Mental Illness

Hey people this is my first thread and i really just wanna ask if any of you have either experienced a mental illness personally or if some you know or is close to you has one and if so how has it affected you and those around you.

Myself personally i have a mental illness which i was diagnosed with last year for which i now take mood stabilizers which have helped get me back on an even keel so to speak.
i was diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder.
at first i was just having recuuring nightmares which i would wake up from either sweating or shaking, then i started to have flash backs of certain traumatic events from childhood and then i started having unprovoked fits of rage where i would also become violent to people around me and most of the time i wouldnt remember what had happend.
it got to the stage where i couldent live with it any more and just wanted out so i tried to kill myself and luckily i failed the first time and was stopped by the police twice, i got sectioned under the mental health act and put in a psychiatric hospital where they analysed me and diagnosed me.
ive been in the psychiatric hospital 3 times now but now with the medication im slowly getting things back on track.
all this has had a bad effect on family and friends around me, my mom kinda nearly had a nervous break down and my brother disowned me, some of my friends stood by me but alot of them dissapeard when they heard the words "mental illness"

so please share with me your experiences and/or thoughts on the subject of mental health.

Originally posted by EyeOnYou
Hey people this is my first thread and i really just wanna ask if any of you have either experienced a mental illness personally or if some you know or is close to you has one and if so how has it affected you and those around you.

Myself personally i have a mental illness which i was diagnosed with last year for which i now take mood stabilizers which have helped get me back on an even keel so to speak.
i was diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder.
at first i was just having recuuring nightmares which i would wake up from either sweating or shaking, then i started to have flash backs of certain traumatic events from childhood and then i started having unprovoked fits of rage where i would also become violent to people around me and most of the time i wouldnt remember what had happend.
it got to the stage where i couldent live with it any more and just wanted out so i tried to kill myself and luckily i failed the first time and was stopped by the police twice, i got sectioned under the mental health act and put in a psychiatric hospital where they analysed me and diagnosed me.
ive been in the psychiatric hospital 3 times now but now with the medication im slowly getting things back on track.
all this has had a bad effect on family and friends around me, my mom kinda nearly had a nervous break down and my brother disowned me, some of my friends stood by me but alot of them dissapeard when they heard the words "mental illness"

so please share with me your experiences and/or thoughts on the subject of mental health.

Its good to hear that things are going better for you.Sometimes it seems as though some people just manipulate the system to get med and sometimes the meds I believe can make them more mentally ill due to relying on medication.I'm not saying all people fake stuff but it is good to hear yours is getting better.

reply to post by indy0725


yeah, i know what you mean, like ive had my suspicions about other people who were in the hospital, like this one guy was placing his meds under his tongue and pretending to take them then later on hed crush them up and snort them, i think it was valium and ritalin he was taking.
he offerd me some and i was like "nahh i think ill pass."

There is not a human being alive that does not have some sort of idiosyncrasy.

Some of us are just a little more touched than others.

I wish you well on recovery.

I carry the label of Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder and PTSD.

Under control for the most part. Funny thing is, I'm given a bipolar drug to treat my depression. It works much better than anti depressants in my case. Xanax is my lifeline unfortunately. Otherwise, I'd be in the E.R. daily.

Again, good luck with you.

Originally posted by brilab45
There is not a human being alive that does not have some sort of idiosyncrasy.

Some of us are just a little more touched than others.

I wish you well on recovery.

I carry the label of Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder and PTSD.

Under control for the most part. Funny thing is, I'm given a bipolar drug to treat my depression. It works much better than anti depressants in my case. Xanax is my lifeline unfortunately. Otherwise, I'd be in the E.R. daily.

Again, good luck with you.

and likewise to you my friend, i know its not a nice feeling being in A&E (thats the British version of E.R.) espeacially after having either seriously self harmed or made attempts on your own life, but i find most hospital staff to have been sympathetic so far.
im taking a mood stabilizer called carbamazepine, which as i say does help since it does what it says on the tin lol.

