Faithfully Frazzled

Today I’d like to talk a bit about mental illness because it’s such a loaded term. Mental health denotes self care, meditation, green grass and fluffy blue clouds. Mental illness conjures images of degenerates who’ve hit rock bottom or doctors pushing cocktails of meds. We’ve all seen well-intentioned Facebook memes about finding peace in our lives and letting go of toxic relationships but in reality, addressing mental health is still very taboo. It makes people uncomfortable to witness other people’s suffering and struggles. Our diet of antiseptic photo-filtered social media has told us that we’re supposed to be beautiful people. Quirky and cute people. People with something to offer the world. We love to celebrate each other’s triumphs and we love being entertained even more. Mental illness on the other hand is complicated and messy and not easily consumed in a TikTok obsessed world. Since this is a personal blog I figure I can attempt to get a little uncomfortable with you.

In 2003 I was diagnosed with panic attacks, depression, and anxiety, but I didn’t start meds until my daughter was fully weaned in 2005. Everything went swimmingly for about ten solid years until one day the medication stopped working. Literally, in one day! My trusty life jacket just disintegrated before my eyes and deposited me into the turbulent waters I thought were a painful distant memory. I sought out a psychiatrist because up until this point I had always received medications from my primary care physicians. This began about a decade of trying medication after medication.

About three years ago I reached a point where I knew I could no longer act like I was a fully functioning person anymore. Every medication I tried had one side effect after another and I no longer knew where true North was. I had begun singing professionally again during this time and it was a very rewarding period for me but, as the teenagers in my life would say, I was well and truly unhinged. This was no mere midlife crisis, this was a mind untethered. Here was a woman at odds with herself and she needed H E L P!

A friend from college had bravely posted on Facebook about her experience in a Partial Hospitalization Program so I reached out to her because I could not mentally take the steps to discover how to get the help I needed. I ended up doing three weeks in a PHP group and two weeks in an Intensive Outpatient Program with some of the loveliest souls I’ve had the privilege to know. Addicts, domestic violence survivors, felons. They taught me so much about what honest, raw compassion looks like. The nurses and doctors professionally laid out a plan to get to the bottom of how best to treat me. It was utterly life-changing.

Since that time I was given a couple other diagnoses including Treatment Resistant Depression, Borderline Personality Disorder and c-PTSD. The BPD has since been rescinded. (The doctor knew me for all of two sessions before she diagnosed me.) The practice I currently attend has warmly welcomed me and provided some unbelievable support. For about a month I participated in their Spravato (ketamine) clinic but had to discontinue usage due to my elevated blood pressure and heart rate. Currently I am taking part in TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) treatments and will be coming to the end of my sessions in about a week. The weekly form I fill out on Mondays has me score my symptoms so they can determine how effective the treatments have been on my depression. Week 1 my score started off around 21, I believe, and as of today was 7! This is truly a Christmas miracle.

Even though my mental illness is being successfully controlled through a number of medications and treatments, it is an overwhelming burden to know that I will never be fully free of symptoms. However, as I tell the parishioners who seek out my counsel, we must always try to see our illnesses as any other bodily struggle. If we were diabetic we would have no compunction with giving ourselves life-saving insulin. Why then would we deny ourselves treatments that can heal our minds? We’re on this path to mental health together. 👩🏽‍🤝‍👨🏼