Abilify, Not I : Adventures in Antipsychotics

Lately, I have written a series of posts over the last two months describing certain troublesome symptoms I associated with the worsening of Bipolar Disorder, or the potential for comorbid disorders.

In my last post, When Medications Go Wrong, I briefly wrote about my recent discontiuation of the pharmocological treatment using Abilify as part of my medication regimen:

Recently, I stopped my Abilify.  Admittedly, it was because I noticed an interaction between the Abilify and my weekend consumption of alcohol.  I started to find that I would fall asleep soon after taking it on Friday’s while we drank.  I decided that I would just stop over the weekend, and continue during the weekdays as normal.  But, eventually, I just forgot to take it at all.  And soon, I started to notice an improvement in my worsening condition.

I went on to describe some of the awful side effects I was experiencing as a result.  However, the list was truncated for the sake of keeping word count down.  The description is rather limited in terms of accurately depicting exactly what I was subject to.

• Cognition Disturbances and Memory Fragmenting.  Originally, I wrongfully blamed Lamictal in Vitamin L : Medication Adventures for my aphasia-like symptoms.  The disturbances felt like aphasia.  At first, it was almost indescernable.  I started word dropping again, meaning I would be reaching for a word, but was unable to grasp it.  Instead, I would be able to get to every synonym around it, however, those words did not fit the exact context.  Eventually, it became a more severe form of word dropping, and I found myself dropping sentences entirely at the loss of any word or synonyms around it.  It progressed into entirely dropping conversations at the loss of a sentence.  Then, I found myself

  I started forgetting things again.  These were simple things, like losing my purse or shoes in the house.  It seemed like just a simple case of forgetfulness, maybe stress related.

• Emotional Blunting and Partial Flattening.  I had never had too much trouble with emotional blunting in the past.  While I’ve found myself in times where it was difficult to express my emotions, this didn’t indicate a lack of emotional response.  I describe it as a partial emotional flattening, because it wasn’t an entire lack of reactivity.  It felt like my spectrum of emotions had been significantly reduced, although not completely removed.  There was a certain inaccessibility to certain strong emotions.  Rather than completely removing extreme emotions, it threw a wet blanket on top of them, leaving them to bubble under the surface.  So, the emotions still existed, but were muted and unable to be adequately expressed.

  At it’s worst, I began to lose most feeling entirely, with the exception of irritation and the sensation of boredom and fatigue.  I began to lose love and my attachments to meaningful people and my relationships with them.

• Dissociation.  I touched on a summary of the dissociative symptoms that Abilify had brought on.  I have been writing articles on the experience throughout the last few months on the subject, describing the feeling in great detail, but remained unable to exactly identify is appropriately.  The dissociation probably occurred as a response to the prior bullet points.

  The dissociation cited was experienced as a removal of self and removal from my own life.  I had felt as if I had been separated from myself and my world.  It was a feeling of something being stolen from me, or something fundamentally inaccessible.  Like, I was being locked out of my own life, or becoming transparent and just fading away.

• Worsening of Depressive States.   This is probably a direct result of the first three bullet points.  I started to disengage from my life.  I lost interest in just about everything.  Most things were considered to be either boring or tedious.  Important things started to lose meaning.  This was experienced as a part of the emotional flattening, but it caused a concerning and distressful reaction.
• Exacerbation of Social Anxiety.  Since I had lost the ability to carry on a conversation and found myself completely disinterested in socialization, my social anxiety went through the roof.  I simply didn’t care about anything anymore, especially trivial things I used to find interest in.  Therefore, I found it difficult to carry on a conversation.  This caused extreme distress in social situations, and encouraged further isolation.
• Disturbed Sugar Levels.  While I have no concrete proof in terms of tests, certain symptoms have come to my attention.  They are notated below in the next two bullet points as thirst and weight gain.
• Loss of Sensation of Bodily Hunger, Thirst, and Fullness.  Within the last few years, I started to become more in tune with my body.  I was able to feel the sensations of hunger through my sugar level, which probably caused the loss of bodily hunger.  The disturbed sugar levels probably also caused an extreme thirst that could not be quenched.  At first, I craved water.  Eventually, I started to put the soda back down, which probably caused part of the weight gain mentioned below.  And I felt an extreme pressure in my stomach, which was also exacerbated by the influx of so much fluid.
• Extreme Weight Gain.  Truthfully, I don’t dare get on a scale at the moment, so I am unable to notate at this time exactly how much weight I’ve gained.  By the fit of my clothing, I will estimate that I have gained somewhere between ten and fifteen pounds in the last three months.  That is a substantial gain for me, especially since I was losing weight prior to the start of this medication.
• Exacerbation of Eating Related Problems.  By all definitions, it’s completely possible that I am living with an undiagnosed eating disorder.  However, I am not entirely convinced, since it isn’t an ongoing and prevalent problem.  Therefore, I define it as eating related problems and difficulties.

  The concern for weight gain and the sensation of fullness caused a very terrible reaction of binging and purging.  I was unable to control my eating, as notated above, therefore the sensation of extreme fullness would cause me to perceive the overeating as worse than it actually was.  Unfortunately, this led to a very vicious cycle and encouraged further weight gain.

• Disturbed REM Sleep.  I was waking up tired, and noticed that it felt like I had stopped dreaming.  This caused my mental state to take a considerable dive.  It caused extreme fatigue and excessive, unproductive sleeping.

While I am cleared of most dissociative symptoms, emotional flattening, and my depressive state is lifting a little, some side effects have remained.

