More pills, More Problems

So, I asked my mom what it was she thought that Innercept had done for me.

Well, that's an easy one, darling. They educated you on your condition!

Ha!  Ha! HA!! HAHA!! What a laugh. No, they didn't Beev. I was never educated on any conditions at Innercept. Not my bipolar disorder, my schizophrenia, my body dysmorphic disorder, my OCD, my tourrettes, my anorexia, my narcolepsy. None of those. No education! No education! NO EDUCATION WHATSOEVER!.

I'll tell you what I was educated on. Collusion. The problems with beating things up to relieve aggression. How to smuggle tea and crumpets in to stable. Boring, worthless things I zoned out. Videos on quantum physics. Stupid videos. The Miracle Worker. Never a dull moment at Innercept, that's not for sure. But no mental illness education.

But that's all right. That's okay. You just keep thinking that, Beev. If it makes you happy, you keep thinking it. Because I know it doesn't mean a thing to you that I say they didn't teach me shit. What would I know after all? I'm the one with bipolar disorder! I can't tell left from right, up from down, or manic from suicidal depression. We know that information's in there, Rachel. That wisdom that Innercept bestowed upon you about your conditions! Your condition!

Be healthy! Have Fun! BAAAHHH!!!!! (HEAD EXPLODES). Whoops, inside joke.

So it makes my parents feel proud of themselves to think that Innercept helped me understand my condition, force-fed me urine samples, and now I can relax and be at ease with whatever shitty mind-altering substance anyone throws at me, knowing that it will help calm my "mental state." I'm sick of this bullshit.

No, no no no NO!! There was no education. I don't know a damn thing more about bipolar disorder than I knew at the beginning. Ups, downs, whatever. I don't need to know. I don't want to know.

I will tell me what Innercept did teach me. Interpersonal relationship skills. That's it. That's it. There groups don't mean shit. Therapy doesn't mean shit. I don't fucking know how therapy is supposed to work. Sitting there, talking to my therapist about the weather, a meaningless dream I had. Every. Single. Fucking. Session. What was I supposed to talk about? Issues that actually matter to me?

I'm not as fucked up as you think I am. I have nothing to say. If I said the things that mattered out loud, it makes the pain worse. Swiss cheese Adderall holes in my mind. Not my brain, my mind. Pockets where there are no happy neurotransmitters. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. That's what I keep telling myself. Don't think about that embarrassing moment that no one thought was even a big deal, small deal, or any sort of deal, and no one even remembers. Don't think about it and it will go away.

But they don't go away until I gave up adderall. So many problems I didn't have before being on the prescription medication.

All in all, Innercept is a freak show of idiots parading as doctors and power-hungry war mongerers parading as staff members. It is fun, in a way. I had a blast, in a way, when I wasn't being fucked up the ass. I am better off now than I was before Innercept. Sure, maybe I could have had an education instead of Innercept and be making a living. But fuck school, I can channel, I'm too cool to go back.

So that's it. That's the gist of it. The kids are pissed but the parents love it. And that's all I got to say.

The Magical Day When You Stop Trusting Your Brain and Submit to Everyone Else's Opinions

So my parents think that there was this magical time when I accepted I couldn't trust my own brain. Because as we all know, every parent dreams of that magical marvelous day when their child accepts that he or she just can't trust their own brain and submits to not thinking for themselves, not forming their own opinions and submitting to the opinions of everyone else.

I remember back awhile ago, I was reading my mom's email. And she had emailed a link to one of my blogs to my old therapist, a blog titled, "Trying to Reason When Your Reasoning is Messed Up." And my mom said, "Wow, how far Rachel has come!"

I thought that was funny, because that's not even the point I was making in that blog.

The thing about being told over and over and fucking over again that you can't trust your own brain, is that you start to wonder if maybe you can't. So that's all that post was, me wondering if I couldn't.

Anyway, you can tell that's not the conclusion I come to in this post because I end the post by wondering what the purpose of the final event was. The thing is, now I understand the purpose of the final event.

The reason this is significant is, my belief was that things weren't just random and delusional but each event happened on purpose for a reason. So by questioning the purpose of the final event, I was showing that I believe that the events happened on purpose. They were delusional, in that I believed stuff that wasn't true. But that's besides the point. The point is, I believed stuff that isn't true for a reason.

