Good News

In lives that are affected by mental illness, sometimes it can seem that you just can't catch a break. But we have!

I'm happy to announce that Brian has graduated from his treatment program (yeah, they call it graduating). No matter what you call it though, it's an excellent facility with an excellent and caring staff, and Brian really did learn a lot about his illness and strategies to deal with it.

Two or three weeks ago, he got a job, and that was a huge boost to his confidence! Last week, he got the letter that he's been accepted into University "C". He is understandably nervous about the whole going back to school thing, so we have a plan to help alleviate some of the nervousness, and boost his confidence even more. The plan involves kicking him out of the house, among a couple of other things.

Oops, that does sound harsh, but a few months of living independently (in an apartment, not on the streets!) will help him to discover where he needs help, and what he can do on his own, with his support team close by.

We're excited (and, sure, a bit nervous, too) to see where the next chapter will bring to Brian. I'll keep you posted!

To the Future!

I'll Never Forget the Car Ride...

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[Note: this is my first "Monday Memory" which will be linked over on Life's Twisted Stitches. And you can see the great badge over there in the sidebar.]


So... I'll never forget the car ride when I was in labor with my second child. Whoa! It was actually a series of car rides, so I'll start with the very beginning. OK, not THE beginning, since I'll assume you all know how one ends up in labor. Early-ish on a June morning almost 21 years ago, I woke up feeling "funny." It was 12 days before my due date though, so here comes car ride #1. We only had one car, so every morning I drove hubby John to the subway station, and in spite of that "funny" feeling, I couldn't have been in labor. My first child was 2 weeks late and had to be induced. What really was this labor thing anyway?

Back home again, I decided that perhaps I should at least pack, and of course, pick out a cute dress, which needed ironing. As my 2 year old played, and occasionally asked mommy what was wrong, it became clear that actually I WAS in labor. I called the doctor's office, and they told me to come in and they would check, which brings us to car ride #2.

You know, you can't go to the doctor's office when you are potentially having a baby with a 2 year old in tow, so I drove her to a good friend's house which was only 5 minutes away. I discovered that it is NOT a good idea to drive when you're in labor, so my friend recruited her neighbor to act as chauffeur. This was  a mom that I knew, but not that well. Her only requirement for car ride #3 was that I sit on a towel. Whatever. I gave her directions to the doctor's office, and off we went.

Turns out baby #2 was in a hurry. Are you thinking that I gave birth in the car? Well, no, but that would be a great car ride story. We stopped at the office with instructions to proceed straight to the hospital. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. (Oops, wrong story.) Don't wait for John, who was called at the office, and told to come to the doctor's office. He got a taxi, and luckily, made it just as I was waddling back to Neighbor Woman's car. I had to give her directions to the hospital, and found out later that she thought I was kind of crabby for this fourth car ride of the morning. Well, yeah. She just dropped us off at the emergency room entrance.

About 30 minutes later:

Brian

Sunday's Song

Happy Easter to all who celebrate!

Warmly,

The Chicken or the Egg

It's been kind of a crazy week brother-wise, and you would think for a blog about craziness, or rather those mental detours that seem to happen to a lot of members of my family, that I should be able to handle it, but apparently not. Anyway, just in the nick of time, I'm submitting my Zentangle Diva challenge for this week, which, if I understood it correctly, was to decorate an egg. Not a real egg, but you know, one on paper. I haven't looked at anyone else's yet, so hope I'm on the right track, LOL. Anyway, I couldn't stop at just one this week.

If you celebrate, have a happy Easter!

Book Review -- Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So

Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir, by Mark Vonnegut, MD was another one of the first books I've turned to when Brian got his diagnosis. Honestly, I'm not sure if this is going to be a great review, or just a huge thank you to Dr. Vonnegut for writing this book, and sharing his life with us. My reaction after reading his book, is "wow" his family is at least as crazy as mine. The genetics of mental illness shine through both through his family and mine. My other reaction is a feeling of hope. Yes, you can still have a mental illness and go on to have a successful career and relationships. One other thing I enjoyed about the book is for such a serious subject, the tone is light and there are some very funny things that happened in his life. In my own experiences, sometimes funny things are done by mentally ill people, or just happen along the course of the illness. You aren't always able to laugh about them right away, but as time passes, you'll find yourself telling stories that at the root should not be funny, but yet, they are.