• Cognitive Disturbances.   The aphasia-like symptoms remain, but to a lesser degree.  I am back to just being a little forgetful, and have some minor word dropping.
• Memory Fragmenting.   Some of my memories remain dull, but seem to be returning.  However, most of the last three months remains inaccessible.  It may never become accessible, due to the disruption in the formation of short-term memory.
• Disturbed Sugar Levels.   I am still thirsty, but I am no longer engaging in carbohydrate seeking consumption behavior.  I figure it will take awhile before my sugar is regulated properly again.
• Weight.   Thankfully, my weight does seem to be coming down.  I have only been completely off of the medication for less than a week, and my clothes are already fitting better.  I’m going to assume that in addition to the weight gain, I was retaining water and constipation.  My regularity has come back, and I don’t feel as puffy as I did

Unfortunately, I am experiencing a return of some of my milder psychotic symptoms.  In Imaginary Enemies, I described a cognitive disturbance I described as “The Voice”.  “The Voice” can be characterized as a singular persona, as I wrote about in Conscious, Subconscious, and Extraconscious, where I described a theory of a third consciousness that exists between the subconscious and the conscious mind.

The Extraconscious is postulated as where the persona(s) reside, laying in semi-dormant waiting, perfectly aware of the current reality that is being experienced.  “The Voice”, in more severe psychotic states, can be experienced as a separate entity entirely, detached from the consciousness.  That is the defining line between a cognitive distortion and an auditory hallucination, when a persona detaches itself from the extraconscious as an external sensation.

As an extraconscious persona, “The Voice” can best be defined as a quasipersona, lying somewhere between Dissociative Identity Disorder and psychosis.  It is experienced as a semi-active part of the conscious mind, as the dominant persona is well aware of it’s existence and there is a certain interaction that occurs between the dominant persona and “The Voice”.

That is the best theory I can offer as to the existence and function of the quasipersona, known to me as “The Voice”.

The mild auditory hallucinations and visual hallucinations have returned, probably defined better as a sensory disturbance, rather than a symptom of psychosis.  When experiencing a sensory disturbance, it’s not full on hallucinations as described in the definition of psychosis.  There are not entities separate from the body.  They are recognized as a disturbance in the current reality, distorting shapes, colors, and contrast in the vision.  In the hearing, it is experienced as a distortion in sound, causing sounds to be sharper, duller, muffled, or louder than they actually are.  It can only be sensed by a sudden shift in perception.

So, instead of hearing things at a normal sound level, the sound volume may increase to deafening levels or may become muted and difficult to discern from nonexistent static that occurs in the mind.  My visual disturbances may be perceived as viewing the world in high contrast, extremely bright colors, and / or extra high definition resolution.  Or, they may be seen as duller than usual, muting colors, distorting shapes, and / or clouding the vision with that appearance of a veil or foggy goggles.

Intrusive thoughts have returned, but not with the same extreme nature as experienced several months ago.  In truth, they were never completely removed by the Abilify, and at some points were made worse by the drug.  Instead of experiencing them as a truth in reality, I am now able to separate them using logic.  I can talk myself off of the ledge and separate them from the reality of a situation using DBT techniques of mindfulness and distress tolerance.  Prior to the cessation of Abilify, I was unable to utilize those techniques.

I don’t mean to put anybody off of treatment with psychiatric medications, but I felt this was important to document and have as a resource on the internet for anyone who is thinking about taking the drug.  Some of these side effects aren’t listed in the pamphlet, as they are probably isolated to a condition.  But, I feel they are still a distinct possibility for anyone who is being treated for similar conditions.  It is vital that this information be notated and readily available for medication education purposes.  This information probably should not be generalized to all psychiatric medications, especially in the class of antipsychotics.

 

Autumnal Affects

Plunged back into the frigid clutches of winter.

I’ve written something like this before called “The Grey Season” back on “As the Pendulum Swings”.  It was a post describing my current view of an abysmal autumn in Pittsburgh and the terrible affects it has on the mood.

In years past, I have always been partial to the autumn season.  The air becomes cooler, and I find that I begin to breathe without a struggle or medical interventions.  It was quite liberating.  The sun eases, emitting softer rays on my delicate pink skin.  And there is a certain crisp freshness of the air with gorgeous foliage in various shades of reds, oranges, and yellows to behold.

The beauty and majesty of autumn.

Everything about autumn is enticing.  There was a return to school and the return of direction in my life.  New challenges awaited me with a wealth of new opportunity.  Cozy blankets in all colors existed to wrap around me in a warm, snug embrace.  I could bundle up in flattering autumn attire, covering all of the bulges and rolls that were uncomfortably exposed in the summer months.  A cool refreshing breeze picked up, and whistled in my ears, taking away all of the static polluting my mind.

It was always a beautiful time in my life.  But, somewhere along the way, the season was morphed into something sinister and foreboding.

The Grey Season

November rains were something I used to look forward to.  I would lay in bed in a room cast in shadows, just listening to the soothing sound of rain on my tin rooftop.  But, at one point, I described them as:

I have felt grey over the past few days.  I can’t feel for a better word.  Something like, my flame isn’t burning as brightly. It’s a dampening effect, casting a shadow over me everywhere I go.  The vibrant colors of the world filter and leave only the grey inside of me.

Some would consider a Seasonal Affect.  But, that could not be father from the actual truth.  I have been symptomatic since my early teens, when I would enjoy this season better than all of joys of the other seasons combined.  Winter was the season that meant imprisonment and cumbersome living.  Not autumn in the slightest.

The mysterious loss of adoration for this season plagued me.  I obsessively mulled over it for quite awhile, trying to find the exact point in time where my affections changed into something loathsome.  Sure, these November rains are the precursor to the awful, miserable blankets of snow.  The shifting winds bring the lake effect chill from Lake Erie in the north.  The whole world is changing around me, threatening to bring some kind of desperate gloominess.  But, why?

Suddenly, it occurred to me.  In my time with Avi, I spent a great deal of time escaping him on my own balcony.  Summer meant liberation from the imprisonment in our singular room where we were imprisoned in an icy hell together.  Autumn was the time when the chill rolled in.  It wasn’t enough to warrant the use of our kerosine heater, our only source of warmth.  However, the days and nights were cool enough to make life absolutely miserable, together, alone in our cage.

