Removing the Straitjacket

the white room

here i sit, examining poorly manicured tiles, 

the faces of four other humans in harsh light.

we do not make eye contact, the one who

is about to go into the office and i, for we 

have been here before, we know like old

wise giants that you do not make eye contact

in the waiting room.

she is called, and she vanishes behind a white door,

it is locked. she begins a litany of complaint,

i do not listen, i understand too the etiquette 

surrounding accidental eavesdropping.

turn your head like a muted cow.

the children she left in the white room with me,

they sit and whisper over there, 

i know that they are laughing at me. at me!

elegantly dressed for my first appointment

at me! ready to take on my “demons”,

supported by the ones who love.

they are silent now, i know that they wait

wait for me to turn my head just a little

and look into their empty, envious eyes.

no i shout at them, gazing into the tiles,

no you cannot have my cigarettes,

no you know that my hair is perfect today

no you don’t know what i am here for

maybe i am waiting for my friend

the receptionist to get off work,

i have only shouted in my mind. they are still

writhing in their seats, laughing with redneck cowardice.

my name is called, they cannot now see me through the walls,

i am safe with the doctor, in a room

with a fallen bookshelf, and superbly place tiles.

-Rebecca Greenlee 7/21/11

Stick Together Now

I’ve said it before and I’m firmly sticking to it.

Us crazies have to stick together.

My fiancé did an outstanding job during my last mood shift when I told her “Babe, I’m not going to ask you for your support with this. I’ve got my friend Rebecca here and she understands and can somehow put into words exactly what I’m feeling, and that makes it a little better. I just want you to try to understand what I’m going through and to wait for me to come back. It won’t be too long.”

Rebecca, she is my fellow crazy. If you have any kind of mental health issue, diagnosed, undiagnosed, treated… whatever… I can not stress enough the value of having somebody in your life who has experienced it as well. There is going to come a day when you can’t talk, you can feel it, you can feel a million different things racing through your mind cutting like a razor but you can’t express it. To have a person look at you, cock their head to the left and say ‘Hey kid, I know what you’re feeling, you can say anything right now and I will absolutely understand…” that is amazing, and saving.

When a single tear swells up in your eye no matter how hard you are fighting it and then finally it falls, lonesome onto your cheek… to have a person wipe it off and look at you, not in pity, not with wonder or confusion but just look at you with love and understanding can add a sense of ease in a mind that is untrustworthy.

To be able to text somebody, randomly at any hour with words that may make absolutely no sense, but you know they won’t judge you because they are crazy too… it has helped me tremendously.

Rebecca, I thank you so much and I am so glad that we found each other in that big government building.  To all of you who are reading this that may have any kind of mental health issue, please don’t forget that it is your duty to pay it forward.

Re: New Psychiatrist

I find the most annoying thing about a new doctor is that if you aren’t having an “episode,” it is pretty difficult to take your own problem seriously. That’s why I like your advice about taking a friend or a family member to remind you that your problem is valid and that just because you had to wait 4 weeks for an appointment and by that time you think you have worked out all your issues and have magically recovered, you still need to accept help. Also, I hate having to repeat my story over and over to different doctors. I hope you get a good one and someone you can trust. I have had the same one for seven years (yes, seven years—it’s a lifetime problem, but now I have been appointment free for about 7 months—finally decided not to mess around with medication when I started feeling better—duh!) Anyway, I will probably always be on medication just like I will always have to eat and sleep, but I have your dad to keep me on track, thank God, and not let me get away with thinking my depression is just temporary. And as far as waiting in psychiatrists’ waiting rooms—I have been in just about every kind you can think of. Hospital emergency rooms with the delirious masses and the elite private waiting rooms with the cool leather chairs and little doorbells to alert the doctor you have arrived. It’s all good. Take care.

new psychiatrist

Tomorrow I have an intake appointment with a new psychiatrist. I had forgotten how nerve-wracking going to a doctor and seeking help for the first time can be. There are so many papers to fill out, financial documents to track down, and so many obstacles in my way.

