May 15
Its 5:30 a.m., so many thoughts are zooming through my head (oh oh beginning of mania?). I’m sneaking a cigarette in the basement, just a few puffs, and am having desja vu. This was the big sin I committed just before I was brought to the mental institution. This and perhaps also thinking I could help save the world.
Now you may be interested in what is going on in my head, and probably many of you will think that that I have gone right off my rocker, but I want to assure you I have not. The things that are happening are just too uncanny for me to ignore. Now I am questioning whether I should show my “book” to anyone? I don’t want anyone to worry about me. Maybe I should just send the first chapter?
I have gotten over my anger with Tom. All it took was a little email asking how I was doing. I am still angry with Dave because both of us have never gotten through misunderstandings by talking about them.
I am even a little angry with Lorraine, my best friend, who I have known since I was 16, because she was giving me a hard time on the phone yesterday thinking my alcohol problem is much bigger than it is, (like I’m going to die from it or get uncontrollable shakes.)
Please understand my problem stems a lot more from being diagnosed with having a mood disorder and put the drinking into perspective. I have, and I am doing something about it.
I am also disappointed with her because she thinks Montreal is not a good place for me. I thought maybe she would like me there? Also because she was sticking up so much for Tom and Dave; believing things that are not true, like I was smoking in the house and sleeping in until noon every day. I promise on my life, I have been doing neither.
And as I have learnt in my Group Therapy sessions, anger is another hidden emotion and I guess right now mine is hurt. When we feel hurt we disguise it as anger.
Oh well, this episode has passed and a few things happened yesterday that are making me believe that everything happens for a reason.
Coincidences are once again falling like rain, and I swear to God, this is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
A strange thing happened this morning. Maybe I am making something out of nothing? I was smoking in front of the kitchen window (Diane and I are allowed to do this) and a little bolt of lightening (it almost looked like a large firefly) zapped on the window screen. I couldn’t figure out what is was until the heavens opened up and there was a huge thunder and lightening storm, so I am assuming it was lightening. Anyway I have never in my life heard lightening sizzle (energy)! So perhaps this is a sign for me, probably to quit smoking (lol) but I know different.
One time on as a perfectly clear blue day, with not a cloud in site a rain shower came down in front of me. At this time I believed it was a sign but what the sign was I wasn’t sure.
I remember now at the time I was writing in my journal. What I had written was something to the effect that I knew what to do with this journal. That perhaps this was a message for me to show Bob (who I was dating at the time) and that I believed these were signals from God; or else if this wasn’t the case, I was totally off my rocker.
After this so many things happened to me that I can not easily explain or write about.
So for the last one year and three quarters, I have believed that I was not in my right mind Now that I am analyzing it maybe, just maybe I was not so crazy after all. This journal entry also happened to be made in one of the last journals I was to keep until now. I would like to get this journal back. I asked Bob to return it but he never has.
Now I am once again second guessing myself and wondering if I should show anyone this. I have already committed to 21 days of being locked up. There is too much for me to do to get my life in order to get committed to a mental hospital once again. Though I must honestly admit that my stay (after the lock down ward – that was for the most part a nightmare) at CAMH was an enjoyable time in my life. We had a great group at the Mood Disorder Ward which we jokingly referred to as Club Meds. So many coincidences happened to me during my stay there. But these are stories for another day.
Well, I just can’t write, right now without a cigarette so I’m sitting on the front porch of my sister’s smoke and coffee in hand. I’m still feeling drained. I slept a lot yesterday; took a three hour nap during the day. I know all these emotions are making me feel this way.
Now I am playing detective again and trying to make sense of all the patterns I’m seeing that for a long time I had been seeing in the way of coincidence or other strange occurrences. I had not thought about many of these things for a long time.
What Happened Yesterday
I talked to Claudia and asked if we could reschedule. Checked my email during the day and there was one from her, the subject being Margot Kidder and going this bipolar route drug free.
During the day Andrew set up my computer. I went through some of the contents that I had dumped into garbage bags. I stumbled upon an old journal of mine that was written during the period of time that I was finally feeling better from my depression. Oh how much as happened to me in this last five years.