The shiver rattles my bones when I recall the whole wretched situation.  Our shack of a home trapped us together.  I remember how my hands would freeze up so badly that I could hardly type any longer.  I remember the intense loneliness, because I didn’t dare invite guests into such a disgusting situation.  The trash would pile up, because Avi was an absolute pig.  The walls closed in, and the stiff, threatening air was suffocating.  Bottles of liquor, my only escape from such an awful life, littered the floor as a testament to my misery.  And all I could do was put on another layer of heavy, useless clothing and pray for an early spring.

I recall that detestable house.  Even after Xan had managed to save me from another burden of winter, the drafts were enough to render the electric heat useless on days that went below freezing.  There were times where we had to abandon the house when temperatures dropped to subfreezing.  The furnace ran incessantly, driving us into abject poverty while we doled our precious funds out to the electricity company.  I fought shut off notice after shut off notice in constant anxiety.

Autumn began to translate into fear.  Fear of isolation.  Fear of exposure.  Fear for myself and my family.  And the worst of all, the fear of losing my sanity entirely.

The dim rays of cloud covered skies filter into my windows, casting dismal shadows in every corner of the every room.  The grey bleeds in and threatens my very being.  I look into the now barren woods with dread.  Apprehension wells up inside of me each time I approach the thermostat.  Everything becomes filled with trepidation, each movement, each decision.  And the chill, the unforgiving, merciless chill invades my very soul.

I spent one last day yesterday on the patio.  I didn’t long for the crazy summer with people hanging from the rafters, and my brain short circuiting.  I breathed deeply, taking in the essence of autumns long forgotten.  I let the beautiful autumnal winds blow against my bare skin.  I recalled fond moments from years past.  The birth of my son happened in an October rain, right on the first fall rain.  Xan and I were eagerly planning our marriage during this time, five years ago. We both took our first steps into our careers during the days of November rains.  We laid together in empty rooms of a house we were fixing, the house where we first lived together as a couple, just listening to the rain on the wooden roof.

The sound of the remaining leaves filled my mind, and the sparrows chirped to one another.  And for a moment, just one moment in time, I was at peace with this season.

Related articles

• Autumn: the misery and the beauty of it (newsofpeace.com)
• Welcome Autumn (akissofbliss.wordpress.com)
• remedy for grey autumn and winter days – spring blossoms from forced bulbs (growinggracefarm.wordpress.com)
• Learning lessons from autumn (livingyogawithstella.com)
• Appreciating Autumn (joyfullygreen.com)
• Let’s stop for a moment, as Autumn light fades. (skybluewithdaisies.wordpress.com)

Just Snap Out of It

Society has developed some seriously bad attitudes toward mental illness.  It’s no surprise.  We see it attached to the stigma of it.  We’re treated like lepers, as if this were a terribly contagious thing.

Depression is no exception.  Today, a lot of people have been discussing the topic of the “Just Snap Out of It” phenomenon that occurs out there.  Honestly, there is a saying out there about how if a person hasn’t experienced it, then they can never truly know.  A person who hasn’t experienced clinical depression, either in the form of MDD or BP depression can never truly know it’s depth and breadth.  It is an all encompassing monster that claims every last bit of life and any possible joy that can come from it.

Having Bipolar Disorder, I am a person who naturally experiences some sometimes pretty obvious mood swings.  And the attitudes toward it are so completely off.  I have never had a person treat me poorly while I was in a manic episode.  Not one.  Not even when the plainly awful behaviors were showing.  Each person seemed to find it charming, amusing, or interesting.  Even when there were moments where I was so out of control that I was scared out of my wits, not a single person around me seemed to notice that there was something absolutely wrong with it.

No, my energy and spirits were high.  I would act impulsively, and people would take it as spontaneity.  I’d be overly, annoyingly chatty, and rudely interrupting others, but they took it as being outgoing.  Everyone seemed to think that was a sign that I wasn’t depressed anymore.  They seemed to think that it was some kind of miraculous recovery from “being like that”.

People only seem to take notice when I am depressed or mixed, like it’s some kind of disease that I choose to be afflicted with.  And the comments are absolutely endless, because everyone seems to have their own opinion about it.  It’s as if they consider themselves to be the authority on depression, anxiety and sadness in general. I will constantly hear phrases like, “Get over it” and “Get a grip” as if just snapping out of it were an option for me.

Meanwhile, people without mental health diagnoses start flinging clinical terms around, like they had some true application to their fleeting, shallow emotion.  For instance, “Oh, I’m so *bipolar* today”, instead of just saying that they are moody, or women arbitrarily making a comparison between PMS and Bipolar Disorder.   Or “I’ve just been so depressed lately”, to reference a little bit of discontent or sadness.

It’s not cute. It’s not funny. No one with those diagnoses thinks that it’s witty that someone is taking a serious clinical term with so much guilt and stigma that it could bring down a religion, and applying it to their BS, frivolous emotions!

It does everything it can to minimize those conditions.  It puts it in a light that we have some kind of real control over it.  As if it were something that a person can just “snap out of”.  It implies that a person chooses to be disordered.  It also puts a shameful connotation of attention seeking behavior.

Yeah, it’s the life, let me tell you. If I were doing anything for attention, it wouldn’t be this. It would probably be something more hilarious, like plastering myself with an obscenely worded banner and rollerblading through Downtown. Depression isn’t newsworthy, but that sure is.  Or maybe I’d be doing something a little more productive or noteworthy, like finding a cure for cancer.  But no, my depression is just that interesting that I would choose to gain that much needed attention from people I don’t even know or care about.

I have to wonder if the general public has to be so naive that they would actually be jealous over it.  So much emphasis is put on the “just get over it” ideals, as if that were possible. If I could will myself out of this state, don’t you think I would do it already? It would be more logical to think that I want to reclaim my life and be a productive person.  But no, according to others who are ignorant enough of mental illness, I am perfectly content to have disordered behaviors.   Sure, who doesn’t love ignoring their kid because the voices just got too loud? Personally, I love gripping my ears and screaming, “SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!!!!”

