This weekend was a difficult one for me. I was starting to feel very depressed, hopeless, and alone.
I am fortunate though because I have a strong support system filled with people that truly can help me get back on track. Some people may not have all the resources that I have and need the help and funding from governmental programs so that they can live a fairly stable life. Then today my husband showed me an article that was very hard for me to believe. I couldn't believe that someone that is a Representative of our government could think such barbaric thoughts and be so insensitive to people with mental illness. As per the Huffington post article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/10/martin-harty-suggests-sen_n_834316.html the NH representative said that people who have mental illness are defective and should be shipped off to Siberia. He did resign this position today but it did just show me how far we have to go to educate more people about mental illness and that there is treatment for it and why these programs are needed. I encourage anyone that is reading this to contact your local representatives and senators and have them fight for mental health programs and not to cut programs in your state. It is crucial for people with mental illness to have access to good health care with doctor visits and be able to afford their medications. If we stop the funding for these programs I am afraid there will be more people that might become homeless or commit suicide because they do not have the access to these needed programs.
I guess I found myself in a depressed state after the personal attack to my illness, but after reading the above article I was inspired to fight even harder and to help educate even more people about the truth of bipolar disorder. It is a hard disease to live with and it takes a lot of effort to live a fairly stable life, but it treatable. This is why it is so important for anyone that lives with bipolar disorder or knows someone that does to speak out and let our government know that mental health programs are important and very needed in our society for someone to survive with bipolar disorder.
I believe we have entered a new era of understanding.
ReplyDeleteA missing part of our education has been found. There is a reason why we humans, the most intelligent animal on the planet can be so extraordinary on one hand, and on the other, having to suffer, for example, the pangs of bipolar; a brain disorder that causes severe ups and downs that effect mood, energy, and ability to function.
The reason can summed up this way. We humans pay a price for having a highly creative brain that has created, without our knowledge or permission, an image of who our brain thinks we are. This image (the ego) consists of our beliefs and has a gatekeeper, the “chatter in our head” whose purpose is to protect, and if necessary, to create new beliefs that support the ego’s agenda.
The ego is clever, and knows that our intelligence affords us the opportunity, unlike other primates, to project into the future and past. Our chatter high-jacks this talent, turns it into a weapon and uses it against us. For example, our chatter loves to drag us into the future and beat us up with what-if questions, we can’t answer. “What if you fail, what if you’re rejected, what if you don’t get the job, what if, what if, what if?” When our chatter finishes, bouncing us up and down in the future, it will haul us into the past to remind us of our failures and mistakes, hoping we will slide further into the abyss, which raises a question. How do we manage this “thing in our head” that has run us all of our lives?
Click on this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjA2Nr6LEZk to learn the answer.
A note regarding the “chatter in our head.” Those taking a psychological drug(s) may not be aware that the drug is intended to moderate the “chatter in their head.” Improper medication may turn up the volume. Patients, who are unaware of this fact, may attempt to quiet their “inner noise” through means that may have, unintended consequences.
You make interesting points and some of these things could help when you feel like someone is attacking you and how to get past it. However I want to make it clear that bipolar disorder is a disease and requires proper treatment. That chatter in the head of a person with bipolar disorder is different than other people. The chemical imbalance can cause voices and medication is a must in this case to quiet those voices. While I agree that some medication does not always work for every person and each person is different it is needed for a person with bipolar disorder. You just need to be careful and be honest with your doctor on how the medicine is working and not working. Sometimes it can take time for the proper adjustment.
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