Well would A.D.D count? I had to see a psychologist for it and in the end was placed under medication, three different types I've gone through to be exact. Though I also went because of anger issues as well. It would be a lot to type for each experience so before I do so I guess I'm just clarifying before I place my post here. . Though I mainly say this is because I came out of each one having various effects from each that resembled several other "mental health problems."

reply to post by Gigantea Rosa


yeah id class those as mental health issues.

Good thread. many don't want to admit how bad this mental illnes thing really is. I would guess about half of the population has some kind of mental illness to varying degrees.

Yours could be a mental illness, but don't discount oppression by evil spirits. I have dealt with similar things and was delivered of oppression by God as a boy after prayer. It started with nightmares and was getting quite bad before the supernatural event that changed my life.

Try this link to find out what I know to be the truth and the only way to get help if it's an oppression event instead of mental illness. Either way, God can help if you will let Him.

Steps to peace

Request healing

reply to post by EyeOnYou


Ah, Alrighty then well here goes I'll try and skip out on the parts not related to incidents/events of importance. I guess it mainly started when my and my dad had a fight at one time, and afterwords my mother would seem to say that I was always struggling with myself or something while we were, thankfully though as I grew up it has gotten better. I suppose that was one of the many things that led to the psychiatrist whom I visited in High school.

The first time I was ever put on medication that had to be taken daily was one A.D.D pill called Adderall 15 mg. I suppose it did it's job kept my attention at school and pretty much worked throughout the day. This was the longest medication I had ever been on out of the three I will tell of. Though the severe side-effects to it was that it would make me depressed, and not want to do anything. I can't even begin to count the times in which I was teetering on the edge of life and death because I was contemplating whether or not to kill myself. Another side effect that I never really like was after about an hour and I'd say twenty minutes, it would give me a mellow mood, and pretty much zapped every bit of energy that I would have to a lower level instead of the high amount that I usually "carry" with me.

The second one I can't even recall the name as I was only on it for roughly two days unlike the other three which at least lasted a year or more. Though for this one I got sent to the hospital, it's main effect on me was Anxiety to the point where I'd have to hug something dreadfully close to my body to at least get some sign of comfort. The actual way of bypassing this was by falling asleep, and seeing how the medication wouldn't allow it I would have to take benadryl to actually get to sleep.

The third was quite similar to the first one, though it felt a little bit lighter on the energy suppression. Though the effects were still the same when it was about to wear off, though if I had to pick I would say this one made me more suicidal than the other. Caused me to snap at my sister more times than I needed to and pretty much had myself locked in a room with various things that could have done the job.

So far I haven't been on any medication and still slightly recovering from some of the effects that were brought on by all three. Though I have found different genres of music hold the key to the recovery so hopefully I can get back to where I was before I got messed up ( even more so ) than before

P.S. Good luck to all who have posted and hopefully things will get better for you all.

[edit] Also wanted to add that I added a star as well to the OP

[edit on 23-1-2010 by Gigantea Rosa]

reply to post by skepticantiseptic


hey thanks for the message.
yeah i had recurring nightmares and flashbacks too which usually was followed by a bout of unprovoked rage.
for the most part my medication seems to be doing its job.
i was surprised however though that once i was classed as "mentally ill" that there was still such a stigma surrounding it, like people treating me differently or avoiding me all together.

reply to post by Gigantea Rosa


thank you for taking the time to share your experience with me, really it means alot more to me than you would think.
im glad your are nearly fully recovered and wish you well.
i can sympathise with you on the anxiety issues too since at one time i had to take valium every time i left the house i was that bad.

Originally posted by EyeOnYou
reply to post by skepticantiseptic

 

i was surprised however though that once i was classed as "mentally ill" that there was still such a stigma surrounding it, like people treating me differently or avoiding me all together.

Trust me, everyone has skeletons in their closet. Find me a pefect person and I will say you found the biggest liar of all time.

You don't need to feel stigmatized. Your just honest and most people are imposters. Just look at our own politicians for good reference. They speak a good line, can't walk the walk and usually get caught up in a scandal of some type.