So, my parents think that my thinking was corrupted by this Scientologist guy. But that's not really what happened. My thinking has always been corrupted. It was never uncorrupted. But, there was a time when I pretended to believe what they wanted me to believe.

So my parents response to this is, “Rachel, your memory is messed up. You can't trust your own brain. You can't trust your own memory. We remember you believing the doctor's diagnosis with no reservations.”

Me not remembering things correctly is another symptom of my mental instability.

So, I had been working on taking myself off this nasty drug Depakote. Which can be difficult, but I was working at it and I had some success. I had myself stabilized on one pill instead of the normal two. Then, my mom found my stash of untaken pills. This filled her with distress.

So, I think that one of the ways my parents thought that Innercept made me better is that now I am willing to take medication. Not so. Not so. In reality, Innercept is a very expensive waste of time. I tried to tell my parents this, but they are like, Oh, Rachel, I can tell just by talking to you that you are doing so much better! You are so much more with it and here mentally than you were!

My dad tells me this when I am high out of my mind on cough syrup. So that's pretty much why I don't trust my parent's opinions.

Thank you for your time.

Potential Anger

I hate it when people act like the way you feel is mental, not chemical. My experiences have lead me to conclude time and time again that when the chemicals aren't in my favor I am incapable of thinking good thoughts or thinking positively. Sure, I can make myself think something positive, but that thought is automatically replaced by a negative thought. The chemicals in your brain color your world and your perception of the world. When I used to cycle (which I don't anymore), I would go from feeling like I was super awesome to feeling like I was absolutely worthless and pathetic and I needed to die, and then back again. It would change super fast too.

I am aware that this last paragraph makes me sound like I have a major mental illness. I have been diagnosed with a major mental illness. However, I am unconvinced. I am on these meds, these antipsychotics, and a withdrawal symptom of the meds is cycling. I used to cycle when I drank too much caffeine, which would interfere with my meds, making me go into withdrawal and cycle.

Someone gave me a pill of ecstasy once, I took it and waited and it had no effect whatsoever. I thought it must have been fake, until someone told me that ecstasy has no effect on certain people who are bipolar because they experience intense highs naturally.

Because of this, I admit it is entirely possible that I have a mental illness. But I think there is something else there too. I don't always acknowledge the existence of this other thing, I sometimes say things which would lead people to believe that I have dismissed my belief in the existence of this other thing. But I haven't. If feelings alone were proof then the existence of this other thing would not be a theory but a solid fact. Feelings aren't proof, but I still believe in the evidence.

If I didn't believe in this other thing, I would be embarrassed. But the existence of this other thing means that I shouldn't be embarrassed. I'm not embarrassed. I don't blame myself for what happened but I don't blame anyone else either. When it comes to my mental illness and the other thing, I did mostly the right thing, every step of the way. The only thing I perhaps did wrong was say things I shouldn't have said.

And inside of me, I have a lot of potential anger. Potential anger is kind of like potential energy. Right now there is no one who is really the target of this anger. But what I mean is, this is a volatile subject. And if someone were to cross the line, and the line is very easy to cross, they would be the target of a very large quantity of anger.

A Program of Pill Pushers

So here's what happens when you live at Innercept. Instead of seeing the decision to stop taking Adderall as a positive life choice, which is what it is, they see it as me being defiant. Because what these people do is, they make assumptions. Of course, one of the four agreements is to not make assumptions, but some people don't practice what they preach. They assume that one day I'm just going to go about refusing Adderall, even though that's not what I was planning. I was planning on talking to my doctor about it, and then going off gradually, even though I'm not even on that high of a dose to begin with. It's kind of a ridiculous concept, refusing Adderall.

So staff says to me, "what you write on the internet, anyone can read." Well that's nice, because that means I can say what I want to say. I think Innercept is a program of pill pushers. The decision to take drugs should be a personal choice. But here, they tell me that if I don't take my drugs, they're going to take me to the hospital and inject me with them. Yes, that's what my parents said back when I refused Geodon. They put everyone here on antipsychotics. Now, not everyone needs antipsychotics. But the doctor here is of the opinion that antipsychotics optimize the human experience and that everyone benefits from a good antipsychotic. No, that's not a quote, but that's probably what he thinks. Antipsychotics cause weight gain, diabetes, tardive (sp?) dyskinesis, and general feelings of crappiness. But you can tell by all the pharmaceutical company merchandise lying around the office and the campuses that the doctor has been bribed by the pharmaceutical companies, which is also probably why he takes so many vacations to Italy and Hawaii.