And as a result of this blatant ignorance, I am really starting to believe that some are just plain jealous.  Because, they seem to think that those with disorder aren’t being responsible for their emotions and behaviors that result.  I certainly have quarrels with wanting to thrust a sense of selfishness and entitlement out there, because it’s what I have to do to take care of myself and my own in this world.  It’s those same people that shove themselves and their ideals down other people’s throats, only to make them feel bad. Misery loves company, and we’re perfect targets, right?

The point is this.  If a person is out there reading this and getting offended, it’s time to take a step back and think hard.  Is it so fair to be so judgmental?  Isn’t it about time to take a look from another perspective?  Does a person with a congenital disorder choose to be symptomatic?  It would be an entirely different story if I were refusing treatment, but like anyone else, I am keeping my appointments and taking my medication according to doctors orders.  We don’t blame someone for their symptoms when they have a seizure.  Why should this be any different?

Let me assure everyone.  If could have snapped out of this disorder and been a “normal” person, I may have done it, instead of living this ongoing nightmare.

Anatomy of a Phobia

Lala at Seasons Change, and so have I reminded me this morning of some very sensitive subject matter that I often overlook.  See, I’ve programmed myself over the years to minimize my fears.  Fears are just another expression of weakness.  Or so I’ve been inadvertently taught throughout the course of my life.  Fears are irrational little demons that have no place in reality.  They are something to be ignored.  Fear is an overreaction and another possible way to be overdramatic about events that occur in life.

Fear is just another excuse not to do something.

There are a million reasons those phrases fail to sit well with me.  First, I am a person that has a complicated relationship with authority.  If fear were allowed to conquer my own free will, then it would become an authority figure.  I would become conflicted against my own self, and come to fear and loathe myself.  I can see the fallacy in the contradictory nature of all of those statements.  Because, I experience it regularly.  And the experience of fear complicates itself and entangles itself into my psyche.

I have phobias, whether I want to admit it or not.  At this point, I would rather come clean than try to diminish these symptoms any further.  It seeks to compound the confusing presentation of these intense fears.  Worse, I can’t readily dismiss fears like I used to.  As life progresses and my experience expands, I’ve come to situations that force a confrontation.  And the effects that the denial and repression produces are intense.

I fear planes and cars crashing into my house.
When I was a child, a plane crashed somewhere near my hometown.  The only reason this event was significant hinged on how it affected my area.  I lived near a fire department, a highway, and two interstates.  It seemed like there were people and sirens all night.  It was a hot summer night, and all of the windows and doors were open.  People had their eyes skyward.  And the thought of a plane falling out of the sky had never crossed my mind before.

In case I didn’t mention recently, I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  At the time of 9/11, I lived about ten miles from our local international airport.  And we are the closest city to the crash site of Flight 93 that went down in Sommerset County, a few counties over from us.  That day was similar to the night of the crash from my childhood.  Only this time, it wasn’t an accident.  It was a terrorist attack.

I also lived by an Air force and an Army base.  When all of the planes were grounded, the skies were filled with military planes.  It was like living in a military state.  Other than those planes, the sky was empty.  The winds were unusually quiet.  And my best friend and I laid in our adjacent yards, staring skyward for the threat.

Somehow, throughout the years of being a pedestrian, the definition of “crash” came to include cars.  And Xan always joked with me about how silly it was.

In May 2010, a drunk driver crashed his jeep into the front of my house.  It was the day after Mother’s Day and only five minutes after my husband had left to put our one-and-a-half year old son into the car to come get me from work.  Had it been five minutes earlier, my son would be dead.  The impact to the front of the house sent the sofa into the middle of the room.  The impact would have been enough to serious maim Xan and kill, then 27 lb, Beast.

Since then, I would cringe every single time I would hear a car make an awful noise outside my home.  It is among the dozens of reasons I moved from 511 to 106.  Except, 106 is only a couple of miles from the airport now.  Instead, I cringe at low flying planes, and look skyward to their shiny metal bellies.

I fear enclosed spaces and crowds.
This comes to include any area that could become cramped or would be difficult to maneuver out of. I fear being crushed.  I have dreams about it sometimes.  I’ll go in after Beast in one of those kids tubes, and it will start to collapse on me.  Or, I’ll just get stuck.  And there will always be something threatening happening.

This definition expanded after the Columbine School Shooting.  It came to include areas where I would be “trapped”.  That means classrooms, buses, shopping malls, lecture halls, and unfamiliar cars.  Anywhere where I was not openly permitted to leave, or wasn’t easily escapable became suspect.

This was compounded when I was pregnant with my son.  I was afraid that I was going to be accidentally harmed in a public place by someone careless.  And, it was made even worse when Xan was involved in a serious car accident in June 2011.  People get hurt by the negligence of others all of the time.

I fear having an episode in public.
I know Bipolar Disorder isn’t as episodic as an anxiety disorder.  Maybe I have an anxiety disorder.  I just don’t know, and I’m not qualified to make that determination.  I’m afraid of being overtly symptomatic in public.  I just have this severe anxiety that I am going to have an unrelenting panic attack and do something, for lack of a better word, crazy.  Or that I’ll break down in hysterical tears over something practically benign, like losing my scarf or breaking a pencil.  Or worse, I’ll go out and binge eat to suppress some other urge.

I fear elevators.
Combine my fear of catastrophe, a mild fear of heights, and a severe fear of enclosed spaces, and a torrent of anxiety develops.  That’s what an elevator represents to me.

I have always been afraid of elevators, because the motion doesn’t agree with me.  I don’t like that moment of weightlessness when ascending and I don’t enjoy that feeling of plummeting to doom when descending.  I don’t like the jolts and starts.  And I especially don’t like being knocked off balance.