Believe in yourself, accept yourself and if someone can't understand you....they don't need to be in your life. You can find fault in anyone. Throw it back in their face!

reply to post by brilab45


dont worry, luckily im "mentally ill" and not an idiot lol.
the way ive seen it is that its shown me who my real friends were and who were just the acquaintances you pick up along the way if you know what i mean.
i agree that you could pick any person in the world at random and psychoanalyze them and come up with some kind of disorder but as you said previously some of us are affected more than others.
the main heart ache for me though has come from the effect its had on certain family members who have found it difficult to cope.

i've been treated for borderline personality. mental illness is really hard to deal with sometimes. i can relate completely to the OP. i've had issues with extreme aggression where i dont remember most of the episode. in one episode i tried to leave the house with a meat cleaver to kill someone. thankfully i wasnt home alone and i was stopped before i could go anywhere. in another, i was almost banned from the emergency room at the local hospital. i've been severely depressed, and suicidal. i've never been admitted to the hospital though. i went to the ER once by ambulance when i made an attempt on my life, but i refused to be admitted. they sent me home because it would be more trouble to try and put me in the hospital.

i've tried the meds, none of them worked for me at all. they did nothing except make me much much worse. i was more responsive to therapy and i just finished my therapy program, i was in DBT. DBT stands for Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, it was specifically designed for the treatment of BPD but there were people in the group with other diagnosis too. the therapy was amazing. I cant say enough good things about the therapy. it taught me how to cope with life, and im grateful to have been in the program. i was in it for just over a year. i highly recommend the DBT program to anyone with any type of mental health issues. i think that medication is only part of the solution, and even if the meds are helping, i always recommend therapy as well. its so effective and so helpful.

Sorry, family is a bit more delicate to deal with. Didn't mean to sound trite. But the fact remains you are who you are. You are doing something about it and hopefully your family is giving you that recognition. Just a concerned world citizen here.

reply to post by devilishlyangelic23


yeah i had an episode i didnt remember where the police saw me walking down the street with a kitchen knife and cos the could clearly see i was "ill" they took me straight to hospital and luckily i hadnt hurt anyone.

i also remember waking up in a police cell with no memory of even leaving my house and they had arrested me for outraging public decency and assualt of a police officer, they released me on bail but later dropped all charges when my shrink contacted them to tell them that i should have been in hospital under section but id managed to leave without them knowing.
i have also heard of DBT and my shrink is trying to convince me to go for it, i tried CBT which means cognitive behavioral therapy.

Originally posted by EyeOnYou
reply to post by Gigantea Rosa

 

thank you for taking the time to share your experience with me, really it means alot more to me than you would think.
im glad your are nearly fully recovered and wish you well.
i can sympathise with you on the anxiety issues too since at one time i had to take valium every time i left the house i was that bad.

Glad it was able to be somewhat helpful , yeah so far things are going pretty well and hopefully will steadily progress from her. Also did the Valium help any? I've heard from some people that it didn't help all to well, but then again I suppose that medication does work differently for some people. Though anyway hopefully everything thus far has been good for you .

Originally posted by brilab45
Sorry, family is a bit more delicate to deal with. Didn't mean to sound trite. But the fact remains you are who you are. You are doing something about it and hopefully your family is giving you that recognition. Just a concerned world citizen here.

hey dude its cool, i appreciate your input and thank you for your feedback.
its good to be able to discuss these matters where people actually understand where im coming from and have had similar experiences.
i found it really annoying when social workers and people from the home treatment team would ask me such patronising questions and really had no idea what i was going through nor how to deal with me.

reply to post by Gigantea Rosa


the valium helped me when i was getting really nervous, paranoid and/or scared.
it just kinda mellowed me out and made me not really care, but i stopped taking it cos i wanted to limit the amount of meds i was taking.
your right, people react differently to meds.

reply to post by EyeOnYou


they were going to put me in CBT but after they learned a bit more about me and my "symptoms" they decided on DBT. doing that program was the best decision i ever made. its a great group, i agree with your shrink that you should go for it! and give it an honest try...so stick with it for a month or 2 until you make any decisions. most people that come to the group are VERY reluctant for the first little while, but then they get right into it. i've seen people go through some amazing changes from the DBT program. amazing progress actually...