Dirty White Boy! (MHM-Mental Health Matters!)

What exactly do I mean by the name of this chapter? What I mean is this, when you don't have any money because you are on social security you are frowned upon and looked down upon, hey let's face it when you are this low, you never take a shower so you look terrible and smell just as bad. I wonder why that is the first thing to go is personal hygiene, why this is I am not sure but it is a proven fact, henceforth the name dirty white boy. Because if you look bad, smell bad and live in the not so great part of town and to top it all off you have to drive clunkers, that literally look like shit on wheels, now do you see how some people not knowing you have an illness, could mistake you for a low life, trailer trash, or even a DIRTY WHITE BOY! Now don't get me wrong these biologically unhappy people can't help themselves. Let me try to explain an illness or illnesses to you all, as I have BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder), OCPD (Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder), GAD (General Anxiety Disorder), and I am (Bi Polar) now how's that for an illness? Let me explain some of the symptoms of all these illnesses and then I believe you will have a better chance at understanding what a fellow human being my be going through, be it a loved one, friend, patient. BPD - Some of the symptoms for this illness are very severe. The reason they call it borderline is because the patient is said to live at the border of reality and make believe. I must admit this is the toughest illness that I have ever went up against and just when I think I have it whooped, it let's out a furious attack and I get knocked down a few pegs. So what are some of the symptoms of this dreaded disease? You are very compulsive in all or any of the following - Sexual behavior when you are in a down mood you something tells your mind that having sex with anyone you can find will make you feel better, guess what it does for five min then all hell brakes lose. You feel dirty you shower ten times yet you still feel dirty and cheap. The thing that is strange about this is it's likely to happen again, even though this behavior is destructive, when a person hits a thing that is called Diaspora they will do absolutely anything to get out of it and I mean they will literally do anything to get themselves out of this feeling. They call this the caged animal part of the disorder. Some have a compulsivity to spend money and do they ever, they buy everything in sight and they won't stop until the dysphoria goes away, yet now they are $6,000 in dept, not to mention all the bounced checks that they wrote. You want to know the funny thing they would rather go to jail for writing bad checks than stay in dysphoria which literally is the worst feeling in the world it's every bad emotion their ever was put together and all wrapped up in one and you feel them as though they are happening at once, you feel them all at once, this is dysphoria and please know that if you haven't experienced it you are lucky because it can literally ruin your life and is the absolute worse feeling that any individual can possibly feel and you live in constant worry that it will come back again,! Yes it comes back time after time and leaves you defenseless for you to make the right decisions. Please know there is also medicine for dsyphoria, so there is now hope were a few years ago it was just tuff it out, so please know they are coming up with more and more miracle drugs to combat these negative symptoms, so your chances of recovery are getting better by the day! Black and White Thinking - I know this sounds weird, but once you see the reasoning behind black and white thinking it will all become clear. Say that someone you love dearly does something to piss you off. A normal reaction would be to go to that person and ask them why they did such a thing and try to work the problems out in a civil matter. Not you though you see them as evil and you can only see them in the black (THE BAD), which is another symptom of BPD. You will even go as far as hating this loved one and doing some pretty dumb things to get even, now let's talk about the white (THE GOOD) A friend or loved one buys you a gift, you are really touched and now you feel this person can do no wrong they are now great to you and you'll do anything for them, anyway you can. Now the thing that may seem weird to you, there is no gray it's either LOVE (WHITE) or HATE (BLACK), can you see how this type of behavior could run off some mates AND RUIN A RELATIONSHIP? Back and fourth, love ya then, hate ya, Love ya, and hate ya. Tag you are it. Please know with the right medication this can greatly be controlled, which is a great break through and is helping many couples stay together every day, so don't let the black and white thinking ruin your life! Love can break all boundaries, overcome any obstacles, so stop and think what it was like before your loved one had a biological unhappiness and then never let go off that picture until the dream becomes a reality. Visualize you and your mate doing the things that you want, you each being the person that the other loves and please remember that a winner never quits and a quitter never wins. Self-Mutilating Behavior - This may sound a bit gross and at times it can be very gross indeed. Now let try and explain why a person would act in such a manner and inflict pain on themselves. Ok the reason why they would take a razor and slit their wrist or their leg is because they are in that nasty little word disphoria and when the razor breaks the skin and the bloods start to flow everywhere, it gives such relief! Now I feel normal again! When I was going through my toughest times with my BPD, I would drive nails through my hands and my feet, sometime I would actually have three to four nails in one hand and the same in one of my feet and I can honestly say I felt normal again. I am so thankful that they have medicine to control this behavior and I haven't self-mutilated for five years now Trapped Animal Effect - Let's say you are in Africa and you are out on the plains and as you are walking around you see a cave so you think you will set up camp there for the night. Low and behold there is a mother lioness and her cubs in the cave with you and your crew are in front of the exit. Now can you see how the mother lioness would go absolutely nuts and stop at nothing to get her cubs to safety? Well this is how a person with BPD feels at