Another thing about Innercept is that they don't believe in clocks that work. At the place I live, it is eternally 4:17. If I were a stoner, which I'm not, but if I was that would drive me fucking crazy.

Adderall

So first off, I worked hard to get to the library so I could post this. Innercept won't let me use my laptop anymore so I can't use wifi at the gym. Staff didn't want me to go to the library today but I defied them. And then I grabbed a bus schedule that was apparently old, because I was going to catch the bus from the gym and I looked out the window 20 minutes before it was scheduled to arrive and there it was leaving. But dammit, I wanted to post this blog! So I tried to get to Riverstone in time to catch the bus from there, but I couldn't with all the damn crosswalks. Then I decided to walk the distance to NIC, because I was determined. I got there and the library was closed. Then I braved the wind and the rain to walk from there to the Coeur d'Alene public library. So here I am now. And dammit, I'm going to post this blog.

I made a decision a few days ago that I never thought I'd make. I've decided to go off Adderall.

Adderall is more than something I take for concentration, but it's also more than something I abuse to get a high. It made the world seem worthwhile back when life seemed dull and pointless, it gave me self-confidence back when I felt worthless. It's like I've been on crutches for the past ten years. Now, I feel like I might be strong enough to go off them. I was tested for nutritional deficiencies, and it was proven that I have an imbalance that means low dopamine, the happy neurotransmitter that Adderall increases (the one that also helps you focus). I've been taking supplements to correct this imbalance.

It's funny, because I can't believe I'm going to do this. I know myself and it's not something I would do. I might recognize that I don't need Adderall anymore, but normally I would continue taking it anyway just because I could. Honestly, I feel like this is my higher self or something greater than myself pushing this. I feel this urge to clean up my act.

I actually have a lot to say about this particular topic, but I'm not going to say very much. The reason is because I see this as the subject of my second book, because I think I have enough stuff to say that it could fill an entire book.

My Life in Treatment: A Brief History (part 3)

More history of treatment...

I was starting to get too skinny. So I went to the store and bought a gallon of ice cream, and ate some for breakfast. Then I would go to the gym and run six miles, working it all off, defeating the purpose. Damn that pointless ice cream eating!

I went on a home pass in the spring, and made the mistake of getting drunk off my ass on the way back. I mean, I didn’t black out or puke or anything, but I walked into the transition house and there was a process group going on (process groups are where you process house/interpersonal issues)! So fuck, I had to sit down. And they could smell it. They were sending me to stable, and so I said “by the time I’m sober I’ll be dead!” What a stupid thing to say. What I meant was, I wasn’t looking forward to the time when I was sober because at that current moment I was numb to what was going on, but when I was sober again I’d have to face reality. That was all I meant. But they had to take me to the hospital and run tests to make sure I hadn’t taken anything to kill myself, because they take these kind of comments very seriously. So they took me to the hospital (not the psych ward) and ran tests, then I spent the next two days at stable.

A week later, I was bored. Like, so bored I could kill someone. I had no money, I couldn’t afford cough syrup or even a simple alcoholic beverage. I wandered the house aimlessly, and in the laundry room I found some change - enough to buy an alcoholic beverage. And it wasn’t like I was stealing from anyone, because it was sitting in a public room, unclaimed.

I went to the nearest grocery store, bought one of those disgustingly sweet 12% alcohol beverages that come in a big can, drank it in the restroom. Then I wondered the streets, feeling happy, desperate for fun. I knew where a guy from aftercare lived, so I went to his apartment. He wasn’t there. I did something bad there, in that apartment complex. Something illegal, something that could be traced back to me and right now there might be a warrant for my arrest in Idaho. Seriously, I still worry about this.

It is because of this that I no longer drink. And I will no longer drink. Ever again. Because I like to think of myself as a person who has morals and what I did goes against my morals. And because I think people would respect me more if I didn’t drink. I think people who don’t drink are in general respected more than people who do, and that this would be especially true for me, due to the nature of the things I do when I drink.

