A Side Trip to the Loony Bin

I know I've written before that I live with mental illness but I am not sure how much I've shared about my story but today I want to share just a small clip of time in my life. A time when all of my mental illness stars aligned and I landed in the Loony Bin! Yes, I called it the Loony Bin, it's MY story and that is the term I am using for the wonderful psychiatric hospital that almost certainly saved my life. Why call it the Loony Bin? For ME it makes it a less scary place; easier to tell people about. I find it makes other people more comfortable when I tell my story, makes them want to share their story. That said, I will continue with this part of MY story.

Up and Down, Down and Up, I had no idea what was happening day in and day out. Even now I have very few memories, that are clear and correct about how I ended up in the emergency room of my local hospital and later inside a room at a psychiatric hospital. 

It had been a crazy few weeks, months really, I was still deep in a depression and grieving the death of my father (on like year three by this point), I was living the high of winning an election for a local school board seat (crushing a twelve year incumbent), trying to still be an awesome SHM and oh yeah, dealing with a looming audit from my three years as PTO president of my children's elementary school. Oh wait, I forgot to mention that I was doing this all as a person living with  mental illness, my diagnosis, depression, anxiety & bipolar I. That's right, I've admitted all that right here! I have a mental illness (and what it is), I had a break down & I spent time in the hospital for it. Take that! This is who I am. 

Now back to my trip. I arrived at the hospital after midnight, finally transferred from the ER where I has spent about six hours waiting to be processed. Six hours in the ER where I never spent a moment alone. Weird thing about being in the hospital for a psych eval, they watch you like a hawk, they even go to the bathroom with you! They send a slue of doctors and nurses in to ask you questions, the same questions. Some are easier to answer and share then others, for example, people cannot help but look at you when you describe your plan for ending your life. And they almost all ask the same question after you share your plan and that's WHY? Why do you want to end your life? WHY?!?!?! I don't know! If I could tell you that I think I'd not be here! I don't know WHY only how. Other than the questions and being "watched" (which is an awesome feeling when you're paranoid), I really don't remember too much detail. I did finally get to the psychiatric hospital though. 

I was shown to a dark room with a twin bed, a roommate and a bathroom. I was given medication to help me sleep, at this point I ha not slept in days and only a few hours over the last couple of weeks. Sleep, as anyone living with a mental illness knows, can and does absolutely make or break you! With a bed, some medication and the feeling of finally being safe, I slept and slept and slept! Hands down, I had never felt so safe in my entire life as I did that first night in the psych ward. I was finally free to be me! Yes, I get the irony, FREE, locked up in the loony bin :)  But it's true.

I spent five days in an acute care psychiatric hospital where I got my medications on track, my sleep on track, started therapy and made a plan moving forward. My husband came to meet with my case manager to decide when it was safe for me to leave and what we/he needed to do once I was released. It was an experience to say the least, one I never imagined I would have. I knew and accepted I was living with mental illnesses but I was fine, I never really had problems, I functioned just like everyone I knew. And that was all true, until it wasn't. Bipolar is NOT a game. It is not an illness to be brushed aside or ignored. Bipolar can absolutely be managed and most of your life is typical, like you think everyone else's is :-) YOU HAVE TO MANAGE IT! Just as it you had high blood pressure or poor eye sight, bipolar is absolutely the same! It is an illness that cannot be cured but can be managed. 

My stay in the Loony Bin was just about two years ago now and it absolutely saved my life! I am so thankful for my therapist that encouraged me to go to the ER on my own (or he was calling them), my family and friends for trying so hard to understand and help me learn to live with this, my current therapist and psychiatrist who continue to help me manage my mental illness and my husband who has had to jump in with both feet and learn all about bipolar, living with someone with bipolar, supporting someone living with bipolar and still maintain a HUGE job outside the home so we can have food on the table, he isn't perfect but he tries and keeps trying and has for 28 years.

Humpty Dumpty

Before I start, I'd like to say Thank you to those of you that took that time to read my last post and make such nice comments about me. While it was not my intention to gather praise, it was nice to read all your amazingly kind words. Now onto another part of my story.

I've mentioned before how incredibly difficult my time in jail was on both my mind and my body and I've been fighting since I got home to get both back together again. Today, I guess yesterday now, I took the next step in my physical health and had three teeth pulled. Like everything I do, this was complete with chaos and drama from start to finish. It started with the insurance company jerking me around with dentists and ended happily with three teeth removed.

I've always had crummy teeth. They're weak and get cavities and decay easily. A combination of genetics and an autoimmune disease really took a toll on my pearly whites. So when I was in jail for nearly a year with no vitamins and poor nutrition my teeth just crumbled. Three teeth destroyed and unable to be saved; which in the end couldn't be removed soon enough.

One tooth had gotten a root canal and a crown a few years ago but because it was so weak, the crown & tooth fell out while in jail. There was no pain and I was broken all the way down to the gum so I just left it and decided I'd deal with it when I got home.

The second tooth had a root canal and crown a few years earlier and the crown fell off but at $1500, I was too cheap to have another put on. I hadn't had any issues with it so I was in no rush. While in jail, I did get an infection in that tooth and treated it and decided to wait to see my dentist when I got home, it was just a few weeks until I was going home and could see my dentist.

And tooth three was crazy. I felt what I thought was a loose filling that started to come out but was actually decay. Within three weeks the entire side of the tooth had been eaten away by this decay. I again did nothing because I was going home in less than a month and already had a dental appointment for the other two teeth.

But like everything else, the best laid plans never go smoothly. I got home and needed to have a hysterectomy quickly so my teeth would have to wait a little longer which was fine I wasn't having any trouble with them at that moment. It turned out that a moment was all I got before it was a problem. My hysterectomy had to be delayed a week because I got an infection in my tooth and it was bad! I took a round of antibiotics and was cleared for my surgery.