I'm not really going to give much more of a "review" in my words, but to leave you with some quotes from the book that really touched me in one way or another. [I read this book on my Kindle, so I apologize for not really having page numbers here.]

"The biggest gift of being unambiguously mentally ill is the time I've saved myself trying to be normal."

"A psychotic break is the exact opposite of not taking up much space and being as little trouble as possible." [After having witnessed Brian's psychotic break, I really appreciated this description.]

"Attitude was creating reality."

"Maybe I just had to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, with being scared out of my mind, and to let it go past like it wasn't about me."

"The first truth is that none of the thoughts going by are worth drinking over." p. 124 [Kindle activated a new service where page numbers became available around Feb. 20 or 21] [This is good advice for anyone.]

"There are no people anywhere who don't have some mental illness. It all depends on where you set the bar and how hard you look. What is a myth is that we are mostly mentally well most of the time." p. 166 [yep, I believe this! Could be considered the theme of the book.]

"What so-called normal people are doing when they define disease like manic depression or schizophrenia is reassuring themselves that they don't have a thought disorder, that their thoughts and feelings make perfect sense." p. 166

"As hard as addiction is, it's always possible to quite and change your perception of the world from one where you do drugs and just about nothing good is possible to one where you don't do drugs and good things can happen." p. 187 [I hope this is true for my brother's sake.]

 

Sunday's Song

Today, a song that always makes me feel good:

Warmly,

15 Minutes

Just not long enough. This is the #17 Diva Challenge, and the goal was to set the timer for 15 minutes and get to tangling. I was just getting into the zone (the zen?) when the timer went off, and didn't get to my favorite part of the finishing which is the shading. The zen might have happened sooner had the dog not decided to have a barkathon right in the middle of my 15 minutes. That just is not very relaxing.

Since I'm new to zentangle, I don't really have any tangles that are my "go to" yet, and tend to have a idea in mind, and then I pore over Totally Tangled, or tanglepatterns.com to fulfill that idea. This time, I stayed true to the challenge, and while I had an initial idea in my head, I felt the clock ticking, and pretty much just doodled.

I do really like the end result (I've looked at a few of the others, and y'all are just too hard on yourselves), but I feel somehow unsatisfied. After I post this, I'm going to do another one just for me.

Brother update: The last I heard (which was late yesterday afternoon), he is being transferred from the initial hospital to their other location which is apparently for people who will be staying longer. From what my mom says, it sounds like the hospital is committing him involuntarily. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they keep him longer than a week.

Calmer,

Another Detour

Not about Brian. This is about my brother.

I don't know if I've written about my 40 year old brother before, except maybe in a quick family mental illness history kind of way, so here's a quick background... 20 years ago, he was diagnosed with bipolar II (cyclical depression basically). He's been mostly stable (if not really a living a functioning in society kind of lifestyle) for the last 10 or so years. Fast forward to last year. He married a Filipino girl in August. In October or November he started taking illegal drugs to boost his energy. Got addicted. From Thanksgiving on, he has been in and out of various hospitals in north Texas. Finally, after a stint in intensive care, he agreed to a mega expensive rehab hospital north of Dallas. Checked himself out AMA 3 weeks into the program. That was, I don't know, 3 to 4 weeks ago.

Mom called today. The police were called to his apt. at some point last night/this morning. He's back in the psyc hospital. His wife wasn't there because of her work situation. Mom didn't know what caused the police to be called, but Neal has bought more guns. She's scared he'll kill himself or worse, and frankly, I am too.

We're starting to try to figure out how to get someone involuntarily committed in Texas. Mom tried once before, and couldn't do it, but the evidence has definitely been mounting. Now that Brian has his life back on a track of sorts, I may end up flying out there to help her and offer her whatever support I can give her.