Doug had left me the year before. This was such a complete shock to me. I really should have been the one to leave him. He had recently met up with his first love (at the time I didn’t know this was the case ... anyway another long story I don’t want to bore you with). But in the space of one year I was to lose my home, most of all our retirement money (Doug had a gambling problem and put the whole thing in Nortel without telling me) my dog , Patty, who had to be put to sleep, my independence (I was living with Diane and Brian and the triplets) unemployed, Oakville, a neighbourhood and friends that I loved, half my furniture, my trust in men, my ability to get a good nights sleep, and a whole lot of weight (that was the good part).
Anyway I am getting off track once again.
During the day I also watched the View. Lately it has become somewhat of a ritual for me. I do enjoy that outspoken woman, Rosie and her ideals. During the program she showed a picture of a bunch of flowers she had received from her dear friend, Tom Cruise. Well Scientology and religion have been of interest to me of late.
I started second guessing my opinion that Scientology was a crazy far out cult. Aren’t they all? And I also started wondering if maybe what these people are following is not so crazy after all?
Later on in the day I opened up Claudia’s email. It was a story from the Globe and Mail. The article follows:
Lois Lane returns
In 1996, a public meltdown made her the poster girl for mental illness. But after a decade of orthomolecular psychiatry, Margot Kidder says the controversial therapy has freed her mind
From Monday's Globe and Mail
May 14, 2007 at 1:42 AM EDT
‘I've had quite a few romances with really great men, more than most people perhaps, and I don't miss them at all,” confesses Margot Kidder, punctuating her candour with an old-lady cackle. “I'm at a different phase of my life now.”
The Canadian-born actress who shot to fame in the late Seventies as Lois Lane in the Superman movie franchise has more than one saviour these days.
One is middle age, which serves as her cloak. Much of the glamorous thrice-married-and-divorced star, who counted Pierre Elliott Trudeau among her lovers, is hidden beneath a healthy weight gain, loose, comfortable clothes, a curtain of long auburn hair and large horn-rimmed glasses.
At 58, Ms. Kidder feels liberated from the expectations of others. “In middle age, you walk into a room and you don't exist, and so you go, ‘Wait a minute. I had this identity as this hot young babe.' You have to re-envision yourself, and I've loved it. You can be who you are and say what you think without thinking, ‘Is this going to make me less attractive as a female and am I batting my eyes enough at the guy?'”
Actress Margot Kidder and Abram Hoffer, whose dietary plan and supplements helped manage Ms. Kidder’s bipolar disorder, view her infamous psychotic break as something that was ‘very good for the whole world.’ (Simon Hayter for The Globe and Mail)
The only man she occasionally turns to gaze at fondly is Abram Hoffer, president of the International Schizophrenia Foundation, who sits at the head of a small table in a downtown Toronto hotel where we meet.
He is her other saviour, a 90-year-old Superdoc in a crumpled tan suit, who has plucked patients from the grip of mental illnesses for over 40 years through the use of controversial orthomolecular psychiatry – a belief that the cure is in balancing or correcting a patient's biochemistry.
By following his advice on supplementing her diet with a tailor-made regimen of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes, hormones and essential fatty acids – and no longer taking any pharmacological drugs – Ms. Kidder says she has freed herself of the manic depression she suffered all of her life and that caused her embarrassingly public meltdown in 1996.
Found on the streets of Los Angeles in a paranoid state, her hair hacked off and without her dental plate, Ms. Kidder, who had gone off her medication, became the poster girl for mental illness.
Shortly after, she visited her family in Vancouver and visited an acupuncturist who recommended she see Dr. Hoffer, an alternative-medicine pioneer who was born on a Saskatchewan farm in 1917 and likes to call his star patient Margie.
The two now keep in touch and regularly speak at conferences, including a recent one on nutritional medicine in Toronto, presented in part by the International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine.
Asked if she sees her infamous psychotic break as a good thing, Ms. Kidder answers initially with her cackling laugh, while Dr. Hoffer intones softly that “it was very good for the whole world.”
But there is little conversation that she shies away from and so, after a pause, Ms. Kidder leaps right in with her straightforward gaze, her hands on the table, palms face down and sliding back and forth across the smooth surface, as if she wants to brush away any crumb of misunderstanding.
“I had to look at the fact that I was an actress and you're not allowed to get fat,” she says, leaning into the table. “I would go for one month on hard-boiled eggs and grapefruit and black coffee and then I'd have tequila and hot dogs for a week. There was no food in my brain, and thus it didn't work.”
