This is an article I submitted this morning about mental health that is to be published in an ebook. I hope if nothing else, it helps someone.
At age seventeen, I married a narcissist, wife-beating, drug dealer, albeit I didn’t know this when we first married. My father died five months later from three different kinds of cancer. I quickly became an alcoholic to deal with his loss and the depression I was going through. Two weeks before my father died, we found out my mother had ovarian cancer. She died almost two years later. That is when I started using cocaine heavily to numb the pain. I was on a self-destructive path.
By age twenty I was drug-free and seeing a psychologist for being promiscuous. He diagnosed me with bipolar 1 disorder and insomnia. The medications he put me on turned me into what felt like, was a zombie. I didn’t feel anything, I didn’t sleep, I didn’t even know what was going on around me. This was my first experience as a guinea pig.
Since I had no idea what bipolar was, I did some research and found that I was basically the textbook description of a manic depressive. I knew nothing of the illness but had watched my mother deal with depression most of my life up to that point. I spent many years in a manic state.
My now-deceased ex-husband labelled me as crazy. I tried to kill him twice, once was food poisoning because he made me cook with a migraine and the other time I pulled a gun on him. Drugs were involved both times. When I turned twenty-three, I left him for another man.
At age twenty-four I married a man that has stuck by me through thick and thin. He has helped me deal with my anxiety and depression when I couldn’t deal with it. He pushed me when I needed to be pushed and has been a shoulder when I needed a shoulder to cry on. It hasn’t been easy for him either, I know I can be difficult.
For the past eight years, my brain has been on a roller coaster. Five years ago, I was diagnosed with a pituitary adenoma, brain tumor. According to the neurologist I was born with it. This made all my mental issues make sense and a reason for being.
I have found that certain things stimulate and calm my brain. I enjoy reading, writing, and making crafts. I even have two blogs that I write on, one for my mental health issues and the other for an aspiring author because I am currently writing a novel. It depends on what my brain needs to do that day or that moment. It has really helped with the depression along with my current medications.
I have had three miscarriages and two tubal pregnancies. This made the depression harder to deal with. I have spent many years in therapy and have my own weird way of dealing with my shortcomings. My rainbow baby will be sixteen years old tomorrow and his brother will be twelve on Halloween.
As far as being a guinea pig, I have been on just about every med for bipolar that the doctors could think of. I am currently on Vraylar which has helped dramatically with the depression and helped me become the real me again. Buspar helps with my anxiety and of course, there are other meds for my other health issues.
I enjoy being the crazy psycho but only I can call myself that. I joke about my illnesses to help me cope such as, I’m so smart that my pituitary grew another brain. No one else is allowed to make fun of me unless I crack the first joke. If they made the first comment then I will dwell on what they said for weeks and it hurts too bad.
If nothing else, I hope my story helps one person. We are all unique, no one is perfect and normal does not exist.
Kristy Spears
Psych Its Not Me 