But it’s important to remember that when you have made that commitment, you have to follow through. There is someone who is willing to help you, there is someone willing to help me, and I need to pull enough strength together to make the 30 minute drive and get my head checked out.

Some things that I have found useful in keeping your chin up when going to a new doctor:

• Tell a friend about it, tell your family about it, their support for your new beginning will help you through any amount of embarrassment, fear, or hesitation you might have. Personally, I keep thinking, “Well, maybe I’m not crazy, maybe I don’t need to go. I have felt okay the last few days.” And it’s important to have people to support you and help you face the fact that something drove you to make the first appointment, and that there is nothing to be ashamed of in seeking help.
• Have a friend, family member, or cuddle buddy go with you. Sometimes the paperwork can be confusing when you already feel awkward or embarrassed in a new and strange place, and they can help you through that. They can help to make sure you understand what you are filling out, and help you laugh in the waiting room. They can give you a hand to hold and familiar face to look at. Waiting rooms for psychologists or psychiatrists are definitely my least favorite part of getting help.
• Treat yourself afterwards. Do something you really enjoy, no matter what it is (well, within reason). Tomorrow after my appointment I am going to buy myself a pretty dress and feel good that I did the right thing in finally seeking help and getting myself back into a routine. It’s good to remember that you are doing something good for yourself, something that might ultimately save you. We all deserve a good treat after we stand up to ourselves and say, “This is something I am sure that I need, and a battle that I admit I have to fight.”

It’s not easy beginning a battle against your head. It can feel like you have been betrayed by your mind, it can feel entirely fruitless at times, it can feel totally wretched when you are playing around with therapy types and medication. But if it helps me to lead a stable life, and helps me to smooth out my rough edges so that I can continue existing in a healthy manner, I am going to fight the battle. 

This battle will last a lifetime for me, And for many others. But we have to remember that it’s important for our family, our friends, and most of all, our selves.

-Rebecca Greenlee

Response to “It’s all in your Head.”

I have heard “it’s all in your head” so many times. Well, duh, of course it’s in my head. That is the damaged part of my body. I have always said I would rather have a limb removed than suffer from depression. At least people would have pity on me, understand those days when I just couldn’t get to work because my prosthesis was in the shop, and I would get a special parking place. The most horrible thing is that people CAN’T see it. They can’t see that place in your brain that makes getting out of bed some days almost impossible. (Some days it is impossible.) I look like a healthy 55 yr-old wife and grandmother, (actually I’m kinda cute). If I could rip out that part of my brain that betrays me on a consistent basis, I would. I always think depression is bi-polar without any of the fun :-) I know that’s not true…just kidding.

An Article

From the Daily Illini at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

http://www.dailyillini.com/opinions/columns/2011/04/19/removing-the-straightjacket-encourages-mental-health

A big thank you to Nathan Couch for helping us to spread the word!

Feb. 25 has special significance for University alumna Rebecca Greenlee. Two years ago on this date, she was trapped in her own mind, on the verge of committing suicide.

Fortunately, Rebecca was able to reach out for help, and after a brief hospitalization, she returned to her life and her struggle against bipolar type II and borderline personality disorders.

“I realized, so many people have anniversaries like this, and they have to do it alone,” she said.

Inspired by this realization, Rebecca set out to connect people struggling with mental illnesses and to create a supportive network where people could share their stories. Removing the Straitjacket was the result. With it, Rebecca said she wants to empower those struggling with mental illness to come out to people close to them and to seek help, a process she calls ‘removing the straitjacket.’

One of Removing the Straitjacket’s hopes is that making mental illness more public will change how people perceive it. Mental illness is heavily stigmatized in our culture. It’s usually associated with deranged murderers or the sublimely genius — not with normal people struggling to lead a normal life.

Part of this struggle is against language. Too frequently, we use accusations of mental illness as insults. “Oh, she’s just being bipolar.” “Why are you being so crazy?” “He’s insane.” All of this only intensifies the struggle against mental illness. It’s hard enough when you think you are broken; it gets even harder when other people use your struggle as slander.