The police showed up, and asked me something about me drinking. I said, “I haven’t been drinking.” He said, “You’re holding a beer can.” I looked down at the can. “Hmm. So I am.” I think what happened next was I gave him my name, and I was too drunk to think to give him a fake one, and he turned around to run my name and I bolted. I was wearing flip-flops, but I ran anyway. I kept turning around but he wasn’t following me. I slowed back down to a walk. There were three guys ahead of me, and they kept turning around and looking back at me. I was walking faster than they were, since I have a naturally quick stride, so everytime they looked back I was closer to them. Then I caught up with them and started talking to them, Then I started hanging out with them and went to their place. Stuff happened.

I left with one of the guys and smoked meth with him in his garage. Yes, METH! It really wasn’t that big of a deal. It’s the same thing as Adderall, it’s like taking Adderall after you haven’t taken it for awhile. Seriously, I’ve gotten just as high off of Adderall, and that was taking it under a doctor’s supervision at the prescribed dose. We stayed up all night, talked a lot, I fidgeted, it mainly made me bite my lower lip constantly. Biting your lower lip is a total tweak. I think some girls do it to be sexy. It might be sexy to guys who are into tweaker girls.

The next morning the guy dropped me off at Albertson’s because he had to do something and he was going to come back and then we were probably going to do some more drugs, but it was taking a long time and I got tired of waiting, so I called transition, let slip where I was, they picked me up and took me to stable. At some point I let slip that I tried meth, and that’s when they decided to move me from “transition” to “intensive transition.”

Intensive transition is a relatively new part of the program where the sort of strange, slightly “off” people go. I mean, that’s not the definition of it, but that’s the kind of people who go there. If you look at the cast of people who have resided in the lovely intensive transition house, it’s either been people who were off or guys who were aggressive. It’s for people who need “a little bit more attention.” The only person who’s lived here for the entire duration of the time I’ve lived here is Julia, a girl with Asperger’s. Most people find her really annoying but I am generally tolerant of annoying people, though we have had our ups and downs. In the past I’ve joked that if I had kids I would name them Klonopin and Zyprexa, two names of medications, because they are cool names. Julia told me she hoped that if I ever got pregnant I had a miscarriage or an abortion. I couldn’t stop laughing because that was such a mean thing to say.

But back to last summer. I became perpetually manic. I was trapped inside my own head, thinking about things over and over and laughing. I would rehash things, and when I rehash things it looks like I’m talking to myself. But I don’t hallucinate. This is the time that my parents will tell you I was so far gone it was a miracle I came back. This, I would like to say with emphasis, is a load of bull. My dad will tell you, “we tried several things and finally she came back when we switched her meds from Geodon to Invega.” No, actually, no. That was the first and only thing they tried, and it worked. It just took awhile because they made the switch very slowly. If you want to know how far gone I wasn’t, they didn’t even take me off Adderall or my antidepressant, because the doctor didn’t deem it necessary. That’s how far gone I wasn’t.

So I’ve been in intensive transiton ever since last summer. It pisses me off because other people make repeated mistakes and they don’t move them to intensive transition. Right now, I’m just here until I have 20 hours a week of volunteering or work or school, and then I’ll be moved to aftercare.

And I’m reminded of why I decided to write a history of my treatment to begin with. We have a new intensive transition/ aftercare coordinator named Lea. Let’s just say she is widely disliked. There’s another girl here named Caitlin who was in aftercare who moved into intensive transition after messing up. Lea told Caitlin that the other residents of intensive transition, including myself, look up to Caitlin because she has been to aftercare, and that Caitlin was setting a bad example by smoking. I don’t look up to Caitlin, I don’t look down on her either but she’s like four years younger than me. I don’t give a flying fuck that she’s been to aftercare, it doesn’t mean shit to me. I don’t think she’s better than me. I’m not trying to say anything mean about Caitlin because I like Caitlin. But I don’t think anyone’s better than me for getting through the program faster than me.

The point of me writing this is to say that I’ve had to deal with my share of problems, with the delusions, the suicidal attempts and thoughts, and all the med changes. I was probably just more fucked up to begin with. I didn’t feel a particularly strong drive to get out of the program. When I do feel a drive, it drives me crazy! Like this drive to get published.

My Life in Treatment: A Brief History (part 2)

So, on with my history of treatment. I was taken to the psych ward by my therapist, and by this time it was February of 2009. When I found out I was being taken to the hospital, I jumped out of the car and tried to run away. I didn’t get very far, as one of the staff and my therapist jumped out of the car and ran me down. This was before I realized how awesome psych wards are.

