Episode 2020

 Having a breakdown due to a mental illness, is life shattering. Everything you believed about yourself and the people and places around you is altered. I had an episode almost a year ago , and I am still picking up the pieces. So, how does one recover from a life changing event? I've had to revert to the basics and return to methods that cause healing.

Medication is the foundation to my recovery. My crippling anxiety is being treated with Buspar. I take 6 other psychotropic drugs to keep the symptoms of my mental illness at bay. When I was in the hospital I was started on Lithium. Because I was diagnosed with schizoaffectve disorder rather than bipolar disorder, my meds were changed and the approach to the new diagnosis altered.

The big change this time around is that I am attending a partial program. I started going 4 days a week and now am down to 2. It has been an opportunity to process the guilt, shame and horror that accompany a psychiatric event. I think I cried the first 4 months, and faced the fact that I was up against a seriously life changing episode. 

The biggest feeling I have grappled with in all of this is fear. To be out of your mind and told later what you did or said is frightening. To harbor false beliefs and then act on them is not only humiliating but dangerous. I am afraid as I go through one of these episodes and terrified when I come out of one. For example; This episode I had the delusion the I was a political wiz. Now normally I am into politics and am a news junkie. But in the midst of this episode, I believed I had to share my knowledge with the public. Grandiosity plays a big part in my episodes! 

It has been a while since I posted. The act of writing is painful for me after an episode. It brings out all the emotions I have experienced and makes me face my fears. I am terrified of another episode and maybe that is why I stay silent. Writing has a way of drawing me out. If not for the prompting of a faithful friend, I wouldn't try to do this blog again. Too painful! Writing however may be my salvation and a help to someone else. If you are struggling or know someone challenged by a mental illness , I hope you find solace in my experience. Like me, hold on to the hope of a better day, and a life overcoming mental illness.