Video: How it feels to be depressed
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February 20, 2008 - Posted by demential | Major depression, Videos
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About
I’m a 43 year old male, divorced, father of two girls, a former sales and marketing professional and former genealogical researcher. At this time, on this blog I wish to remain anonymous due to the stigma that society has placed on mental illness.
This Blog or Weblog is repository on items of interest pertaining to my mental illness, but it is primarily record diary of the deterioration of my intellectual faculties, such as: memory, concentration and judgment. A roller coaster of emotional disturbances and hallucinations. After a few changes in psychiatric diagnosis, first major depression, recurrent, with psychotic features, then schizophrenia, and then schizoaffective disorder bipolar sub-type. In December 2007, while hospitalized, I overheard one of the psychiatrists state that the severe symptoms I was experiencing resembled bipolar disorder. I asked the psychiatrist if there was a change on my diagnosis but she said “no”.
To me the hardest was accepting that I had a severe mental disability, was mentally ill and that the illness is chronic and incurable. That denial compounded with the symptoms really did not help. Today, the name of the diagnosis no longer matters, that is how I accepted it and what is important to me is that the medicines manage the symptoms and that I get the necessary group therapy and guidance. A treatment plan that works!
Each day is challenge for me, some days are better than others. The social isolation is not good for my recovery, but at the same time it beats being alone because of the hallucinations. I no longer wish to have contact with most people that I know, a clear exhibition of antisocial behavior due to the mental illness. Most times I’m functional, but not to the point of being normal. I no longer feel myself and most definitely I do not feel like a normal person. As much as I want to be myself again, it has been an impossibility. Many times I have paranoia and almost daily I hear voices. The voices no longer bother me, as I have gotten used to them, sometimes they are mumbling, other times they are people talking in groups, and others times the voices talk to me. The psychiatrist calls them auditory hallucinations. At times I have visual hallucinations. The auditory and visual hallucinations I’ve had from before I was diagnosed. Confusion is a big part of the symptoms, along with fatigue, insomnia, major depression, nightmares, unable to make some decisions and/or understanding consequences clearly. It is crucial to have a support system in order to minimize some of the confusion. It is probable that I have a genetic predisposition to my mental illness. In early 2007, J**s, the son of one of my paternal cousins, was diagnosed with catatonic schizophrenia.
I have been receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) for over two years now. It is not something that I’m proud of, as I very much wish I could do the successful things I used to do before. I do not feel productive. The Social Security Administration, my psychiatrist and my case manager, they all have told me that I’m disabled due to mental illness. Overall I’m unhappy and I feel that I have gotten worst as time has passed. In the fall of 2006 I went back to college and was not able to continue because of the lack of concentration and the confusion. In life things happen for a reason, but in my life I have not found the reason it has happened to me. My faith on God is what has kept me going.
My perception is that when you tell people that you have a mental illness they treat you differently.
A word of advice: never stop taking your medicines. Been there, done that and it only sets you back, there will be a regression of the symptoms.
Whenever I’m able and feel up to it, I will post to this blog. If anyone finds this blog therapeutic and/or informative in any way, please tell others. If others find fault with it, then save your comments. Unless you have mental illness, you really don’t know how it is living with it.
Thank you for your visit!
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