Fame was not to blame. “Whether I'd been working in a bank or working as an actress, it would have been the same experience. It's my body.”
But some people find the manic phase of the illness highly creative. Did it ever help her in her work as an actress?
“I would say that an enormous number of people in the arts could be called bipolar,” she responds. “But these labels are very destructive. Human beings aren't labels. They're complex things of mind, body, soul.”
She and Dr. Hoffer then fly off together on a long digression about the malevolence of the medical establishment, talking more to each other than to me.
Ms. Kidder: “Doctors pathologize so many simply human feelings. Now, people in a state of grief automatically take an antidepressant.”
Dr. Hoffer: “When I started in psychiatry, there were 30 or 40 diagnostic terms. Now there are three or four hundred.”
I try to turn the conversation back to her.
“Why don't you just listen to Dr. Hoffer?” she snaps with the annoyance of a schoolmarm.
They soar off again.
“The great tragedy of Dr. Hoffer's work is that until the last few years, people turned to it not as the first line of defence, but when they were at the end of their rope,” Ms. Kidder puts in.
“There's this statement that if you treat someone who is sick [with drugs], you have two problems,” adds Dr. Hoffer, who is the author of several books and maintains a private consultancy in Victoria. “Treat the illness and then treat the results of the treatment.”
“Nobody has ever died from taking too many vitamins,” Ms. Kidder coos as she peers fondly at her hero through her owlish glasses.
Turning to me, she instructs: “Nobody can make a lot of money off anyone getting well naturally, but they can make trillions of dollars getting well off synthetically made drugs.”
I am still wondering how her bouts of mania and depression affected her work.
“I am as good an actress sane as I was crazy, okay?” she says with a forced smile of perfect teeth.
Does she ever wonder if they affected her marriages?
“It's hard to say,” she allows, relaxing a bit. “Generally, my experience is that you have long periods of being like anyone else and then you have episodes where you are a mess. So, I can't say whether my first marriage [to writer/director Thomas McGuane, the father of her only child, Maggie] fell apart because of manic depression or if it fell apart because we were both too self-centred and egomaniacal to be able to compromise with each other,” she says, laughing at her assessment of herself.
Ms. Kidder luxuriates in the comfort of her middle-aged skin. A long-time resident of Livingston, Mont., she “gets paid enough from acting to make a living” and likes to spend time with her dog and two grandchildren who live nearby.
“I don't think any of us who do this [orthomolecular treatment] are so silly as to assume that vitamins are going to cure you from life. You're going to get some body blows that just happen,” she says as she turns to Dr. Hoffer, who smiles at her benevolently and nods his bald head in agreement. “That's just called living,” she concludes calmly, still looking at him.
And I thought the job of reporters is to inform us of the news. Obviously, Sarah Hampson had her own agenda. This article could have been a lot more flattering but to me it made me think that the purpose of this was to make Ms. Kidder look like a kook. See how the media may put damaging information out there. This has been one of my huge beefs with the world.
- Lois Finlay from Guelph, Canada writes: Interesting article. It's too bad that Ms Hampson seemed to find it necessary to cast both Lois Lane and her doctor in the light of being just a little loopy because of the help she had found in non-pharmaceutical healing. What does it take to convince people that this kind of therapy, while not always the answer – sometimes is! I am left thinking that if Ms Lane had taken a 'wonder drug' and given the same kind of testimony, it would have received a whole lot more respect. Do the drug companies have to profit for the rest of us to think a cure is valid?
Disappointed - Posted 14/05/07 at 11:12 AM EDT | Alert an Editor | Link to Comment
- You (Lesa Theriault, from Toronto, Canada) wrote: I agree very much with the first comment. I suffer from Bi-polar disorder. My diagnosis was not quite two years ago. During this period I have been given pills for psychotic episodes, (I gained 8 lbs in a week with this one), anxiety, depression, and ones that no one knows how they work, but are suppose to control my moods. Every time I see my shrink she talks to me for 10 - 15 minutes and then hands me a prescription, often including one more additional medication. Our medical system does not cover the expense of these pills (over $300 a month currently) nor does it cover a therapist, something I think would help more than anything. Currently I am unemployed ( finding a job when you are middle aged, and left the last one suddenly because you were hospitalized for a mood disorder - even though I had a perfect track work record from the time you were 16 - has proven to be impossible). I have gone from a size 8 to a size 14 in one year, so health issues are also a concern and have lived the gypsy life for the last two years, because not only did I lose my job, but also my home, boyfriend, and respect of many people. So from my point of view the answer definitely is not in a pill but in being treated in a humane manner. If I could follow the same course as Margot Kidder I would, but because of all the drug advertising and because the medical community pushes drugs, I can't even consider it as I would then be going against my families wishes. Disappointed II
- Bobby K from LoveSpace, Canada writes: I don't always read Ms. Hampson's interviews, but I find she is generally harder on women, that are more critical and judgemental, don't know why.