certain times in their life, and I must admit that you will make some bone head decision when you are spa zing out and feeling like that trapped animal, please know that this is greatly reduced with medications. What are some of the most common behaviors of ADD and ADHD? One thing for sure, is the fact that we have an abundance of energy and we just keep going and going, sometimes it's even hard to get a breath in! Running here, running there and starting this and starting that and never really finishing anything. Unfinished piles of work everywhere and this absolutely drives you crazy. You interrupted your dad when are talking to him and this pisses him off and in turn makes you mad at him, as a matter of fact you are always interrupting everyone! When will this madness end? I need to slow down and take a break, I can't sleep WAIT A MINTUE! There is hope and I can est. to the fact that adderall has changed my life. WAIT A MINTUE! There is hope and I can est. to the fact that adderall has changed my life. Yes I can concentrate again. I can actually read something and understand it, I can read holy shit, I can't believe it I only had to read it once and I remember how it goes and all that and I didn't even analyze it a hundred times. So yes even with ADD and ADHD there is now hope in a pill called an stimulate, which for someone with the above mentioned illness actually act to slow you down a bit and helps you to concentrate. Now the down side is this, people without ADHD use this drug like cocaine and they get a high a great feeling, that they want the feeling to last for ever and they become addicted to the stimulant. It is usually abused by the younger generation and college kids to stay up all night to help them study for exams and of coarse party all the time, so this is where the negative press comes from. Some dumb kids ruining the entire positive that is happening, for many children and adults. So let's stop the negative stigma and get the good press and the entire positive that these medicines are doing for millions. Now let's move on to OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder. Now this can be very debilitating and can ruin ones life. Some of the symptoms are excessively checking to make sure that the door knob is locked, even though they checked it all ready one hundred times, dam when will the madness end? Their are some that pull their hair out and in doing so there are even bald spots all over there head, and not only can't they stop, they look terrible in the process. Basically this illness is an anxiety disorder one that can't be controlled very easy. It is almost always excessiveness in anything you can think of and then some. Now I know some people who are millionaires that have this disorder, that with medication are very happy and seem to have the illness under control and function very well and then there are those that don't responded to the treatments as well. As each day passes and more and more medicine comes out, we have hope that, we may have never had before, so hold on and keep the faith and with some hard work on your and your Drs. Part, it is my belief that we can greatly control this animal! Let's move on to the next illness that affects our biological clock in our little head of ours. Have you ever heard of OCPD- Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder? What exactly is this animal? Let me try to explain this disorder, as I have it and it is in a pain in the neck, it can literally ruin your life. Let's see you see your self as perfect, or the need to be perfect, yet in your mind you can't seem to get it right, just that one idea that is lurking in the dark and you know this is the "Perfect" answer to your problem. What about this idea or that idea? Everyone says you did a great job and they are all signing your praises, yet you know that it is far from your best and you tear it up and start over and if someone offers you help you, you go nuts. There is no way that they could even come close to the perfection that you must have, so you politely tell them that the way they are helping is really off coarse and is deviating from your plan and could they please stop so you can get back on track to perfection. I must admit I to this day have quite a bit of trouble with this disorder. I can never seem to please my self or anything I do and it causes me a great deal of pain, the medicine seems to help a bit, but I must admit that I feel the need to be perfect in everything that I do, but I can never satisfy myself, my hardest critique. For this at least for myself I try to use consoling and I've made small steps in the write direction, with allot of blood, sweat, and tears, I have been able to give myself small praises and believe me if I can start to praising myself, some then there is light at the end of the tunnel for all of us who have this disorder, so keep your head high and know that if you shoot for the moon, if you miss at least you made it to the stars and this could very well be the step that just lets you settle for second best, which may indeed be perfection to everyone else! Anxiety, or GAD- General Anxiety Disorder, is absolutely terrible and you honestly feel as though you are having a heart attack, or even worse you are losing your mind and your heart flutters and is beating stronger and stronger, as you are sweating profusely and you feel as though you are losing all the sanity that you have left! When it is finally over you are so beat all you want to do is sleep and sleep as long as you can, I mean if you are sleeping you can't have another panic attack. The worst of it is now you live in fear of it happing again and again. For some it is going out in public, the world starts to shrink and you can feel it closing in on you and you can't breath and the hearts starts to beat a little faster and faster until it's a full blown attack. Some are terrified with public speaking and it all starts over and over again and again. This is a viscous cycle that just keeps getting worse. Here's the thing the drugs to combat this are very addictive and are hard to get a Dr. give them to you, but if worse comes to worse they will and this will help you tremendously. Along with the medication you need to practice some relaxation as much as you possible can and try to stay calm in all situations. You may also need therapy as they will help you see what is triggering it all. I believe that with all three that you will find a great deal of satisfaction with the outcome!