Yes, psych wards are awesome. You meet the most interesting people there! But that should be the subject of another blog entry.

While I was in the hospital, they switched my meds from an antipsychotic called Abilify to another one called Geodon. I didn’t think this was a big deal at the time. I thought Abilify didn’t do anything, and I didn’t think Geodon did anything either, but my parents and my doctors and everyone else had this belief that if I wasn’t on an antipsychotic all hell would break loose.

I got out of the hospital and that same night, I went to take my meds and there was no Geodon. “That’s okay, it’s not like it did anything anyway!” I said. Then I went to bed, and I started thinking about things and trying to relax. But as time went by I kept getting more and more awake and my thoughts kept getting more and more vivid. And then I realized: I was hypomanic! Wow, something would happen if I didn’t take the meds! Maybe I was bipolar after all!

So I didn’t sleep much, and the next morning I refused my Geodon, because this mania was a new and exciting natural high, it was like the solution to my problem of feeling the need for stimulants all the time. Mania is kind of like being on a stimulant. They took me to stable (where they take people who need some “time off”), I left and started walking down the street, so I was handcuffed and taken by security back to the psych ward.

I refused my meds at the hospital, which was kind of bad because there was a lady there who was talking to herself and stuff and really needed her meds but she wanted to refuse them too. Then I started to realize that mania wasn’t all happy. It was interspersed with random feelings of extreme lowness. While the high feelings lasted longer than the low feelings, the low feelings were pretty annoying.

I stopped refusing my meds and eventually, I was discharged from the hospital. Back to good ole Innercept. My therapist told me I could get transition passes again if I stopped sleeping during the day. And I tried. I really tried. But that Geodon, man, it knocks you the fuck out. I took it twice a day, at night and in the morning. I takes about two hours to hit, and that’s when my eyes would automatically shut. I could try really hard and open them again, but then they would just automatically shut again, all by themselves. Try as I might, I could not keep my eyes open. And when my eyes were closed, I would fall asleep.

I wasn’t the only one who would sleep during the day. Innercept’s solution to this problem: less comfortable chairs. Did I mention that this program is run by geniuses?

They like to grade you at this program, using the stupid 1-2-3 system. Two’s are normal. One’s are bad. Three’s are great. You need a two average to make allowance. They grade you in each quadrant of the four quadrants, which is interesting because one of the quadrants, by definition, is one you can’t be graded in. It’s things other people can’t see, like thoughts, feelings, etc. If other people can see it, it’s in a different fucking quadrant! But them Innercept employees, they’ll slap a one wherever they damn well please. One time I got a one in one quadrant for sleeping during the day, and a one in another quadrant for sleeping during group. I called this redundant one-ing. It was the same nap!

Finally, they stopped giving me Geodon in the morning and gave me a higher dose at night. That’s around the time I started getting manic every single day. By this time I had also been switched from the anticonvulsant/ mood stabilizer Lamictal to the classic bipolar med lithium. At first I thought lithium was great. Then I realized that it was because it wasn’t doing anything and I was just a little manic all the time, but the mania didn’t last. Anyway, then I went on a home visit, drank a lot of caffeine and alcohol at the airport on the plane ride back, got euphorically high, then suicidally low. Back to the hospital. By now it’s June 2009.

These were some great times at the psych ward actually, I met some awesome people. They did some med switcharoos (lithium to Depakote), and after maybe a month I was back in stable at Innercept, then back to the regular part of the program. Week after week I was filling out special requests for transition passes, and I was getting denied (I can’t remember why, too soon maybe). Actually, I think this is when I was facing a little bit of depression and I was apathetic and wasn’t quite taking care of myself, so they were giving me quarters to do things like brush my teeth, do laundry, take showers. I think maybe this was a low point. This is what people always say when they talk about “how far I’ve come.” “Why, we used to have to pay you to take showers!” Anyway.

I got passes finally, got my shit together, took on a hellishly boring volunteer position, started working out like mad, and then about five (yes, FIVE!) months later I was finally in transition. I moved in January 25, 2010. I came down with something. I don’t know what was ailing with me, but whatever it was, it required massive amounts of cough syrup to remedy (this was the highlight of my time in treatment).

Beautiful cough syrup.

More to come...