Most days
Many of you may read this and relate to me. Maybe you understand where I am coming from. I know some of you have to live with depression and may other mental illnesses everyday. Sometimes we can be open with them. In my experience, a lot of the time you can’t. I have been told I shouldn’t be working in the medical field. I shouldn’t be a paramedic. Most of the time I usually run across people thinking that I shouldn’t be allowed to own guns. ( Never been suicidal or committed to a psych ward and have all legal rights to own guns in my state) They think just because I have depresssion, anxiety and PTSD I will loose my mind and shot up everyone. I have ran in to so many peopel that don’t understand the differences between the types of mental illness. They automatically think I should be locked up. They wont even bother to ask. They just think I should think I am a lesser person than the, because I take medication.
There really isn’t any difference between me taking antidepressants and someone taking medication for their high blood pressure or high cholesterol. The only difference is that there is a stigma around mine. I have had to explain myself more times that I can count. I’m not sure why they think I’m lesser of a person.
I have even had problems with my family. Both sides of my family have a history of mental illness. I had no clue. It took me years for to even get that out of them. It was years after I had began treatment that I found own my father, that I lost years before, had depression. He hadn’t treated it. As you read my first blog, you know my uncle committed suicide. So both my dad and uncle had mental illnesses and they would not speak of it. I found out once I became more public, that my grandmother had depression also.
It was so looked down on in my little town that I was literally shamed because I shared my fight, both the good days and bad on socail media. I got in trouble at work, my family shamed me and I dont mean they just said something. They blamed everything that was going on in my life that was bad on my being public about my mental illness. I mean my marriage was starting to fall apart and at one point I lost my job. It was all blamed on me talking openly about my illnesses. I have even had a family member that stated that she would have never even went to the doctor for it. Because “it would be on my medical record.” Needless to say I finally had enough and no longer talk to them.
If you red my first post, you might remember that I am a paramedic. I have been in this for nine years. I was diagnosed about 4 years in to being an EMT. I had become a paramedic and seen some nasty stuff. Now I will not make you relive my hellish moments. Ya, a lot of people want to hear the goar of my job.
Some of the people think they want to hear. They want me to live the worst moments of my life. They don’t understand I relive them almost every day. I have even lost the director of my Ambulance service. He couldn’t win his battle against his depression. I loved that man like he was another father to me. It was the hardest day. It made my depression even worse.
3 years later, my marriage started to really fall apart and this last July I was divorced. He said that I was always angry and lazy since my boss had died. He didn’t bother to tell me any of this at anytime before things were to late to fix. But it has been for the better.
I’m starting a new path. I focusing on my mental health before anything else. Right now I am on the max dose of Effexor, Serqual, and Xanax for my depression, anxiety, and PTSD. What they have actually diagnosed me with isn’t in the DSM. This is a book that has all “billable” diagnoses. They say I have Complex Post Traumatic Stess Disorder. Pretty much this means, someone can say something, I can smell something, taste something, hear something and I’ll go in to an “emotional flash back”. I usually do not notice my sudden mood change . I can go from happy and cheerful to total bitch mode in about 5 seconds. They say it’s to sudden of a mood change and they happen to often for it to be bipolar . I am just repeating what my therapist and two doctors have told me. If you google CPTSD, you can find some books on it and such.
I hate that the littlest things set me off. Today my boyfriend said something and it literally made me pissed. I went from good mood to Fuck you in about .02 seconds. It wasn’t till after I had calmed down, about an hour later that I realized what had happened. My boyfriend also has mental illness, so he knows better how to deal with me. He is trying to learn my triggers and I’m trying to learn his. It is a really new thing to me. My ex had no tired to understand and didn’t want to put any energy in to trying to understand anything anyway than the way he thought. I do hope he finds happiness. I am just stating facts about how he was.