She also has this habit of implying her opinion and judgements, instead of coming right out and stating them.
Why don't you just say that Ms. Kidder treats her doctor like a guru?
Why do you have to write with such a sarcastic smarmy tone of voice?
You haven't been there Ms. Hampson, you don't know what you are talking about. - Posted 14/05/07 at 8:23 PM EDT | Alert an Editor | Link to Comment
- sted 14/05/07 at 8:13 PM EDT | Alert an Editor | Link to Comment
Ok, so perhaps you say these kind of coincidences happen all the time but what I am thinking is this: Ms. Kidder not only mentions that we can be cured in other ways than taking a whole lot of drugs that a whole lot of pharmaceutical companies are making a whole lot of money off of, but she also mentioned that there are probably a whole lot of people in the arts that have bipolar. So in my mind I am adding this up
BIPOLAR + DRUGS + TOM CRUISE + SCIENTOLOGY + TOM’S DISDANE OF PHYSCIATRY + ROSIE’S COMMENTS REGARDING DRUG COMPANIES = SOMETHING FURTHER TO INVESTIGATE.
By the way my brother in law, Brian’s mother (Diane’s husband, father of the triplets) also had been diagnosed with having manic depression; another co-incidence, but one more highly probable because there are estimated to be 1/100 people to have this disorder. Diane feels she died because she stopped taking her Lithium after partial kidney failure, became manic then extremely depressed and was hospitalized. In the hospital she was so depressed that eventually her body shut down completely.
A statement also made in this article is that no one ever died from taking too many vitamins. So maybe Tom Cruise is not crazy after all but actually does know what he is talking about when it comes to psychiatry.
Now if that isn’t enough for one day, sometimes all this wondering is tiring, I watched CNN as I usually do every evening and what is the first half hour about: (all of this is easily verified) but about Scientology!
Do do do do do … strange, co-incidence, God wink, or just some statistic that is probable, I don’t know, but what I do know is these messages are giving me hope that maybe my life will not be purposeless. And if this makes me crazy so be it.
Still am not sure if I should breathe a word of this to anyone.
I recently saw a video on UTube of a reporter screaming his head off at a Scientology spokesperson, or P.R. guy or whatever they call them. This interviewer looked like a complete fool. The spokesperson really kept his cool and definitely came out as the winner of the “debate”.
This is some of the information I garnered from the episode. Without going into full details:
Anderson Cooper interviewed another Scientologist, one who left the Group recently because of some “technical????” differences.
- Scientology is now opening up it’s doors more
- They have a history of keeping things hidden from the general public
- There have been changes to their overall philosophy
- There is some top secret document kept hidden in some vault underneath crop circles that can only be seen from the air
- They will do anything in their power to dispel negative publicity
- They are not accepted as a real religion (which is suppose to be everyone’s right in the US according to their Constitution) but often are seen as a cult, one that includes brainwashing (like any religion in the world does not try and do this!)
Other things, but right now I can’t remember, except for on one big huge one:
- THEY THINK THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR SAVING THE WORLD
And what in my manic state and is something I have I heard about often through other people who have experienced mania is what we want to do: Help save the world! And boy did people look at me like I had really gone off my rocker when I even mentioned that we could do more.
Maybe that Ron L Hubbard also had bipolar disorder. That would fit into a lot I read about his life.
