothing to apologize for, and hopefully the act of writing it was in some ways helpful.

Everything you describe about how depression is affecting you, resonates for me (I have major depression). And big yes to this statement:

Its so very true, in many ways. They don't fully understand (scientifically) what depression is - but there's evidence that points to things actually going wrong in the brain, to a degree that our own cognition works against us. Also - and oddly - there are symptoms of both arousal and somnolence in MDD. I'm confident that I only have low-grade anxiety - but it's my depression sometimes keeping me up at night, in the way that worry is part of how a depressive brain operates.

And it gets complicated with diagnosis, as you described - having an accurate diagnosis depends in large part on having a talented clinician, and being able to represent your own experience of your symptoms rather accurately. I wish it were easier, because knowing what one is dealing with can help one address it more effectively.

Meanwhiles, we muddle along.

Check out your local NAMI chapter - you can find them on www.nami.org. There are solid support resources - and anything targeted at mood disorders or stress disorders will certainly be a good resource.

And, since you like learning, check out a couple of books - Dead Link Removed and Dead Link Removed, or Dead Link Removed.

Cognitive therapies aren't necessarily the only modality people benefit from; but they are evidence-based therapies, and can to a certain extent be done by oneself, while looking for the right therapist. And the principles in CBT and DBT are interwoven through almost any therapy you'd ever do. They are useful.

Thanks for sharing more about yourself. You will find a lot of useful ideas on the site, and I do encourage to keep an open mind about what your diagnosis may emerge as. Also I hope you can get into a more supportive living environment...a bad home makes everything so much harder.
 
That's an amazingly cogent and self-aware response, @JessicaLee - nothing to apol...

Thank you so much for the resources, that's kind of my big goal in being here if that, especially with mental illness. Sometimes our biggest resource is talking to other people from this community. Stigma has really made that even more necessary. And you know what? I think that's one if not maybe the only positive things that comes from stigma. It bands us together and forces us to grow.

I agree with you about the home situation. My mom, fortunately, has been more open to growing and learning in the last few years than ever before, because she saw she had to, and she loves me more than she is selfish. It still doesn't make this a good living situation, however. I think I was 15 when I realized I surpassed my mother's maturity and rationality, and it is honestly one of the reasons why I was gone for 11 years. College is a great excuse to live really far away, and once I got started I just kept going. This whole being really responsible for myself thing started very young because of my family dynamic. I was an only child until I was like five or six and then my brothers came out as Irish twins, so everything went to them because they were pretty energy intensive kids. So I think I was nine when I started to set my alarm and get up in the morning and take care of myself and cook and go to school. That independence was really great for me but at the same time it's the reason why I won't accept help and why I hold myself to standards that are sometimes unrealistic.

And yes, you're spot on about the therapeutic effect of writing. I like journaling and I like putting my thoughts down, and I guess it applies to every part of my life now. I definitely don't want to self diagnose in accurately, so it's going to be a tricky battle of reading what's happening without overly reading into it, and like you said, finding the right clinician. The good news is my mind is heavily affected by positive feedback mechanisms, so once I feel the effects of something positive I have done, like reaching a goal, it gives me fuel to continue. I also think I'm heavily affected by placebo. If I think that the reason something is going well is because of something else, I could not care less if it is true, if my mind believes it I'll take it because it's going to work haha.

Sometimes I feel like that movie Limitless, just without the brain-enhancing drugs hahaha. I'm sure that's why my former doctor put bipolar down, because my energy and my anxiety can be very manic-looking. Plus I have a bad habit of drinking coffee and then not eating all day so I'm fairly caffeinated most the time. And then teaching required so much energy that I just started going into hyperdrive every day. Hawaii is a very slow-moving place and the kids would ask me "Miss did you have a lot of coffee this morning, you're talking really fast." Hahaha. The answer was always yes, I've had a lot of coffee, but also when 30 people need you at the same time and you do that six times a day, you just learn to fly. I remember the first month or two of teaching in public schools I was having night terrors because the amount of responsibility I had to multitask, and it wasn't just quantity, it was a lot of really important things, and I couldn't drop the ball on because literally kids wouldn't learn if I didn't do my job well. I was working in low-income communities where kids had a lot working against them already.

They are the reason that I am who I am today. They gave me the capacity to care that I didn't know was possible, and the capacity to do so much at once because there was so much at stake. I remember when I took the job I was an emergency hire and I said to myself these are going to be the years that I really build character, because I wasn't a licensed teacher so I was working on about 75% of a teacher salary and I was learning in a trial by fire. After that, I did go into a credential program, but it was while teaching so two of my three years was paid at a discounted rate, essentially. I would call myself a hundredaire every two weeks because my paycheck was 3 figures, and after rent I had $14 for the next two weeks hahaha. Man, did I learn to live frugal. My humor runs really deep, so hopefully it translates through what I'm writing, because it is there. But really though, it did teach me the reality of working from the bottom of the totem pole on up and it built a lot of work ethic because clearly I wasn't doing it for the money. It also contributed to my inability to take care of myself because I couldn't manage my own needs with my job, so I took the backseat because I had to. I could've put myself before the kids, but I would never, because too many people were doing that already, and the kids deserved better. At the end of the day, however, I'm one of those statistics that left before five years of teaching because I burnt out. I couldn't keep doing what I was doing. It wasn't a sustainable life, obviously. The kids deserve better than a teacher who can't be fully present because they are mentally overwhelmed.

Maybe I am manic; there is so much overlap of behaviors, learned and inherent. That's actually why my mom told me I was embarrassing myself. Re-integrating myself back into my family after I've been gone for more than a third of my life (most of which is my conscious life, because I'm an adult) is a very anxiety-driven process. So going to family events and whatever, I already don't fit in because of who I've grown to be, and then I was humiliated by one of the most important people in my life. She has always had this really great ability to hit me in ways that really hurt and you can't just shake off. What she says matters to me even though sometimes it's wrong and uninformed, and I can't rationalize away the hurt. I think it's just one of the responsibilities you take on when you become a parent. You have the power to make or break the person you (literally) made.

Thank you again for your response and the resources, I'll be looking them up (probably tonight instead of sleeping haha).
 
You should absolutely file for medical assistance. Rules differ somewhat based on the state that you are in, but in some states you would qualify easily. There are also state and local government programs that are focused entirely on behavioral health assistance that you could qualify for.
 
You should absolutely file for medical assistance. Rules differ somewhat based on the state that you ar...

Thank you for the encouragement, I know the way I've going about it is financially detrimental and obviously holding me back. With my income being nonexistent I hope I can find a solution better than the clinic that won't even return my calls. My only concern is that when I took my retirement, being the irresponsible person I am, I put it all the way to divvy up the months of financial obligations and if my bank account balance is taken into consideration I may not be able to get the same medical assistance. It won't stop me from trying, however.

Thank you again!
 
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