So far, Removing the Straitjacket has remained small, comprised of a Facebook group and a Tumblr blog where people struggling with mental illness share their stories. Rebecca wants to keep it that way. “It’s not an organization,” she said. “There are already enough organizations … this is just people coming together.“

Telling people you have a mental illness can be a scary thing. Rebecca isn’t delusional about what it can mean.

The fear is that if people knew, they would treat you differently. It was this fear that first led her to tell her family and friends. Specifically, an ex threatened to out her to her friends and co-workers. “I thought, ‘No. If anyone is going to ruin my life, it will be me!’” Her life wasn’t ruined. It actually helped to share. She said she realized that more people could be helped by similarly coming out.

Without therapy, Rebecca might not have made it to today. Rebecca encourages anyone who thinks they might be struggling with a mental illness to seek help. There are many excellent mental health facilities on campus; Rebecca made a point in our interview to praise the Psychological Services Center for the help they gave her.

But even with professional help, having a mental illness is like being betrayed by your own brain.

It’s very easy to think you’re trapped and alone. Sharing can help relieve that sense of isolation. However, sharing requires someone to share with.

It’s not a huge commitment; all it takes is a willingness to listen. Of course, that means you must be aware that there is something to listen to. Which isn’t that hard, right?

I think that’s the real value of something like Removing the Straitjacket. As I mentioned in a previous article, it’s often hard to see past our own problems and into the lives of others.

It’s as if we’ve run into a patch of thorns, and the small sharp pain distracts us from the cries of someone being attacked by wolves. By encouraging people to speak out and share, Removing the Straitjacket might enable more people to see the struggles other people face.

Nathan is a senior in LAS

Relationships

When you have a relationship with someone who is mentally ill, you have a relationship with a mental illness, not a person.

So before you punch me, let me start by saying that I DO NOT AGREE WITH THIS! And, if you do agree with this, come here, I would like to punch you…

Let’s dive into what this is saying… If you have a mental illness, you don’t exist. Yea… No. This is part of the stigma against mental illnesses that we are trying to break. The general public, for the most part does not understand that this is not true. To say that a person who has a mental illness is completely controlled by that illness and has no real personality is like wearing a sign that says “I’m an idiot.”

So, to break that stigma, I’m going to have to do a quick mental illness 101 here. Each illness is different, has its own symptoms and effects on the human brain. It would have to be an extremely worse case scenario for a mental illness to completely consume a person 100% of the time and for that person to essentially cease to exist outwardly. Notice that I said outwardly, that person is still in there somewhere being held prisoner by their illness.

Next, lets talk about dating somebody with a mental illness. I can’t speak for everyone, I can only speak for myself here… BUT…. I am completely aware of when I am having some sort of bi-polar episode. It doesn’t happen often these days but when it does I let my partner know. I let her know what I’m going through, what kind of behavior to expect from me and the best way to get through it. And then we do, we make it through those bumps in the road just fine. Relationships with a person who has a mental disorder are identical to relationships with anyone else. If you are open about who you are, if you provide each other compassion and support, if those lines of communication are open then you can work through the hard stuff.

But it is hard. There are days when the person you fell in love with will be nowhere to be found. That is when you’ve got to ask yourself if the juice is worth the squeeze. Is this person’s good days worth going through her bad? For some that answer will be no, but for at least one, that answer will be yes.

There are tons of good days for people with mental illnesses. We do exist beyond the walls of our disorders. It is just a tiny part of who we are, just like any other disorder that nocks a person down for a few days at a time.

To whoever made this picture, please come forward. I’ve got your sign ready, the one that says “I’m an idiot.” You are obviously one of the MANY people who don’t care enough about people with mental disorders to do 5 minutes worth of research to learn just a little bit more.

My Best Advice

When you open your eyes and all you can see is black; When the world is gone and you can’t even see your face anymore; Just Hold On.

Hold on to your breath.

I know it hurts; even to breathe. But hold on to the knowledge that with every breath you are getting closer to that moment when you finally open your eyes and see a ray of light.

The Sun will rise again; it always does.

<3 Tracy