So other pieces to the puzzle:
+ BIPOLAR DISORDER
+ DRUGS
+ MARGOT KIDDER
+ TOM CRUISE WHO IS A SCIENTOLOGIST WHO DISAGREES WITH THE PSYCHIATRIC COMMUNITY
+ THE VIEW AND ROSIE O’DONNEL’S VIEWS
+ ROSIE ALSO SUFFERS FROM DEPRESSION
+ SCIENTOLOGY
+ RON L. HUBBARD
+ DISDAIN OF MEDIA OF BOTH SCIENTOLOGISTs AND ME
+ WE FEEL WE ARE RESPONSIBLE OR NEED TO TAKE PART IN SAVING THE WORLD
= WHO KNOWS WHAT …? BUT I’M INVESTIGATING FURTHER
Bipolar person of the day: Margot Kidder
What to be grateful for: GODWINKS
PINK FLOYD: WISH YOU WERE HERE
May 16
Just when I think how can circumstances keep going at breakneck speed they rev up even more? Another strange and exhausting day yesterday.
I have much to write about and feeling almost rushed to do it. I would like to either have a pill or a drink to calm me down but I know neither is good for me so for now I will smoke my cigarettes, drink my coffee (as if either one will make me feel relaxed or is good for me).
Where to start?
Yesterday was very busy. After writing in my journal I had a good conversation with Diane. I am glad we are back to being caring sisters. We have had our difficulties in the past, but we have gone through a lot together. Anyway she has a beautiful life right now and I am happy for her and have only wished in the past she had not have been so worried about me. Because when it comes down to it that has been the crux of our problems.
Diane thinks the move to Montreal is a smart one and she also feels that she hasn’t seen me looking so much like me (not physically .. she also joked that she guessed it was time to throw out the box of size 4 clothes … but I’m not: I like to dream big or in this case small) than she has in a long time. Carol and she could not make it to the “significant other” support group that evening because of family obligations.
I had my P.D. appointment at 1:30 yesterday afternoon. Diane had a hair appointment so could not drive me there, but she left me money to take a taxi and insisted I take it. Something I hate to do, but if it will make her feel better; and they also happen to be quite well off so I know this is not a hardship. But still it is hard to take charity.
Getting off track once again. I tried to organize things a little now that I will be staying here for a bit, but I started getting frustrated because I can’t find many things, like my makeup, laptop plug, etc. Anyway, I am watching the View right now, as this is now my routine so I am giving myself a break to chill out for awhile. I’ve missed quite a few days of Rosie’s Blogs, and would like to catch up today.
Another intriguing show for me. The topic I was most interested in was pharmaceutical companies. I will have to add this one to my list of clues, if I haven’t already. The topic once again I am paying attention to is how pharmaceutical companies are very powerful and have too much clout with government, especially in the USA.
Texas was going to introduce a law where every teenage girl had to receive inoculation against STDs, which they feel may lead to cervical cancer. This drug is relatively new and the long term effects have not been tested. But I gather the Governor of Texas, Jim Perry, was in cohorts somehow with a Pharmaceutical Company (can’t remember all the details) who also coincidentally were financially backing Mr. Perry. More for me to investigate. I gather Rosie was outraged and brought this to the attention of the public and quietly the law did not come to pass. How can and why does government pass these laws? Remember the thalidomide babies.
There is also some concern that the increase in autism is because of vaccines that were introduced before the long term effects were known.
The other question I have is why does the U.S. pay double what we pay for drugs, and I already think what we pay for drugs is highway robbery. I would be very interested to find out exactly how much money goes into the research and development of drugs and how much goes into other coffers.
Anyway today I needed to let my mind rest. I also have to learn how to live my life balanced. I can not get caught up in this too much and become obsessed once again. I can not try and save the whole world. This is just way too much for one middle aged, overweight, bipolar, alcoholic to handle. First I have got to try and save me.
Diane and I had another long conversation where I told her the events of yesterday. I don’t know why I’m finding this so tiring but I am.
I took a taxi for my P.D. visit at 1:30. I explained in a nutshell what has been happening in my life. Prior to this, I should add, she quite nastily asked me who had been prescribing my meds. According to her file the last time I had been there was November. Guess she lost the record of my last visit and it took a bit to convince here that I had seen her sometime after that. Yes, even Dr’s make mistakes. Now what I can’t understand is how she made such a huge mistake in what her advice was for me.
I knew sitting in the office that what she was telling me did not make sense but I didn’t question it because I’m sure as lots of us do, we usually just follow Dr’s orders, and also those orders sounded quite appealing to me.
I am so emotionally exhausted right now I have to relax today. Not think about anything and try to avoid feeling stress. It’s been a little too stressful lately. Not good for us bi-polars.