Compound that fear with actually getting stuck in an elevator.  It was my freshman year in high school, and I was assigned a dorm room on the sixth floor at camp.  We were children, and we were stupid.  The elevator clearly stated that the maximum capacity was 14 people.  Instead, we had closer to twenty, all jammed in that elevator.  When it opened, I could clearly see the floor between the fifth and sixth floors.  We were stuck in midair in a rickety old elevator, where no one could immediately get to us.

From then on, I took the stairs.  I dragged my footlocker and luggage up flights and flights of stairs to avoid any similar occurrence.  Of course, it never happened under their watch again.  But the singular experience was enough to have me fit for stairs and hiking stairwells for the rest of my life.

My doctor’s office is on the third floor of an office.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been running late, and I arrive at that check in desk breathless and sweaty.

Then, there are the sillier fears.
The aforementioned are just huge fears that have come true for me.  There are fears that have absolutely no grounds in reality.  For instance, I fear toilet snakes.  I know there is no such thing.  I don’t know if there has ever been an incident of someone getting bitten by a poisonous snake while using the bathroom.  And if there has, don’t tell me.  I don’t want to know.

I fear lightning strikes.

I fear bugs in the bed.  Or just bugs crawling on me in general.

I fear the apocalypse.  Irony of ironies.

I fear being touched by a stranger.  There are a million different reasons why that’s a serious fear that has no grounds.  All my brain knows is that sometimes touch is bad.

Then, there are the more common ones.
I fear judgement.  I fear failure.  I fear unfamiliar social situations.  I fear being alone.  I fear dying alone.  I fear getting hurt and having no one there to help me.  I fear strangers.  I fear germs.

I know that some of these are rational, and these are things that should be reasonably feared.  But most of the time, they strike me, and I’m left with the deer in the headlights feeling.  That is unreasonable.

What are the most common fears out there?  What are the most uncommon?  Which are ones that my mind made up?

 

Riding in Cars with Boys Again

It set him off.  He said, “And now there’s going to be people we don’t know traipsing all over our house again, judging us.  And there you were, making all of these decisions without me.”

Yesterday, Xan and I attended an evaluation for our son, Beast, for entrance into a special preschool for children with special needs.  Our son was diagnosed with Pervasive Development Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified in June 2011 while he was receiving Early Intervention Services.  For more information, visit the original post, “Riding in Cars with Boys”.

Needless to say, the evaluation didn’t go well.  They never really do.

I was furious.  I retorted, “I have to make these decisions, because you don’t.  You haven’t been there up until now.”

“I want to wait and think on this.  It’s happening too fast.  I can’t process it.  I don’t think we should start to seek services until November at the earliest.”

I went through the roof.  I threatened, “If you stand between me, our son, and getting him help, I promise you that I will leave you.  He needs these, and I will do anything to get him there.  It’s been too long already.”

“Fine.  Then leave,” he said shortly.

I stated, “I don’t want too, but –“

He interrupted, “No, I don’t want to hear it.  You leave then.  I’m done here.”

There was a long period of silence, where I felt the schism and then the great void opened up.  Something ensnared me, and pulled me by the ankle faster and faster toward the Great Below.  I clawed and scraped, desperately trying to hold on.  But, it was no use. I gave up.  I was dragged into The Hollow, where everything went black around the edges, and the rest of me was numb inside.

It’s as if I were suddenly disembodied, sitting in the back of the car with my son, watching the whole thing play out.  He went on about how this was such a danger to us, and I blankly told him that I didn’t care.  I was beyond caring.  I had a mission, and it no longer involved any real part of me.  It required my participation, in the very least.  Only a presence, just a husk of a woman as a placeholder for what was and what might have been.

“You said we needed a social worker.  I agreed.  Now we have one,” I argued flatly.

“No, this isn’t right,” he angrily disagreed, “I don’t need someone in my own house judging my parenting.  Judging us, wondering exactly how fit of parents we are to raise him.”

I struggled, “And what do you think is going to happen if we don’t get him services?”

“I don’t know, but it has to be better than this.”

I finally found my gusto and returned to myself for a flicker of a second to drive it in, “I’m not going to stand by and let my son turn into a dangerous retard, and end up in a special school, because someone was too afraid and disengaged to get him help!”

“What, like how you stood by when you were going through whatever you were going through?”

It hit me like a wrecking ball, shattering every bone in my body, every bit of what little cohesive world I had remaining.  I couldn’t say anything in return.  The knife had to be sturdily wedged between my ribs, and my life’s blood gurgled and oozed out.  The life drained from me, and I was once again driven backward, ears ringing violently with silence.

And then there was this great nothingness that emanated from within and saturated the air around us.  Instead of choking, I breathed it in eagerly, letting the numbness wash over me.  I was already far over the Precipice, eyes wide open, watching the ground come at me at the speed of sound.  I would end it all in one tiny little snip of an already fraying thread.

We sped over the hills and the valleys of our hometown, and I gazed out the window to stare at the autumn-colored trees as they passed.  I’m in the autumn of my existence, a voice narrated, echoing the caverns of my empty mind.  I watched from outside myself as he glanced over at me.  I never met his eyes.  I just continued to stare, the whole world muted into something unintelligible.

I could hardly make it out, “I’m sorry.  I’m just so scared about what this means for him.  Today, when I saw him being evaluated, I see an entirely different boy from the little boy I see to be my son.”

“I understand,” I murmured almost robotically.  In truth, I did.  He went on to explain his position, but the world remained too washed out.  The sound was distorted by static.  He went on to describe our son’s awful behavior during our session, and all I could manage was a whisper.  “Now you know how I felt when I did this alone.”

He had finally come to understand my position.  He was finally seeing the seriousness of the situation, and the dire need to get our son the help that he requires for his special needs.  “I’ve seen this significant backslide in the last few months.  He was doing so well.”  But, I was too exhausted and disconnected to explain it again when he asked.  I provided minimal answers.

The apology came too little too late.  If only there was an answering service for when I checked out completely.

