Mental Health Awareness Month: My TMIpolar Blog

My 2008 bipolar diagnosis suddenly made sense of all the weirdnesses floating around in my head: plunging depressions, paranoias, social anxieties, impulsive behaviors, suicidal ideation, big ideas without consequences alarms, racing thoughts, abject terror in social situations (I once had a full-on panic attack when I opened a party invitation that came in the mail) (remember getting party invitations in the mail?) …

Newly armed with a name for the collective demons I faced, I started fighting back (or at least trying to manage my world) with everything I had at my disposal—which at the beginning wasn't much because my doctor didn’t think I needed medication. So I launched into a homemade cocktail of deep breaths, internal pep talks, more-informed behaviors and decisions, reading everything I could find, looking for a new doctor who might have more powerful (i.e., pharmaceutical) tools for me to use … and the expectation that I might at any moment need to just retreat to the safety of my condo in the sky to regroup and start again the next day.

I also became self-aware enough to start being embarrassed by things I did in public … mostly bouncing around as though I were on fire, being so down I’d no-show at events I promised to attend, and in more than one instance literally running away when someone tried to introduce me to a friend.
So I did what any self-respecting writer would do: I turned to social media to start explaining myself and apologizing for being so damn weird. And to my surprise, I almost immediately started getting understanding, support … and thanks from people in similar situations for being so open about my mental illness and the challenges it brought me.

Eventually someone suggested that I start a blog to document my thoughts, feelings, experiences, and the highs and lows of my journey. So I launched TMIpolar (get it? It’s BI polar but I overshare so it’s TMI polar, which I will go to my grave thinking is one of my most clever linguistic inventions) and backfilled it with everything I’d posted and started filling it with my new adventures.

There is also a book in the works, but the prospect of organizing my thoughts into something approaching legitimate book form is so overwhelming that you shouldn’t start looking for it in bookstores until 2095.

In a weird way to think this is unfortunate, I unfortunately have been so stable in the last few years that I haven’t had much to post about any noteworthy ups and downs of my personal journey. But I’ve aggregated all my Mental Health Awareness Month essays along with other essays/thoughts/reviews/etc on the blog for my own—along with anyone else’s—reference.

 
So check it out and even bookmark it if you want. I’ve spent ridiculous amounts of time organizing things by keywords for your perusing convenience. And I hope it helps (or at the very least entertains) you if you find you need it.

 
Here’s the link for your clicking convenience: TMIpolar.blogspot.com 

Mental Health Awareness Month: NAMI

The National Alliance On Mental Illness (NAMI) is a nationwide organization that provides informational and emotional support for the caregivers who work to keep people with mental illnesses on track and stable—or at the very least it lets the caregivers know they're not alone.

The organization has 1,000 state and local affiliates across all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. To keep it accessible to everyone who needs it, NAMI is funded through pharmaceutical company donations, individual donors, sponsorships and grants.

My parents found a lifeline in NAMI when I was diagnosed as bipolar over a decade ago. Now my mom—a retired teacher, so this is totally in her wheelhouse—has taught classes to help NAMI members better manage the situations they face and has undergone formal training to be a group meeting leader. I'm so thankful for everything my parents and my sister's family have done to support me in my bipolar adventures. NAMI has helped them help me manage my life with a considerable degree of success and relative normalcy.

If you’re interested in learning more or finding a NAMI group to attend, please visit nami.org.

Mental Health Awareness Month: Tardive Dyskenesia

As if mental illness itself weren’t embarrassing and exhausting enough—and as if the spectrum of side effects from psych meds weren’t even more embarrassing and exhausting—along comes tardive dyskenesia. 

Aside from sounding like an antebellum flowering vine, tardive dyskenesia is also a range of involuntary, repetitive neuromuscular movements of the tongue, lips, face, torso and extremities that occur in people treated with long-term antipsychotics and other dopamine-receptor-blocking medications. If you’ve ever stood or sat near me for an extended period of time, you’ve no doubt seen the full compendium of symptoms: grimacing, lip chewing and pursing, heavy blinking, face touching (and I deserve seven gold medals for fighting back the compulsion to touch my face 75 times a minute in the Coronavirus Olympics), arm swinging, leg hitting, rocking, fidgeting, shaking, and—oddest of all—being on tiptoe whenever I’m sitting down. I continue to cringe every time I see video footage of me talking or singing with my lower jaw weirdly askew. My foot also pulses on the gas pedal when I drive, and a number of people have told me it almost makes them carsick when they ride with me.

I’m rather lucky in that my flailing and wiggling are more embarrassing than physically problematic, but about 20% of the population living with the disorder literally can’t function; it can prevent them from walking, eating and even breathing.

And as a point of clarification, these symptoms are the opposite of those from Parkinson’s Disease. People with Parkinson's have difficulty moving, whereas people with tardive dyskenesia have difficulty not moving.

