When I was younger, I saw psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists against my will. It started in 7th grade when my mother started taking my sister and I to see a psychiatrist. We saw that quack for almost 3 years until my mom made it where I could no longer stay in the care of my parents. I don’t know if they still continued to see the quack, but when I went into foster care, I had to see a psychiatrist and/or therapist depending on where I was placed at the time.

The quack I saw via my mother’s means said I suffered from depression and my sister from BiPolar Disorder. Later he concluded we both suffered from BiPolar, but mine was more appropriately labeled as BiPolar II. The problem with the depression diagnosis to me was that I didn’t feel depressed. I felt sad and upset and depressed in the sense that life sucked because it actually did suck, but not depression in the sense that I felt it to my marrow and life sucked when it actually did not. I came up with my own justification that I must be suffering from situational depression. I never researched or found out if it was an actual thing you could suffer from, but it was the only thing that would make the ‘depression’ label make sense to me.

Situational depression, in my mind, was being depressed because of the situations going on in my life. Because I was for all intents and purposes happy when shit was fine in the house, but not when things were not. And as we got older, the periods of ‘fine’ in the house grew to be less and less. So I adopted the situational depression to fit the quack’s diagnosis, though I still disagreed with it.

It was not until I was in 9th/10th grade that he resolved that I more likely suffered from BiPolar as well, but what is known as BiPolar II because I stayed more in the depression zone than the hyper zone. The only reason this idea did not gel with me is that I felt like I spent more time in the hyper zone than the ‘depression zone’ because I first off didn’t think I was ‘depressed’ in the clinical sense to begin with, but I was always full of ‘high energy’. I could not make the diagnosis agreeable with my psyche so I chose to rebel.

When I went into the system and had to see a psychiatrist, I told him of the last quack and what the last quack thought, and this doc said that he didn’t think I suffered from BiPolar in the least, but rather ADHD. He said he thought I was depressed, but not in the clinical sense; that because of everything that was going on, that’s why I was depressed.

The problem was though that by the time I got to this doc, I had already been given two other diagnoses, had no respect for the previous quack and therefor the entire industry, and was so adamantly against quacks and therapy. I did not accept his diagnosis on a real level because I did not consider it; I accepted it because it made more sense than BiPolar II.

And still I did no research. I went on what everyone told me about the illnesses, and the one time I looked up the definition of BiPolar II, I didn’t feel it covered me well enough to be me so I stopped looking.

I stopped looking for most of my twenties. I always searched for ‘happiness’ for myself, but not for help. I had accepted that I had BiPolar [and/or ADHD], and that was that.

I was on medication until I graduated High School and the first year of college. It was my freshman year of college that I started having panic attacks. I may have had them before, but I didn’t have anyone around that would have known to tell me. See, I knew that I still needed therapy or someone to talk to so I had started seeing one of the therapists [I forget what their actual title was] at college. One day I overslept and was late for class. Not usually a panic inducing event, but I was due to take a test in that class and had agreed with my friends that I would pickup the test booklets from the bookstore and meet them before class. When I woke up seeing that I was not only late, but had failed to do that which I said I would do, I was in panic attack mode. One of my hall-mates ran to the bookstore to get the test booklets while my roomie tried to calm me down, but I didn’t understand what was going on so I was still in a state of panic further induced by not knowing what was going on with me! I went to class, gave my friends the booklets, got my test, tried to focus, really couldn’t, may have answered a bit of the questions though I’m not sure, turned in the test before anyone, went straight to see my counselor, and she calmed me down. My friend tells me later that she even wrote ‘breathe’ on her test booklet to get me to see and do just that, but I was so tunnel visioned by the state of panic, that I only cared to get to the counselor and make it stop.

My counselor tells me later after calming me down that I had had a panic attack and gave me some techniques to use next time I felt that way to counter them. She told me I had come in saying that I felt like I was going to die, but that that was just a feeling that comes along with having a panic attack. Funny thing was, even though it had ‘just’ happened and I had ‘just’ told her that, I didn’t remember telling her that! I wondered why I would say such a thing if it was just a panic attack, but I’m thinking it was the first time I had had one of that magnitude [if not the first I had had at all]. But there was little I could do about it at the point so I stored the information she gave me away in case I would need to use it again.

A few weeks later if not more, I found myself in a position again to feel a panic attack coming on. My counselor had told me the warning signs and gave me some breathing exercises to do when I felt one coming on so I could counteract it. And so I did. I had the feeling of anxiety still and it took a few minutes to calm down, but I had a lot more control and awareness than I had before. I discussed it with my counselor the next time I saw her, and we went on from there.

For years after that I would some mild interactions with panic and anxiety, but for the most part, the breathing exercises really helped. I had come to understand anxiety/panic and could pretty much ‘deal’ with it. In the past year and a half or more though, I have had a lot of trouble keeping my anxiety and panic under control. It is largely due to things I can’t control which further exacerbates my anxiety and state of panic, but knowing that it is just anxiety makes it ‘ok’. Ok in the sense that I don’t feel like I am crazy or not normal or bad; just ok in the sense that others battle with it, it is not just me, and it could be treated. Being more aware of the warning signs and what to do helps.

My counselor was not a clinical psychiatrist so she could not prescribe medication or make an actual diagnosis on what mental illnesses I may have, but she as well thought that ADHD fit me better than the BiPolar/BiPolar II diagnosis I had received from my first doctor. She even went on to say that it may have surfaced more after my mom hit me over the head with the glass coffee pot.