It was completely unfair to him.  It was unjust to let him continue to sit in the dark while he was obviously trying to come back into the light, where truth and hope awaited him.  But, I couldn’t return when the threat still existed.  I had been knifed into oblivion, my soul spilling out onto the jagged rocks beneath me.  If I came back too soon, the voices would emerge and tell me lies.  Sweet, angry little lies, and play me like the fiddle that I am.

I slipped a Lamictal into my mouth and took a big swig of the strange vitamin water I picked up at the convenience store.  My soul is already partially deadened.  I might as well keep going.

It’s the only way.  It’s the only way to cope and deal with what I have at hand.  I may have lost my ability to remember, but maybe it is better this way.  Maybe, I have to forget the pain and the fear in order to switch tracks.  Maybe, I have to forget myself completely to surrender myself to the others.  Either way, I know what I have to do, even if I don’t know how to go about doing it.

Couples fight.  Even the best of couples.  We don’t see eye to eye, and we’re often to proud to admit to the other when we’re scared and vulnerable.  I’ve learned that over the last year.  We’re not supposed to be perfect, because we are imperfect beings.  Our marriage is perfect because it is imperfect.  And I know that we’ll get through this together.

Ten inspirational self-esteem quotes

All that I am, all that I ever was...

It’s time you had a time out

Contemporary life can, at times, be somewhat stressful.

We fill our lives with Twitter, Facebook, the need for twenty-four hour a day contact and blogging. There’s traffic congestion, inbox congestion, nasal congestion and artery congestion. The eternal quest to eradicate wrinkles, lines, body hair and blemishes. Does my bum look big in this? Does my cleavage look too small in this? Does my toe look like it has a fungal infection in this? There’s the endless balance between work, home, family, friends and random strangers. Electricity, food, medication, gas, water, rates, taxes…those bloody taxes! Every day of our lives is an endless stream of stress and tension, relieved only when we chance upon some time for sex, cuddles, massages and cunnilingus. But only if we’re lucky enough to have them.

And then there’s physical health, and mental health, and emotional health, and at…

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Jungian Theory in Personality Assessments

JUNGIAN THEORY IN PERSONALITY ASSESSMENTS

Jungian Theory in Personality Assessments

Tiffany M.

Personality Development

 

Take the MBTI now, if you’re interested.

On the Myers-Briggs Type Indicators (MBTI), I scored ENFJ.  (Note:  Since, I score an INFJ, because of medication changes.)  ENFJ personality breaks down into traits that are extroverted, intuition, feeling, and judging.  Mostly, I would agree with this assessment of my personality.  However, I feel it is a limited, as many others have criticized.  Jung asserts that extraverts project their energies outward to others and their environment and characterizes these people as sociable.  I feel I embody this description to a point.  I would be more inclined to believe that it is a better measure of sociability.  I disagree that personality type is affected by heredity, seeing as how neither one of my parents is ENFJ, and only my father scored as an extravert.  In addition, I don’t agree that personality is static throughout an entire lifetime.  Jung’s personality theory neglects attention to childhood development and major events affecting adult development.  I feel that I am very intuitive, however, I once again don’t feel as if I completely fit the description.  While I am apt to “tune in” to others and have a certain innate understanding of situations as well as their outcomes, I don’t feel as if I’m focused on the “big picture”.  Family, friends, and co-workers can attest to my attention to detail and highly cultivated level of organization.  The assessment of feeling is given when people are thought to place value on things that create a positive emotional response.  This is opposed to utilizing logic for decision making.  I feel that is a very hedonistic evaluation.  We all, as humans, are subject to hedonism according to Freud’s Hedonic Hypothesis.  By this logic, that would place all humans into the feeling category.  Instead, Planap and Fitness proposed that said traits function together.  Therefore, I am able to embody both empathy and logic.  Another problem with this assessment is the obvious gender bias.  Jung personally though that women typically score “feeling” and men score “thinking”.  This can even be seen in my marriage.  My husband and I are fundamentally the same, hence the original attraction.  However, on the MBTI, he scored ENTJ.  The only difference between my husband and myself is the way that we process emotions.  Perhaps this scale measures empathy and expression of emotions better than it’s original intention.  (Judging)

The MBTI is the most recognized and frequently employed assessment when “measuring Jungian functions”. (pg 88 review citation)  Essentially, the MBTI is based on Jungian personality theory and hardly differs.  It incorporates the eight basic personality types in Jungian theory.  These psychetypes combine extroversion and introversion with thinking or feeling and intuition or sensation in pairs of two.  The MBTI expands upon Jungian personality theory by identifying a fourth trait which functions as a person’s conscious interaction with the external world.  This trait works differently for extraverts and introverts.  In extraverts, the fourth trait is the dominant function and contrastingly introverts utilize it as an auxiliary function.  For example, one assessing a MBTI result can combine extroverted with either judging or thinking as how they interact with their environment.  The other functions are introverted and therefore how they deal with themselves.  For introverts, it is the reverse.  By allowing a fourth trait, the MBTI provides a more comprehensive analysis with sixteen types instead of the eight in Jungian typology.

MBTI has a high degree of reliability and validity; it is objective and free of interpretation by the administrator.  The Inkblot exam is purely subjective, and also, subject to the subjective interpretation of the administrator.  MBTI measures the types of individuals, while the Inkblot exam measures individual traits of individuals.  It seems that each time an individual takes the MBTI they score the same or close to the same as the time before; however, an individual may not picture the same things he once saw in an inkblot revealing that the inkblot has a low test-retest reliability.  In the case of the Inkblot exam, it would mean that individual personalities are constantly subject to change.  While personality is subject to revision, it is not subject to total change.  The inherent, learned traits that an individual has will remain with them, despite certain revisions.  Each exam, however, provides valuable information about the individual’s personality and therefore a tool in evaluating a client.