Surgery was over and I was healing nicely, and thanks to my antibiotics my teeth were okay too. So I did what was logical, to me, and pushed the dentist off until after the holidays. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how this goes but I will, as Christmas came so did another tooth infection. Again I took a round of antibiotics and was good as new so I put the dentist on hold and focused on my severe anemia and started a course of iron infusions. I needed 8 infusions which would take me a good couple of weeks, so off I went for iron.

By this point it was February and I had been home five months, had two infections but still wasn't in a rush to get these teeth pulled. That was until the end of February when I got my third and worse infection. This time the antibiotics didn't work in one round and the pain was unbearable! Now, I needed to get them out! And finally today I did! I had all three pulled.

I had them pulled but even that was drama filled. I had decided to be put to sleep for the extraction since there were three, in the past I had only used a local to have a tooth removed. When you get put to sleep, you have to fast for 6 hour, that was no big deal my appointment was at 10am I could manage. Only kidding! My appointment was rescheduled to 130pm and I never changed the time.

Now, this was an issue, I was not waiting until 130pm to eat! So I did the only thing I could, i decided a local was going to have to do so I could eat. Lol. So eat I did and local I got.

Finally at 135pm, I was in the chair having my 15 shots of novicane and clotting stuff and saline put into my cheek and jaw. That, my friends, did not feel good! But shortly I felt nothing. I was ready to go. The first tooth came out easy as could be. Tooth two was slightly more difficult as it was the one that was torn down to the gum, but it came out. Tooth Three, that one didn't want to leave Me! First it broke and only half came out. Then the second half just didn't want to leave! The dentist even told the tooth it was being difficult. Finally, the other side was out and I was done...or was I? As the dentist went to stitch that tooth up, he found a piece of tooth still stuck in the socket! So it took a little more pulling to get that out! Then we were done! Finally all three teeth were gone and my pain was gone, at least for that moment. Lol

So far my recovery isn't too bad, more sore than pain. Not too much bleeding and I'm keeping ice on it and taking meds for the pain. It's a uncomfortable when I lay on my side to sleep but if that is the worst of it, I'm not going to complain.

As my title indicates, I am feeling a bit like Humpty Dumpty these days but instead of falling off the wall I spent nearly a year in jail and fell apart when I got home. I know that the lack on vitamins and poor nutrition in jail contributed to my medical issues I've dealt with. And I'm not the only one, several of the ladies I was with had also had health problems, problems they didn't have before being in jail. Incarceration should not mean that basic medical needs are not met. It's not too much to expect  that food is decent and nutritional so that inmates are getting what they need to stay healthy. Just another area that needs to be reformed in our criminal justice system. As soon as I get healthy, I'm going to make sure people know and understand what is going on in our jails and prisions!

Thanks again for reading and sharing my story. Let's stop this from happening to others.

Climbing Up or Not

At one time in my life a had fairly decent self-esteem, granted I was middle school age and things were looking pretty good for me. I had a ton of friends, weekends were filled with dances or fun at the Rec Center. As a change of pace, we would throw in the movies every so often. These were good times.

The good times continued into HS where I still had a bunch of friends and always something to do. No shortage of boyfriends and little to complain about. Then my family moved and I had to switch high schools and that sucked and was the first real hit my self-esteem took. Switching to the rival school! I went from running with the popular crowd to running with no one. It was pretty lonely.

After a few weeks/months, I made a few friends but nothing like I used to have. And my self esteem never grew back to where it had been. This was the point in my life that my mental illness started to come out. At the time, everyone thought I was just being a brat and was whining and moody; and at the time I suppose that's what I believed too. It's only now as an adult who has had hours of psychology testing and treatment, I see that my bipolar and my anxiety were starting to come out during that time.

As life progressed my self esteem would have regular ups and downs like most teenagers and young adults, until, I got married and started having babies! That boosted my self-esteem to amazingly high levels. I had found things I was good at, very good at. I was a great mom, I took care of anything any everything my monsters needed. Meals, laundry, bathes, entertainment, I did it all for them. And I was doing pretty well on the wife front too. I felt good. I knew who I was and where I was headed!

As the monsters grew up, my confidence grew with them. And whenever they got involved in an activity I signed up to help the cause. Once they got into school I joined the PTO. I knew that I could really help their school. Year after year I volunteered more and I got to know a ton of people in the community. I was doing a good job and feeling good about myself. My self-esteem was so high that I ran for an won a local election.

Then it all came crashing down. It crashed hard and fast. My mental state collapsed, physically I was sick, I landed in a psychiatric hospital and then jail. That took some kind of toll on my self-esteem as I'm sure you can imagine.

With each step of this part of my life happened, my confidence and then my self-esteem got smaller and smaller, until there really was none left. Honestly, I knew I was bad off when I was more scared to leave jail than I was being in.

Six months ago I left jail and I can tell you with every once of my being that it would be difficult to have less self esteem. I've tired to jump back in some but it's really tough. It's tough to talk to people(because I'm sure all they see is a felon). It's terrible. And I can't get over that.
I want find that person I was before jail, before becoming a felon. I want so much to hold my head high and go and serve my family and my community but I'm stuck. I'm paralyzed by fear, rejection, judgement and equality. I want to get back to when I was reliable and  willing to serve. That's how I need to grow my self esteem. But How?

To imagine I would ever care so much what others say and thing about me is bizarre! I never saw myself as a person  that needs to be accepted, but I am. I need to feel worthy of helping and serving others, and my family. I need my self esteem back!