The first post: an appeal

Obligatory introduction: Hello, internet! This is a brand-shiny-new blog. I know it's not cohesive. I'm okay with that. You are encouraged to leave (respectful) comments. And now, here are some words!

It is now December 18, 2012. Four days after the shooting in Connecticut and stabbing in China. My schedule has slowed down and I have had a little time to think, and now I have some things to say.

This morning, I watched this video of Ode To Joy while I lounged on the couch before breakfast. And I started laughing. And then I started crying. And I laugh-cried through the whole video and for a few minutes after it had ended. I’m still not entirely sure why I started crying, though I do have a few ideas. They are as follows:
1. I don’t feel like I have cried nearly enough to express all my sorrow for everyone effected by these terrible events. Friday night, when I finally got home, I was too physically exhausted to really, really let my emotions go. I watched our president’s short speech and the tears rolling down his face. I wanted to cry, I wanted to let out that bubble of hurt pushing on the top of my heart, and I couldn’t. And then I remembered a few months ago when A Prairie Home Companion did an adaptation of “I Am Weary (Let Me Rest)” customized for a family who had just taken their young daughter off of life support. (If you want to hear that, click here and go 26:47 in.) I looked up the standard version of the song on youtube, and listened to the Cox Family sing, and cried and cried. But two “cried”s worth is not enough crying. Seeing all of those happy children in the video made me think of all of those families that will not get to share that kind of moment of joy together. Which leads me to…
2. The choice of the music itself. Ode To Joy. I think that joy is an under-appreciated emotion. I think that joy can be just as powerful as anger, or hate, or even love. I’ll say more on my thoughts about joy in another entry.
3. I’m probably pmsing. I’m surprised to even be offering this as a solution, because (1) I think that PMS is used as an excuse entirely too liberally, and more importantly (2), I don’t usually have PMS like this. Allow me to explain.

I recently stopped taking Lexapro, a pharmaceutical commonly used to treat anxiety and depression. It is the first time in fifteen years that I have not been on a pill for depression/anxiety. I’m twenty-four years old. I’m going to repeat that for emphasis: It is the first time in fifteen years I have not been on a pill for depression and anxiety. I am twenty-four years old.

I have instead been working with a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine to manage my mood, as well as address other health issues that I’ve been tolerating for way too long. (I’ll write more about being a Traditional Chinese Medicine patient in another entry.) When I was on lexapro, I wasn’t the best about keeping on top of my refills, and would sometimes end up going off of it for a couple weeks at a time. Sometimes I would notice right away, I would have a couple of days where my emotional train had clearly jumped the track, and I would panic and call my psychiatrist to call in an emergency scrip to the grocery pharmacy while I waited for my three month supply to come in the very slow mail. This would be normal at a more stressful time of my life anyway, say tech week for a play, or exam season in school. Other times I wouldn’t notice right away that I was off the meds. I would go about life as usual, and then I would one day hear a song on the radio and start to tear up while I was driving. “Oh,” I would think, “I am pmsing, and I should really get back on my drugs.”

The thing is, since I got off the drugs and relied solely on Chinese medicine (four periods ago), I haven’t had this kind of mood swing before my period, until now. With the Chinese medicine treatment (an herbal decoction that I drink like tea), I have had little or no premenstrual symptoms at all. “What’s different?” I’ll ask my practitioner at my next visit. “What have I done, what has changed?”

Every day I write a short summary of relevant mental and physical health indicators, and once a week I send these reports off to my practitioner. Today, writing my report of my laughing-crying episode, I felt compelled to write, “If you think it’s rough being on the outside of PMS, try being on the inside.” I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but this premise could be extended to include people with much more serious mental health struggles, including people that have such internal distress that they are eventually driven to destroy the lives of others.

With the Aurora shooting as well as the Newtown shooting, many people have expressed the sentiment that better mental healthcare for the mentally ill would help prevent similar tragic events happening in the future. And there’s a good chance that this is true. But I want to make something perfectly clear: we are never going to make progress if we continue to stigmatize mental illness in this country. We casually use words like “depressed,” “psychotic,” “OCD,” and “bipolar,” while people that have actually been diagnosed with such disorders we have only one word for: “crazy.” We have to recognize that more people than we think are struggling with mental health. Not everyone that seeks mental health treatment is living with a lifelong, potentially debilitating illness. Yes, those people do exist. Yes, they can (and do) still lead full, rich, normal lives. Many folks that seek (or don’t seek, but could benefit from) treatment for mental illness are in need of support temporarily. Consider the emotional implications of stressful events like divorce or the death of a loved one. Consider extreme hormonal changes like adolescence or the childbearing year.

Please, understand that maintaining mental health is as important as, and can be an integral part of, maintaining physical health. That applies to everyone, no exceptions. Understand that not every mental health patient is Adam Lanza or Andrea Yates. Friends, if you don’t think you know anyone that is a mental health patient, you are wrong- you know me. Since childhood I have received treatment for anxiety and depression. I supplement my Chinese herbal (and formerly drug) therapy with talk therapy, with the hope that some day I will be able to rely on talk therapy alone. For now I know that I need a little extra help, and that little extra help makes a big difference in my quality of life.

I wanted to write this entry because most people I know aren’t aware of this side of me. I guess one could view this as a coming out of sorts. Living with mental illness is an undeniable part of who I am, and I am still an ordinary, well-functioning (thriving, even) human being. It’s not information I tend to volunteer, but I am happy to discuss it if approached. I know that on the grand scale, my cases are mild, and I am fortunate that mild to moderate maintenance keeps me on top of things most of the time. Still, next time you make (or read, or hear) a blanket statement about people who rely on mental health care, count me among them.