This information is essential in a therapeutic setting.  Each assessment has a purpose.  MBTI is excellent for getting a feel for the patient and understanding their basic personality.  It is also been proven as an excellent tool for career placement.  It has advantages for the patient as well.  As the patient gains a better understanding of themselves, they will also be able to understand their emotions, thoughts, and motives.  This way, they can learn how to cope and self-regulate.  Inkblot and other projective tests provide a look into the subconscious.  This may reveal repressed emotions and impulses.  Once these are brought to light, the patient can then begin mitigating them and expressing them in healthy ways.  Personality disruption and abnormal behavior and development can then be resolved, resulting in a balancing affect and creating a more whole personality.  Therefore, these assessments, combined with psychotherapy can resolve conflict, establish healthy coping mechanisms, and reunify a person to promote functionality.

References

Kaplan. (2008). Past and Present Views on Personality. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. (n.d.). Retrieved September 15, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator

Phanalp, S., & Fitness, J. (n.d.). Thinking/Feeling about Social and Personal Relationships — Planalp and Fitness 16 (6): 731 — Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Retrieved September 15, 2009, from http://spr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/16/6/731

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Enlightenment Doesn’t Notice The Date

The Friday Confessional : Seeds of Affection

In Possibility and Ascension, I wrote an abstract post of sorts detailing how Xan and I got together.  It didn’t have to be so convoluted and vague as it was, twisting and turning with enough imagery to put anyone into overload.  But, at the same time, it did.  Those were the only combination of words that I could put together to express how it had happened in my mind, and even more so in my heart.

Today, I’d like to make some confessions about it.  The first being the translation.

In the first paragraph:

When one door closes, another opens.

And occasionally it occurs as overlapping events, rather than simultaneously.  Such is the nature of life, with its interwoven fibers amounting to the gorgeous flowing fabric.  We are the sum of our actions and the resulting events.  But it’s not so simple.  The seeds were strewn about our fields throughout a long period of time, lodging themselves deep into our soil.  Then under the right conditions, they emerged to the surface to the light of day.

This was a sister prose of Decent Into Hell, if one was unable to tell.  The seeds were those little, unconscious, benign exchange between us over a period of three years.  I continued:

The seeds of our affections were sown.  And yet, we were blind to it.

Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve – – – words that often arise when hindsight comes into perfect focus.  Had I not been so engulfed in my failing relationships, I could’ve realized it.

 

Confession #1:  Xan and I were dating before I had even left my ex.

It was not an intentional love affair.  In fact, I was nothing of the sort.  It was accidental, subconscious courtship.  There was no physical contact.  However, as I started to inspect our romantic roots, I realized the existence of our love far beyond any admissions or actions.

I worked in a bakery at the time, making myself pretty visible.  Xan knew when I got off of work, and he would occasionally pop by unexpectedly.  Then, he would invite me to dinner.  I always declined, telling him that I just didn’t have enough money to go.  He said he didn’t plan on me paying in the first place and that my prescience wasn’t requested.  It was required.

In short, we had dates long before we were ever officially together.

 

The purging had ceased, inebriation started to fade while the sun battled his way above the horizon.  The first dim morning rays crept into the room, scarring the darkness into hiding.  Innocently entangled in one another, grappling for a certain reality that remained just shy of our reach, we breathed in unison.  Our voices were so low that the breeze seemingly whisked our words away, leaving only remnants in my memory.  What only remained was his gentle baritone murmur in my ears and the soft vibrations against my chest.  However, one managed to sound loudly in my mind.

I want to make love to you . . .

Stunned.  Paralyzed.  I want to make love to you too . . .  – stifled far too soon.  It wasn’t the phrase.  It was the sentiment.

 

Confession #2:  Xan and I had romantic roots more than three years back.

The situation played out like this.  My ex, Beck, and I had broken up for the first time shortly before this occurrence.  His new girlfriend was having a welcome party for some of her friends from Colorado, and our mutual friends invited me, much to his chagrin.

Xan and I were competitive drinkers at the time.  Well, truthfully, what weren’t we competitive about?  Though there was a certain amount of attraction and affection, there was always this need to feed an ego.  All of those things have stood the test of time, in case you were wondering.

TMI:  So, after getting wrecked on red bull and vodka all night, we shared a cooking pot to vomit into.  We were the last people with any remaining consciousness, and the whole house was silent.  All of the other sleeping areas were taken, and we were sharing the smallest, most uncomfortable sofa in the entire world.  It didn’t matter, though.  There was something about being locked in his embraced.  It wasn’t sexual.  It was a feeling like home.

That is when he propositioned me.  Confession:  I wanted to.  He admitted later that he wasn’t entirely serious, but he would have if I had agreed.  But, I didn’t.  There were a lot of factors that went into it.  We were friends.  I was seeing someone else.  And somehow, a rumor had spread that gave him a bad reputation as a playboy.  He never was.

Silence, with the exception of our constant dialogue like a clear flowing stream.  It was never the conversation that was important, but rather the continual contact.  We caressed each other through discreet discourse, as if our words were hands searching each others’ darkest secrets.  Outright confessions would’ve been too forward and obvious.  Physical displays would certainly be condemnable.  Our verbal intercourse continued, flying low under the radar as an innocent act of friendship of which even we were both eagerly convinced it was.

We stayed up for late night chats a lot.  There is really no other way to become truly intimate with a person than to share early morning hours with them.  That was years in the past.  We didn’t pick that back up until our subconscious courtship prior to our abrupt relationship.

His bare bedroom walls were soon filled with the colors of our affections.

Confession #3:  The words that sparked our relationship were, “I have always loved you.”  When did always begin?

I asked him that question shortly into our relationship.  He had asked, “Do you recall that night we painted my room?”

I did remember.  I remember being in some pseudo-screwed-up-relationship with my ex, Beck.  Xan, being the devils advocate that he is, said to me, “I’m bored.  Do you want to ransack Sasha’s (Beck’s long distance girlfriend) stuff to find something to do?”  It was devious.  I loved it.  It was so us.  We had done mischievous things to friends before, ranging anywhere from sending bogus text messages to “misplacing” things.