Bipolar Person of the Day: Robin Williams
What to be grateful for: TELEVISION
May 17, 07
Today I am sitting out on the front porch (in my p.j.s but they do look like sweats) coffee and cigarette in hand, and I am feeling mad. Anger filled my thoughts last night after I allowed myself time to relax for the most part of the day. I was emotionally drained. All I wanted to do was watch television and get lost in some unreal world. I finally got caught up in “Lost”. It was a great episode.
But watching T.V. can also be dangerous because we sometimes do get the truth, usually inadvertently, and sometimes the truth can make me feel angry. So, as I have come to find out, anger is a mask for other feelings. And now I am trying to analyze mine. Perhaps it’s just frustration. I’m frustrated that in people’s good intentions and sometimes very bad intentions, they are creating so much damage.
Oh I can feel a very long journal entry coming on and most likely it will once again exhaust me, but will also get out of some of my pent up feelings.
I have not “allowed” myself to have these feelings for so long now, that they are bubbling up in me and need to be released or I will explode.
Thank God I have found …
(Just watching the triplets go off to school. They’re great kids. Maybe the world will be in better hands? )
Lauren, who I think has some very special talents to offer the world, is a lot like me. Should we not be allowed to feel like maybe we do have something to offer the world without having to feel we are self centered, egotistical, crazy, bipolar dreamers, who are the laziest people in the world because we dance to a different drum and take the time to question and find out about the world?
Watching the news, reading or talking about spiritual or religious views, politics, and above all God winks, has been a no, no for me. No wonder I drank. Trying to squash all those feelings and now that I have “allowed” myself to think these thoughts, and am no longer hiding them in a bottle, they are all rising to the top. They are pouring out of my brain, and it’s feeling very good, a release, but it is draining.
Time to get my 2nd cup of coffee and have my third cigarette. I’m not contemplating any of what I have been writing. I just write whatever pops into my head, and for some reason I feel like I’m getting some guidance. Another big no no thought for me!
Oddly enough, or is it, I have just found some papers in this journal and they are tips on how to handle anger.
“Your feelings are important. Try to explore what the feelings are underneath the anger. You are entitled to get angry. Learn to speak up. Anger is a human emotion. It’s how to express yourself that’s important.”
So here goes, what I am angry about today.
Guess I should finish where I left off yesterday.
#1: I am angry with my P.D., or my no longer P.D.
As I was mentioning yesterday, I can not believe the advice she gave to me. I explained about entering Jean Tweeds rehab program, moving to Montreal, and in a nutshell (our visit was only 15 mins. long) what had been going on in my life. Also my main concerns about the water retention and all the weight I have gained!
#2 Weight:
I am angry at society for, as I recently heard, having this huge social stigma - namely overweight people. If we are overweight we are immediately seen as lazy or unlovable, or unattractive human beings. In our culture anyway. It is one of the biggest curses I have felt throughout my lifetime. From the time I was a child (and honestly I was a pretty cute kid but went through some chubby stages), I was ridiculed about my weight. I was not “popular” until I turned 15, lost the baby fat, and if I do say so myself, became one of the prettiest girls in the school. And I would never say this about myself other than the fact that I was told so often. This left me feeling very confused and I see now how it inadvertently affected me. How unimportant this should be unless it is because of or is causing health problems.
Look at the problems we are seeing now with so many eating disorders. I love the Dove campaign. Finally someone in the advertising business that can see how they can market to the not so “perfect” people of the world.
How can anyone think those woman with stick legs and bones sticking out of their skin are attractive. I look at them and I feel fear. Fear for women who are so brainwashed into thinking you can never be too thin, and all your self-worth is based on how you look.
I have three very close friends who have daughters that have gone through serious/life threatening eating disorders, anorexia. How is that for statistics?
So needless to say, this weight gain, that I am thinking people think is because I am not taking care of myself is a huge issue for me. It makes me feel deep down and not so deep down, because obviously this is the truth, I will never find a partner. It also makes me feel that people look at me differently, and trust me they do.
So back to beef #1
When I say to my P.D. that I can no longer afford to buy a new wardrobe every month, and she confirms that the three pills I am on all make you gain weight, and when she tells me to immediately stop taking all of the medication all I am thinking is thank you, thank you (I even said it to her), maybe now I will be able to lose this weight. Saving $300 a month also sounded appealing. However, I didn’t want to stop my Seroquel because it helps me sleep. I mentioned this to her and she says ok take the Seroquel only.