Tardive dyskenesia symptoms can lessen, change or even go away over time after a person stops taking neuroleptic medications, though more often than not they’re permanent. My symptoms have noticeably changed over the last decade, but I’ve traded making alarming sucking sounds on my lips for making an entire room tremble from my violently shaking legs.

There are many medications that can be used to manage the symptoms to varying degrees. After five-plus years of needless misery, I successfully weaned myself off the anticonvulsant Gabapentin, which did or didn't work depending on the way the wind blew and the leg trembled. It also tended to make me drowsy and sometimes even confused, which makes me especially surprised that it’s used recreationally—under the totally lame street name Gabbies—for its supposed euphoric effects that I absolutely NEVER experienced.

One more thing: You may have seen the commercials for the prohibitively expensive tardive dyskenesia medications Ingrezza and Austedo … the commercials where they call tardive dyskenesia “TD” like it’s some cool brand of earphones or energy drink. Dear Ingrezza-makers Neurocrine Biosciences and Austedo-makers Teva Pharmaceuticals: I’ve had tardive dyskenesia for over a decade. I’ve been seeing psychiatrists and neurologists about it for over a decade. I’ve read everything I could read about it for over a decade. I’ve been on medications for it for over a decade. And NOBODY outside of medical publications and pharmacy websites calls it TD. STOP TRYING TO MAKE TD HAPPEN.

Mental Health Awareness Month: Psychotropics

Aside from being an objectively cool band name for people with mental illnesses, psychotropics is an umbrella term for the classes of drugs used to treat mental disorders and control moods, behaviors, thoughts or perceptions.

There are five categories (and multiple subcategories) of psychotropic medications: antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, stimulants, antipsychotics and mood stabilizers. And like many of my fellow mental-illness travelers, I’ve tried damn near all of them.

Here’s a brief rundown:

ANTIDEPRESSANTS, as you might surmise, are used to treat a range of depression symptoms. They include:

• Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which steadily increase the amount of serotonin in your brain. Serotonin is a powerful neurotransmitter that regulates things like mood, sleep, blood clotting and even bowel movements. (Aren’t you glad you know that last part?)
• Selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), which gradually increase the amount of norepinephrine in your brain. Norepinephrine makes you feel awake and alert. After over a decade of trial and error, my doctor finally landed on the SNRI Fetzima as my magic bullet, and aside from a blackout-go-boom-get-concussion on the tile floor a few days after I started it, it’s been a complete game-changer for me.
• Bupropion, which promotes important brain activity and can be used to treat seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or to help people quit smoking.

Antidepressants come with a range of frustrating side effects, including drowsiness, insomnia (how fun to have both!), constipation (more poop stuff!), weight gain, sexual issues, tremors and dry mouth.


ANTI-ANXIETY MEDICATIONS are used to treat panic attacks, phobias, generalized anxiety, and various anxiety-related symptoms.

This class of psychotropics includes beta blockers that help treat the physical symptoms of anxiety, including increased heartbeat, nausea, sweating and trembling.

Because they typically cause drowsiness, some tranquilizers and sleep medications are also used to treat anxiety and insomnia. These tend to be prescribed for only a short time to prevent dependency.

These drugs’ side effects can include nausea, blurry vision, headaches, confusion, fatigue and graphic nightmares. And oh, have I had some doozy graphic nightmares on my find-the-right-psychotropics journey.


STIMULANTS help manage unorganized behavior by improving concentration and providing a general sense of calm. They’re often prescribed for people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Their most notable side effects include insomnia, decreased appetite and weight loss.


ANTIPSYCHOTICS help manage psychosis, which separates people’s perceptions from reality and drowns them in delusions or hallucinations.

Antipsychotics can help people with psychosis think more clearly, feel calmer, sleep better and communicate more effectively. They’re also used to treat ADHD, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and eating disorders.

Their side effects are primarily drowsiness, upset stomach, increased appetite and weight gain.


MOOD STABILIZERS help regulate extreme emotions. They may rob you of feeling the extreme excitement or extreme sadness that everyone experiences—which is my case—but they help manage massive bipolar swings and extreme mood swings, which is a tradeoff I’m happy to live with.

I regularly experience all their usual side effects: drowsiness, weight gain, dizziness, tremors, blurry vision and occasional confusion. I’m especially unhappy with the weight gain, but thanks to an effective mood stabilizer (in my case, the relatively common drug Lamotrigine) I can consistently and reliably participate in everyday living. Even though I have to have a damn Santa tummy to do it.


THE SIDE EFFECTS OF THESE MEDICATIONS can be powerful and overwhelming. There’s one set of side effects that present when you’re ramping up a dosage, there’s another set of side effects that come with daily use of a drug, and there’s another (often excruciating) set of side effects that come with weaning off a drug. Which is why I’ll never understand the mindset that some people get where they decide they feel fine and they’re just gonna stop taking their meds.