Posted by Atticus on July 14, 2004, at 8:48:22
In reply to Re: Does Effexor work » Atticus, posted by PoohBear on July 13, 2004, at 19:22:43
Tony and lorily,
I really appreciate your kind words and encouragement. The chaotic day of the suicide attempt (June 2) now seems almost surreal, like something that happened in a dream or to someone else. When I catch sight of the three long scars on my left wrist and forearm in the shower, it's now difficult for me to imagine the mindset that put them there, or dialing 911 as I started to get lightheaded and faint, or the cops and paramedics showing up, etc.
Tony, you made an especially good point when you described how many people see mental illness as "scary" or something imaginary, rather than as something that has a biochemical basis. When I first started on the med merry-go-round in 1996, I realized that it was affecting my behavior at work. Since I worked at a university, I thought people there might be a little more enlightened about something like this, so I called together my staff and explained exactly what was going on. I did the same with my boss. But unfortunately, what I soon found was that EVERYTHING I did was being attributed to the illness. Everyone has a frustrating day at work once in a while, but even the mildest display of emotion on my part set gossiping tongues a-wagging. They did find it "spooky" -- even frightening on some level, although I never had any outbursts of temper or anything like that. Eventually, I felt so uncomfortable at that place that I switched jobs, and vowed never to let anyone at work know about the illness again, so that I wouldn't be viewed exclusively through that lens. It's similar, I suppose, to how a person in a wheelchair doesn't want to be seen as merely an addendum to the chair. The obvious downside to this is that I started to feel like the depression was some terrible, dark secret, and I had to wage this battle without a lot of the support that people with a non-mental illness can count on; it was just me and my pdoc. I didn't know enough to go looking for a site like this, so I started to feel incredibly isolated psychologically, and saw myself as freakish, abnormal. Post-hospitalization, I've been in an intensive outpatient treatment group, which has really helped, but that ends next Tuesday (by decree of my HMO -- it won't pay for any more sessions). This site is a really helpful place to go now that I'll be going back to just meeting with my pdoc again. I picked the name "Atticus" for this bulletin board because the character says in "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Never judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes." It's nice to know that there are so many people out there who have walked a mile in my shoes, and therefore they can, I think, understand this situation better than my pdoc ever really will be able to. Atticus
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URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040714/msgs/365989.html