We found her paints, and we made a night of it.  I recall taking off my jeans and throwing them in the hallway.  He inquired.  I replied, practically, “So I don’t get any paint on them, duh.”

Confession:  I actually kept that pair of blue underwear with the yellow paint stain for several years afterward.  Xan was doing my laundry one day and asked, “Are these the…?”  “Yep.”  It turns out, we both have decent memories for the sentimentals.

 

To Be Continued….

I Want My Yellow Dress!

I am infamous for making pop culture references.  For those of you that don’t get the reference, I’ll break it down for you.  It comes from a scene in the move I’ll Do Anything (written by James L. Brooks, who does The Simpsons now), where the little girl, Jeannie and her estranged father are on an airplane.  Jeannie tells her father that she wants to wear her yellow dress.  He attempts to calmly explain to her that it’s in the luggage that’s under the plane.  Then, Jeannie starts throwing this epic temper tantrum, screaming and crying repeatedly, “I want my yellow dress!”  

Just to cause a bigger scene, Jeannie slaps herself to make it sound like her father did it.

There’s a point, I promise.  Today, my horoscope said this:

Here is your Daily Horoscope for Thursday, October 4

Your inner child is dominant today, so make the most of it and have fun! You should be able to get others energized and find new ways to do almost anything. If you’ve actually got kids, so much the better!

Inner child by Irene Majale

My immediate response?  What inner child?

I don’t feel childlike, in any respect.  I take absolutely no pleasure in children’s games or activities.  I often find it difficult to have a conversation with a child.  Not to say that I am unable to enjoy their company.  I am at a loss for what children like to do.

I have always done pretty adult activities, with the exception of playing with dolls, but even that was pretending to take care of a house, a husband, and a child.  I am drawn to solitary activities.  I write.  I doodle.  I read.  I craft, and have been called grandma as a result.  These have been the constants in my life.

That’s when I realized it.  I am childlike in a different way.  I throw temper tantrums.  I have obsessive wants and abandonment issues.  I have a desperate need for approval.  I fear authority figures, and I often find that I feel helpless.  This is helpless over my own behavior and helpless to fulfill my own wants and needs.  I am rebellious and conflicted.

My inner child is not very healthy.

I have had a retrospect of my childhood recently and came to several conclusions.

• I grew up too fast.
  It didn’t start out as something I wanted to do.  I started out as something I needed to do.  As a sibling of autism, you are taught that you have to be adult about a lot of situations.  That means, when you have feelings of neglect and resentment, you have to repress them.  It’s the adult thing to do.I had a serious misconception.  At the time of adolescence, I made the decision to take on the freedom of an adult, since I had carried the burden of responsibility of an adult in childhood.  Perhaps it was due to bodily changes, or just coming-of-age.  Either way, I made some irresponsible choices to participate in grown-up activities in adult situations way too soon.
• I was an overachiever.
  Achievement leaves little room for childlike activities.  It requires self-discipline the likes of which no ordinary kid could offer to themselves.  I practiced my music alone.  I became second chair, next to a girl who had lessons.  I became a second part section leader at the age of eleven.  I joined library club, just to put books away and spend my free time reading classic literature far above my head.I didn’t play sports.  I loathed gym and feared recess.  Most of the time, I would sit on the bleachers alone, staring into the vastness of the parking lot.  And there wasn’t a soul who was interested in having me join their game.
• I was a sensitive child who needed to grow thicker skin.
  My preschool teacher was the first person to bring this to my mother’s attention.  What little girl doesn’t cry at the age of four?  What parent seems to think that crying is unhealthy?  Well, it was the 80’s after all.By the time I was in second grade, I started to develop panic attacks.  They landed me in the nurses office frequently, and I was deemed a hypochondriac at that time.

  Fourth grade was when I had the toughest teacher of them all.  I read her comment on the report card before my mother even had the chance.  “Does not take constructive criticism.”  After I work my little rear off, she has the gall to say that?!  Yes, I was discouraged that I wasn’t perfect at everything.  Maybe a little reassurance, you know?

My inner child seems to still be pretty angry about all of this stuff.

I get it, now.  I have spent a great deal of time and energy into satisfying the immediate demands of my inner child.  Or, on the opposite end, I have been denying my inner child completely.  I have really done nothing to nurture and attend to this internal being.

How do I go about doing that?

Astrology suggests looking at my Moon sign to determine the kind of soul food that I need.  However, it seems that, while astrology may have a clue as to where my interests lie, psychology appears to have a better grasp on the nature of the inner child.

Livestrong.com has a list of suggestions.  Here are the ones I like the best:

What nurturing messages can you give your “inner child”?
You can tell your “inner child” that it is OK to:
* Have the freedom to make choices for itself.
* Be “selfish” and do the things you want to do.
* Take the time to do the things you want to do.
* Associate only with the people you want to associate with.
* Accept some people and to reject others.
* Give and accept love from others.
* Allow someone else to care for you.
* Enjoy the fruits of your labor with no guilt feelings.
* Take time to play and have fun each day.
* Not to be so serious, intense and inflexible about life.
* Set limits on how you are going to relate to others.
* Not always “serve” others.
* Accept others “serving” you.
* Be in charge of your life and not let others dictate to you.
* Be honest with others about your thoughts and feelings.
* Take risks and to suffer the positive or negative consequences of such risks.
* Make mistakes, laugh at them and carry on.
* Let your imagination and creativity be set free and to soar with the eagles.
* Cry, hurt and to be in pain as long as you share your feelings; do not repress or suppress them.
* Be angry, to express your anger and to bring your anger to some resolution.
* Make decisions for yourself.
* Be a problem solver and come up with solutions with which everyone may not agree.
* Feel happiness, joy, excitement, pleasure and excitement about living.
* Feel down, blue, sad, anxious, upset and worried, as long as you share your feelings.
* Love and be loved by someone whom you cherish.
* Be your “inner child” and to let it grow up, accept love, share feelings and enjoy pleasure and play.

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/14692-inner-child/#ixzz28L2xpxyB

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