 So, yes, Sis, if you're reading this, it's true. She probably didn't call you because you're always pretty busy. Or she just couldn't talk about it that much. Or something. Or maybe she did. I didn't ask. But if she didn't, now you know. I just talked to her again, and he says they might let him out tonight. She doesn't know if that's true or not.

Worried,

P.S. I almost posted this without the art, and actually had another post planned for today, a book review, but that will wait. This art form really helps me gather my thoughts, and calm down, so I went ahead and drew.

Sunday's Song

If only,

Second Diva Challenge Try

Capturing the Mooka

 

I wasn't completely satisfied with my first challenge try, and gave it another go. I think the part I'm having the most trouble with on this tangle is the shading for the Mooka. I just can't get it to appear like I want it to. Ah well, I am happier with this one.

Feeling better,

Our New Normal

This week has been a struggle for me. Family therapy on Monday, couples therapy on Thursday, Brian got a job, somewhat unexpectedly. None of this was bad. In fact, a lot of it was really good and helpful. It feels like to me that we're moving to a new phase, and I'm not entirely sure I reconciled the old phase with how life is going to be. Each phase seems to bring what seems to be a new normal.

So, let's see where we are now...

Brian has bipolar disorder.

He attends a treatment center, but with the new job, that will change and he'll go as his work schedule permits. Next week, he won't be able to go at all, except he will have to go get an Rx refill from his psychiatrist on Monday.

Brian will have to pay more attention to when his meds are running low. So that when it's Friday evening, and he realizes he doesn't have enough wellbutrin to make it through the weekend there isn't a problem.

The meds are important. Critical even. And he really gets that.

John and I attend support group meetings. Our NAMI family to family education course ends this Sunday with a potluck dinner. I hope we'll keep in touch with some of the other couples.

I'm sure there's even more, but I'm going to let it wait for now.

And, I still haven't gotten a good handle on my own anxiety. This week at the various therapies and support groups that became abundantly clear.

It's a process, and a challenge. And just like this week's Diva Zentangle challenge that is the drawing above, some results are better than others. Like this week, this challenge was a bit of a struggle for me.

Feeling challenged,

What IS Normal?

I pulled out my old dictionary (yes, the paper one, and not one online... they make these things called "books" that are awesome) and normal has quite a long definition. [by the way, I must have had this dictionary a long time, as the last copyright on it is 1972] Anyway, the #1 definition is "conforming with or constituting  an accepted standard, model, or pattern; esp. corresponding to the median or average of a large group in type, appearance, achievement, function, development, etc.; natural; usual; standard; regular. In this edition, the 5th definition reads: "Med., Psychol. a) free from disease, disorder, or malformation; specif., average in intelligence or development b) mentally sound."

Well, there you go. If you are mentally sound., i.e., don't have a mental illness or disorder, then you are normal.

But, bear with me here, what if the large group that you are part of, i.e., the population of the United States say, has more people that are affected by mental illness than not? Is that even possible?

Let's look at some statistics. Well, I'm going to confess to laziness here, and link you on over to the blog Weighing the Facts, specifically her post on mental health statistics and resources. Here is her first statistic though:

"It is estimated that approximately 1 out of 4 U.S. adults (26%), 18 years of age and older, suffer from a mental disorder. That's 57.7 million people, according to the 2004 census."

And another one that affects even more people: "1 in 5 families are affected by mental illness."

Another study says that over 10% of the U.S. adult population is on anti-depressants.

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So, I started writing this a couple of days ago, and I could probably go on and on with statistics of how many individuals and families are affected by mental illness and addictions, but my point is this: it's not that uncommon. But mental illness still carries with it such shame that it is often hidden, and often goes untreated as well, swept under the rug, or stuffed into the closet. It seems like the only time you really hear anyone talking about mental illness is at parties when you might joke about crazy Uncle Jim, or quirky Aunt Yvonne.

Have you ever played "my family is crazier than yours" at a cocktail party?

P.S. Full artistic disclaimer. I didn't draw the skeleton, it's clip art. I'm best at doodling.

Sunday's Song

This week's theme: What is normal?