I found a new Doc today for my antidepressant and stuff. I’m going to call them Monday to see if we can get something new done. I’m tired of being highly medicated and everything when it seems to not work like it should. This will be the 4th doctor I have seen for meds. It’s hard being in the office for a few minutes, them giving you a bunch of new drugs and send you on your way. I hope this Doctor is different. No I dont need a therapist and Dr in one but I would like to be able to talk to them before they start messing with all the chemicals in my brain. Wish me luck. Any good advice or encouraging words would be wonderful. I will update soon.
Nicole
There really isn’t any difference between me taking antidepressants and someone taking medication for their high blood pressure or high cholesterol. The only difference is that there is a stigma around mine. I have had to explain myself more times that I can count. I’m not sure why they think I’m lesser of a person.
I have even had problems with my family. Both sides of my family have a history of mental illness. I had no clue. It took me years for to even get that out of them. It was years after I had began treatment that I found own my father, that I lost years before, had depression. He hadn’t treated it. As you read my first blog, you know my uncle committed suicide. So both my dad and uncle had mental illnesses and they would not speak of it. I found out once I became more public, that my grandmother had depression also.
It was so looked down on in my little town that I was literally shamed because I shared my fight, both the good days and bad on socail media. I got in trouble at work, my family shamed me and I dont mean they just said something. They blamed everything that was going on in my life that was bad on my being public about my mental illness. I mean my marriage was starting to fall apart and at one point I lost my job. It was all blamed on me talking openly about my illnesses. I have even had a family member that stated that she would have never even went to the doctor for it. Because “it would be on my medical record.” Needless to say I finally had enough and no longer talk to them.
If you red my first post, you might remember that I am a paramedic. I have been in this for nine years. I was diagnosed about 4 years in to being an EMT. I had become a paramedic and seen some nasty stuff. Now I will not make you relive my hellish moments. Ya, a lot of people want to hear the goar of my job.
Some of the people think they want to hear. They want me to live the worst moments of my life. They don’t understand I relive them almost every day. I have even lost the director of my Ambulance service. He couldn’t win his battle against his depression. I loved that man like he was another father to me. It was the hardest day. It made my depression even worse.
3 years later, my marriage started to really fall apart and this last July I was divorced. He said that I was always angry and lazy since my boss had died. He didn’t bother to tell me any of this at anytime before things were to late to fix. But it has been for the better.
I’m starting a new path. I focusing on my mental health before anything else. Right now I am on the max dose of Effexor, Serqual, and Xanax for my depression, anxiety, and PTSD. What they have actually diagnosed me with isn’t in the DSM. This is a book that has all “billable” diagnoses. They say I have Complex Post Traumatic Stess Disorder. Pretty much this means, someone can say something, I can smell something, taste something, hear something and I’ll go in to an “emotional flash back”. I usually do not notice my sudden mood change . I can go from happy and cheerful to total bitch mode in about 5 seconds. They say it’s to sudden of a mood change and they happen to often for it to be bipolar . I am just repeating what my therapist and two doctors have told me. If you google CPTSD, you can find some books on it and such.
I hate that the littlest things set me off. Today my boyfriend said something and it literally made me pissed. I went from good mood to Fuck you in about .02 seconds. It wasn’t till after I had calmed down, about an hour later that I realized what had happened. My boyfriend also has mental illness, so he knows better how to deal with me. He is trying to learn my triggers and I’m trying to learn his. It is a really new thing to me. My ex had no tired to understand and didn’t want to put any energy in to trying to understand anything anyway than the way he thought. I do hope he finds happiness. I am just stating facts about how he was.
I found a new Doc today for my antidepressant and stuff. I’m going to call them Monday to see if we can get something new done. I’m tired of being highly medicated and everything when it seems to not work like it should. This will be the 4th doctor I have seen for meds. It’s hard being in the office for a few minutes, them giving you a bunch of new drugs and send you on your way. I hope this Doctor is different. No I dont need a therapist and Dr in one but I would like to be able to talk to them before they start messing with all the chemicals in my brain. Wish me luck. Any good advice or encouraging words would be wonderful. I will update soon.
Nicole
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