Now I know from everything I have read, from personal experience, and the experience of other people I know, that this is a very dangerous thing to do. It can either spiral you into a deep depression or mania.
So how could she possibly give me such bad advice, and no new prescriptions to boot? Not even for the Seroquel. When I realized this and went back to her office she looked at me angrily and said don’t you have enough left? She then went into her office and wrote me out a 1 month prescription.
Hey, it wasn’t my fault she misplaced, or someone misplaced the notes from my last visit. And that brings me to
Beef #3: Why can’t some Dr.’s admit they can make a mistake?
Or that the medical profession is the only truth. How many non-pharmaceutical cures are seen as bogus, kooky, dangerous and also very importantly not covered by government health programs or mentioned in Dr.’s or P.D.’s offices.
Case in point, herbal cures. Now I’ve already mentioned the route Margot Kidder has taken and the synchronicity about this. Well here is another co-incidence for you.
Yesterday, when all I was thinking is today I don’t need another God wink to make be believe in synchronicity, my sister Diane hands me the following article.
“The Road to Hope” this article appears in this months Chatelaine issue and speaks for itself. If anyone is interested you can find out more by typing in EMPowerplus; it is a fascinating article, and even CAMH supports it. “In my capacity in the CMGA I witnessed dozens of people, who after years of frustration with conventional treatment methods, experience phenomenal results with Empower plus”, says Ron Lajeunese, retired executive director of the Alberta division of CAMH. Does it work for everyone? No, says LaJeunesse, but no psychiatric drug does. However, for those in whom supplements works, “why would anyone want to deny them that?” he asks.
The article goes on to say:
“Like all mental illnesses, bipolar disorder is difficult to treat successfully. More than one in three patients admitted to hospital for mental illness will be rehospitalized with in the same year, according to CAMH”.
I have done a lot of searching and have yet to see anyone who does not have problems with their meds. We need to investigate every avenue possible.
I have also seen Dr’s ego’s cause so many problems. Beverly, who was like a 2nd mother to me, died because some Dr. couldn’t admit he was wrong.
One Dr. once told me I was most likely dieing (I was around 20 at the time) because of some symptoms I had told her about. She didn’t even take one blood test. Can you imagine the fear I felt. Anyway, thank God for Beverly, who was a nurse and sent me to see her Dr. Glick. He refused to take any tests, because there was absolutely nothing to worry about. He told me I had a better chance of getting hit by a bus when I left his office.
I can go on and on but most likely we all have experienced this one way or another. Dr.’s are not Gods and need to be questioned.
So to continue where I left off in my spewing, after visiting my P.D. visit during the two hour travel to get to my assessment session at the Jean Tweed Center, I had a lot of time to think about what a huge mistake it would be for me to go completely off my meds. Sometimes there are just more important things than being a size 14.
Just came back from buying more cigarettes. I’ve gone from ½ a pack a day to a pack. This brings up another beef of mine.
Beef #4: Why are tobacco companies allowed to continue producing such highly addictive, harmful products?
I will tell you that I have quit for year,s many times, but this is the number one thing I reach out for in times of turmoil. And believe me quitting smoking, for me anyway, is much more difficult than quitting drinking. I think we all know why. The almighty buck.
So this leads me into
#5: Beef – Not more than a month ago a teenager went out at Virginia Tech shot to death 33 innocent victims. The worst massacre by any one individual in all its history.
Why was this individual allowed to purchase weapons, despite the fact that he had been hospitalized for psychiatrist problems? I have read how he was probably a paranoid either psycho or bipolar individual (don’t we already have a bad enough reputation) and this is why he did it! My god, people wake up. Why was he allowed to purchase a gun?
My views on any type of violence are something I would also like to scream out. But the crux of the matter is violence begets violence and it will never end unless someone is willing to give up the violence part and take care of our problems in a more humane way. Are there not better ways than killing each other?
Well I guess you get my mood right now.
So to continue on with my story. I went to my session and was in a group of about 10 women and we were filling out the forms together with the help of one of the therapists who is also the in-take co-ordinator, Avril, a reformed drug addict who I already know I will love.
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