leah-Bipolardaze

I have been carrying COBRA insurance since I lost my job last March. In a few months or so it will end and unless I find a job soon (with group coverage) I will have no insurance. This is a major stressor for me, so I have been looking around to find insurance coverage. Unfortunately, I keep hearing the term “medically uninsurable” which basically means that no insurance company will insure me due to my bipolar diagnoses. I find this rather disturbing that this could happen to people. I simply do not understand why the insurance company that I have been dealing with for so long would drop me simply because I have a mental health diagnoses. Would they rather I go off my medications, stop treatment and become unstable?
There is a stigma related to mental health that is just completely unfair. The brain is an organ just as any other organ in the body. However, when there is an illness in the brain you acquire the label of “mental illness” as if you are somehow now defective. When something goes wrong with your heart, you have a heart disease and the same goes for the liver, kidney, gallbladder, and pancreas and so on, but you don’t get the stigma, you simply have a health condition. So then, why when you have an illness in your brain it is not referred to as a health condition or physical illness?
They body is a whole unit not divided into several parts to be labeled as one area being better or worse than the other. I would venture to guess that the number one killer of people, in reality, is stigmas. People with a mental health condition often do not seek treatment because of the “shame” than comes along with it and the way society begins to treat you; as if you have leprosy or something. In doing so, people go undiagnosed for years and maybe a lifetime without treatment. Their lives are never as fulfilled as it could be if people would just stop and consider that a mental health issue is no different than a physical health issue. We go to the doctor, we take medications, and do all the things that we are suppose to do to stay healthy and live a full life.
People with mental health issues are treated so very differently, but I have no shame and I will continue to speak out against the stigma that is attached to mental health. The stigma has come a long way over the years, but it is not anywhere close to where it should be. This whole subject just ticks me off, when you have a physical health condition people are so very sympatric, but tell them that you have any type of mental health issue and they run, unless they too have a condition. Since I became open with my diagnoses, I have had more people come to me in private and tell me that they too have a mental health issue but don’t want anyone to know; not even family. I find this rather disturbing; people are suffering in silence and alone. Some of the people that have come to me in confidence are everyday people, they have families, go to church, work, go shopping ect.. So don’t be surprised if the person next to you has a mental health issue that you don’t know about. Are you going to treat them any different if they get help? I would hope not as we are the same people; we have feelings, our blood pumps through our body just as yours. Don’t treat us any different, we are the same person we were before you found out!
Let me just leave you with this one thought; if you suddenly found yourself with a mental health diagnoses, how would you want to be treated?

Leah

It has been a while since I last wrote; I’ll do my best to catch you up to speed.
If I recall in my last post I was in Knoxville with my family as my dad was passing away. To be honest, I had written some then, but it was out of emotion and not very well written.
The days I spent in Knoxville were 7 in total. During those 7 days, I had gone through many emotions, got into a major disagreement with my brother, Tom in whom I am now not speaking to. Not wanting to go into too many details regarding this matter let me just say we had a difference of opinion regarding my blog. His accusation was that I was trying to make money off my father’s death. This is not the case at all. This blog is about my life, being bipolar and how I deal with things that come up. The unfortunate aspect of this is my father’s illness and death just so happened to occur at the same time I began this blog. Therefore it look to him that I was blogging about my dad. Tom had made some other remakes to me during all this time as well that I will not go into, but this remark about my dad was the last straw. Then to top it all off when my father passed away on Tues Jan 4 he (Tom) tried to console me. I likely did not handle that well as I very rudely told him not to touch me as I pulled away from him. I do not know how the future will play out as to my brother, but for now, I have nothing to do with him…a person can only take so much.
As I mentioned my dad died on Tuesday Jan 4, 2011 at 1:21 pm. I was not in the room at the time; I had gone to the cafeteria to get my mother and aunt something to eat. I was very torn the days before with not wanting to be at the hospital to watch my dad slowly slip away, but I knew that I did not want to be there the moment he did. God was good to me on that and had me leave the room. Somehow that day, I felt I needed to be at the hospital and arrived at approximately 7:30am. I had not slept well the night before, Ivan had to go home due to work and I was alone in my parents’ house.
I continued with my mediations to help keep me mindful of the moment I was in yet it was a struggle still. However, I feel I was able to stay as calm as I did due to the art of mindfulness and learning to accept the thoughts, feeling and emotions that came about for what they were. I did not worry about what was to come or what was past, I simply dealt with the present moment. I say simply but it was not simple.
After dad passed, I had my moment of breakdown at his bedside and then with all the children in the room felt an overwhelming anxiety and needed to just leave. Everyone thought I shouldn’t drive as I was too emotional but I knew that if I could just get out of there, I would be fine.
My relationship with my siblings has always been strained to say the least. With the age differences, I didn’t know them and they didn’t know me and no effort were made on either part to change that and I presume that will not change either. The only sibling I am remotely close to is my sister Janet but over the years that too has fallen short. I have never felt closeness with my mom; it seemed by the time I came around she was just too tired to give emotional support or just didn’t know how; I’m not sure which. I was a daddy’s girl even though he had done some things in my life that I disliked very much. He misled me on the subject of love, what it was and how you knew you were loved. I don’t hate him for this but sure has created a lot of havoc in my life over the years. I’m learning to deal with now and learning that love is something totally different that he ever conveyed to me by his actions.
I suppose we all have a dysfunctional family of some sort, but it seems to me my family is a unit of people that do their own thing and when the times are tough, they get together and support each other in times of crisis. This isn’t all bad but it isn’t all that great either! I’m not sure if I will be attending any family functions or anything after the memorial for my father as with his passing my sense of belonging to this family has died too. I’ll still check on and go see my mom but as for anything else I’m just not sure at this time, yet I do not want to burn any bridges either.
So how have I handled all of this and all the triggers that come about when a major crisis happens and brings out several symptoms of bipolar? Well the first thing I can say is self aware ness, I know my triggers , I know the outcome of them and the potential harm they can do to me, my relationship, and my life in general. One of the biggest things that I am fighting right now is paranoia. My form of paranoia is mild in terms of what paranoia is but still the same it is there. I recognize my thoughts and behaviors regarding this and know that if I give into them, the paranoia will only become worse and I will be in a deep rooted paranoid state. I lived that way for many years and did not recognize it but now I do.
You must accept yourself for who you are and what you feel. When you learn to do that you will soon learn that it’s okay to have these emotions it what you choose to do with them that creates the problem and most time we give into them and act upon them. I don’t know about you, but for me, I know that if I act upon my paranoia it will not help me but make my life worse and before I know it, I will be full blown paranoid.
How about you? What are some of the things you know about yourself or do you know yourself at all? If you don’t know yourself, your triggers or things that just make you want to do things for no reason then it’s time to learn. You don’t have to live this way, there is a better life waiting for you if you will just take the first step to look into your virtual mirror and see you for who you really are. It will be at that point you have a choice to both walk away and live as miserably has you have been or embrace the ugliness and make a change one step at a time.

Until next time……
Leah