At that point in my life, however, I was still anti-docs and anti-meds. I felt fine. I felt normal for the most part. Any sorrow I felt could be traced back to a very real circumstance and reason so I wasn’t clinically depressed in my opinion. I saw no reason to continue seeing a doc or taking meds. So I stopped.

For about 2-3 years after stopping, I was ‘fine’. I didn’t notice any change, and I didn’t have a mental breakdown. I figured I must have been right and there was nothing clinically wrong with me; just that my circumstances had made my life a living hell and depressed me when I was younger, but as I was getting myself on my own and things were going ok, I myself would be ok.

For the most part, I was. It was not until I was about 25 that I began to think that I needed to see a doc again. I felt like I was losing my focus more, I was sporadic in my behavior and interests because of this, and I just didn’t have an overall feeling of being ‘real.’ I didn’t have mood-swings and wasn’t usually in a state of sadness so I figured it was just me. I figured I needed to make changes in myself or my life to get to a state of ‘normal’ again.

Though I came to that conclusion, it still took another 2 years before I actually started looking at my life and into myself. I didn’t want to face the truth honestly. I didn’t want to be honest with myself. I could be honest with anyone else– that is always easy– but being honest with myself would require facing the truth that I did not want to face. I thought if I could ‘ride’ out the state I was in, that it would get better with time. Time heals, but it does not make you change; only you can make changes to make things better.

When I finally started being honest with myself, I didn’t really like what I had to say. I didn’t like what I had let myself become. I didn’t like the waste of time I spent on thinking everything was fine when it wasn’t; just because you sweep something under the rug, doesn’t mean it isn’t still there. It only means that you can get by with things appearing ‘clean’ until the rug is moved or lifted.

I had to learn to be a responsible, healthy adult.

As I began to learn more about myself and what I needed to do, I found that I had to learn to be more honest and accepting with my emotions. I had been ‘conditioned’ as a child to believe that emotions were for the weak and had no place in a healthy adult’s life. Emotions of the negative kind including sorrow and pain and hurt should not be felt by a healthy adult. I failed to take into consideration that I was not an adult when I ‘learned’ these lessons; I was a child.

In reading about a friend’s condition, I learned more about myself and what I could become if I continue to lose myself. I read up on ADD/ADHD for the first real time since I first was given diagnosis. I was both surprised and comforted by what I found; almost to a T was I described and given insight.

I learned I am not crazy or damaged; I learned that I could ‘manage’ it too. I learned that it was the way of someone with ADD/ADHD to make new information ‘fit’ appropriately. This made me take notice of my attempts to make each diagnosis from a quack ‘fit’ even if I felt it did not, and of trying to convince myself that I had a good friend when in fact I did not.

I learned that I cannot be a friend by turning blind eye at every jab against me; and that I can do nothing for those who do not care to do for themselves. It is true that you cannot help those who do not help themselves, but it is so hard to witness when they won’t even do it for their kids. Do they realize that their kids are yet developed? And still have much to learn? Why teach them a bad home? Teach them that that is what they should ‘seek’ in their own home when they get older? Claim to put their children first, but only when the advantage is in their favor; I cannot watch it anymore. One uses the children to gain favor, the other  as a crutch for survival. One is an ass and the other just doesn’t ‘get it’ yet; one will never change because they seek only for themselves whereas the other has a chance, but when will they take it? I hate to see it be too late. I hinder progress if I continue to enable either.

I own my words. What I say, I mean. What I say, is truth in my eyes; if you see differently, show me otherwise, but I will no longer believe every word I hear. It will be difficult because I want to believe in the good of man, but every time I ‘forget’ the past, I doom myself to repeat it. I strive to avoid the loop that a paradox creates; the paradox that even if they soothe the soul, they also bring it sorrow because they do not strive to better themselves. Why should they? Everyone else will either bend or provide; the shame of it is really that they cannot truly be happy–merely a shadow of happiness. True happiness is a wonderful delight and I have enjoyed it many times; I want to enjoy it always. Long has it been since they have shown that they are friend let alone the best; and too long have I turned blind eye. I am tired of being friend to many and having little be friend in return; why has the world turned this way? Or have I just turned fool in my picking of friends since moving to the VA?

Whatever the reason, I stand behind my words. I can back them up and they stand solid. I am tired of talking to a changing head; the differences in mind and opinion and treatment make me crazy, but I am tired of being made crazy. I am tired of falling down the rabbit hole; I get so caught up in it each time that I forget that I am doing the very thing I mean to avoid once again. One of these days soon I will get it right though. I mean to try harder this year. I mean to be an even better me this year. I mean to learn to live with my ADHD but also be a healthy adult emotion-wise as well. I have the head knowledge; it is about action now. I know what I must do; it is about sticking to that plan that always gives me trouble. I know what is good for me; it’s just that the bad is so comforting and more pleasurable. I hate to give false message of abandonment, but I hate even more being used; never should a friend have to feel used by a friend. The idea seems contradictory to the concept of friend in my opinion. And in my opinion, I own my words. I have always been who I have always said I am; it is only that people don’t believe me that they take for granted my words.

My problems lately have been in believing too many words. I set myself up for disappointment believing lies. I want them to be true. I try to twist them to be true, but if you have to stretch the truth to make it true, it isn’t truly true. I know I am being used; I just don’t know which pain hurts more at the moment: being used or losing someone I thought I loved.