Thanks, it’s the trauma!

A blog about life with mental illness

Bi Polar Baby

I know I'm not special. I am not the only white woman in America to have a mental illness. I won't be the last either. The only unique thing about me is my experience. Other than that, I'm just another blue eyed, brown haired woman who has a chemical imbalance. We all have stress in our lives, in one shape or form. I should probably give you a little bit of background info first.

When I was sixteen, I had my first anxiety attack. I didn't know what it was or why it was happening. I sat in the hall of my high school while my biology teacher was giving a lecture to my fellow students about organisms. When I was seventeen, I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Again, I didn't know what it was or what that meant. My world had been tipped over by something I couldn't understand. It went on like that for two years, panic attacks, body tremors. My mind was cloudy and no one could tell me why.

On St Patrick's day, 2021, everything shifted. It would take me eight months to get a straight answer from someone. Unfortunately, what she told me wasn't what I wanted to hear. After testing and questionnaires about my personal life, she came to the conclusion that I was bi polar. Again, I'm not the only person in the world afflicted by this diagnosis. Mood swings, recklessness, suicidal thoughts. To someone without a mental illness, they'd say "that's just being a twenty year old."

I'm here to tell you, it's not the same.

At sixteen, I had my first anxiety attack. At seventeen, I experienced grief for the first time. At eighteen, I became suicidal and although I never acted on it, the thoughts were constantly there. Between eighteen and twenty was a cacophony of bad relationships, CT scans, MRI’s, conversations with my family, severe mood swings, fights with my mom and a few close calls with violence. The year I turned twenty, and the months leading up to it, I was lashing out over minor problems. I would tell my mom, “I feel sad all of the time.” She would say, “why?” It broke my heart that I couldn’t answer that question. This went on for a while. On St. Patrick’s day 2021, I was working at the dry cleaners when my body began to shake. My boss at the time, a Mr. T. Nelson, had to call my mom because my body was tremoring with no logical explanation.

After a visit to the express clinic and eight hours of sitting in the E.R, no one could tell me why my body was tremoring. CT scans and MRI’s and EEG’s followed this visit for ten months. Each time the doctor came back with a simple “I don’t know.” By December of 2021 I had a appointment with a shrink. In January of 2022 I was tested extensively for mental illnesses. Two weeks later, I sat down at a table, in a stuffy office with my mom by my side as the doctor told me I was Bi Polar 2. Along with ADHD and depression. I am a triple thread in the worst kind of way. I don’t consider myself a special case because many people have it way worse than I do. But maybe if I share my story, it will remind others that they are not alone. I gave you the short version.

No, it’s not the same thing.

Bi polar isn't someone running around, screaming their head off about imaginary monsters coming to get them. Depression isn't someone with cuts on their arms. Anxiety isn't someone rocking back and forth in a corner with tears streaming down their face. Not all people with a mental illness act the same. We don't show the same symptoms, act the same or talk the same. We don't get on top of the roof and yell out "I have a mental illness and I'm proud!"

It doesn't work like that. We're silent sufferers, casting ourselves into the abyss that is our diagnosis. It doesn't work like that either. Two people who have the same illness can have different reactions to it. We all handle it differently because different factors play into it. Do we have a support system? If not, then what? Can we afford therapy or medicine? Not if the insurance company won't help pay for it.

There is a lack of support and a lack of understanding someone who has a mental illness and what they go through on a daily basis. Some days, you're okay. You can function like a semi normal human being. Go shopping, hang out with friends, go to work. And some days you're not okay. You can't do anything you want to do simply because of a chemical imbalance in your brain. We have no control over our heads and how they work. All we can do is choose how we handle it. Whatever your mental illness is or if you know someone who has a mental illness.

Be kind to yourself, be kind to others. And remember, if you can't make it yourself, store bought is fine.

Love, Cheyenne

DRUGS

Mental health isn't pretty. Taking medicine isn't easy. Going to therapy and admitting that something separates you from your family alters everything you thought you knew. Knowing that you have problems, daddy issues, anger, trust, abandonment or otherwise, is different than working to solve them. Your mental health issue doesn't go away. It's permanent like a bad tattoo of that person's name you have on your shoulder.

Sure, you can try to cover it up with something pretty like a butterfly or a profound quote you came across on your Pinterest board.

It doesn't change the fact that it's there. And it's part of you, even when most days you forget that it's there. I speak from experience when I say that most days I feel great. I'm patient and engaged with everyone around me. I can carry a conversation and function like a semi normal human; Until I catch a glimpse of the bad tattoo. Suddenly I'm reminded of my bi polar diagnosis and the unwanted chain around my neck.

Mental health isn't pretty. It's a constant war inside of your own head. That's why mentally ill people have all of the good drugs. I don’t just mean Klonopin or Wellbutrin or whatever else they put you on so you don’t feel anything. We smoke weed and drink and do whatever we can to turn the volume down. (Thank you writers of Shameless.)

Some of us only have one bad tattoo we try to cover up and we think that no one else can understand our experience. Some of us have multiple tattoos. Diagnosis after diagnosis, therapy every two weeks, Russian Roulette with medication. And of course, there are the cliches. “It doesn’t get better, you get better.”

“This too shall pass.”

“Change starts with you.”

“Let go of what you can’t control.”

And as much as I’d hate to admit it, you do get better. Yes, you have to put the work in because if I’ve learned anything so far, it’s that if you want something to change you have to be the one to change it.

No one else is going to do it for you.

Respectively, Cheyenne.

The Sky Isn’t Always Blue

We know that the sky is blue and that the early bird gets the worm. We know why someone has white skin and green eyes and why someone else has dark skin and brown eyes. We know that two groups of people with severely different opinions go to war. So why can’t we come up with a better explanation of why we like to drink. Why we’re depressed or bi polar or don’t like small spaces? Yes, therapy can be helpful as to figuring out why we think we’re our fathers when in reality we are nothing like them. Things aren’t always so black and white. The sky isn’t always blue, it’s pink and orange and gray and yellow and sometimes purple. Some birds like to sleep in and two groups of people can resolve their issues through conversation.

Not everything you go through, mental illness or not, is as difficult as other peoples opinions make it out to be. You are not just one stereotype or another. You are unique in your own sense, even when it feels like the sky is crashing down on you. You are a wonderful human who is worthy of love and understanding. Just in case no one else told you today.

From one stereotype to another, Cheyenne

Leave a poem, take a poem

There are many books on mental health. How to cope with your anxiety, how to love someone with borderline personality disorder. Most are paragraph after paragraph of “here’s how my story can help you.” And that’s great for some people. Personally, I find poetry more honest about what it is like to live with bipolar or anxiety or depression. Poets talk about the things that some authors forget to mention. The weight of trying to love others, the expectations others have of you. Below is an example from a poetry book written by Yogesh Chandra named The Flower That Went Mad.

Remember that poetry is for everyone, not just those afflicted by mental illness.

“i can feel it again—that chemical

change inside the brain, and i

know that it will either be plain

madness, or a little poetry, or a

blend of both.”