Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Why I was so Adamant ...

I had my intake this week, for counseling ... it was the visit where you go over your symptoms with an intake counselor, blah, blah, blah ... and I say it like that because I've been in and around the mental health system for more years than I care to think about, thank you! - and there's one part I was pretty adamant about:

I know what bipolar looks like - believe me, I've known at least two people up close and very personal with this illness.  I know what schizophrenia looks like - ditto how I know that.  And

I'M NEITHER OF THOSE.

Really!  I know what I've got :  depressions that come back; general anxiety disorder that if I allow it to go on without treatment, it becomes agorophobia ....

My concern is this:  I don't want to be misdiagnosed - and wrongly prescribed! - because that can make me very ill and - let's be honest: it follows you around the mental health system ...

Just a few minutes ago, I was up on a web page of - well let's say an acquaintence ... actually, at one point, she was a pretty good, f2f, friend - there were times of coffee and hanging out and times of getting through rough patches that life dealt us, and times of being around when she played cards with this whole group of people that included my then-husband (don't get me wrong - I love cards! and I would love to find someone to play cards with! but poker isn't my forte) ....

And so when I saw her write about being bipolar, I revolted.

Sure, sure - maybe something happened in the intervening years?

Well ... I think not. 

She was already well past the age where a sudden mental illness crops up ... and unless she had some severe shock between then and now (I've known of at least one person who had a severe blow and it set off something she never had before) --

She believes it, apparently, as does her family.  So I guess we're all supposed to get on this bus?

I won't. 

Because I'd seen her over the period of a good number of years and

Nope. 

She's on the wrong dammed bus!!!!

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