Interesting article.

It was difficult never having a mental illness then all of a sudden having one at the age of 42 after losing my career & having a total break down right around the time a major earthquake happened & destroyed the valley I had lived in most of my life. I had moved farther out a few years before the earthquake hit the it collapsed the road that was my only way to get to work that was 1 1/2 hours away on a normal days drive. I had already been dealing with burn out that wasn't going away before that I was taking medical leave of absence after new years to see if I couldn't get myself back together....feeling like that topped off with the earthquake was my breaking point & the long drivenafternthencompany relocated had added to it along with having had to transfer out of my technical computer department. I was not happy with my situation at work.

Insurance forced me to get a T & a PDOC when my GP said it was not a physical issue that she could care for. Pdoc & T couldn't figure out what in the world was going on or how to treat me. Pdoc went for meds that I had serious & horrible reactions to & triggered the stress I was already experiencing into anorexia which added a whole other level of "what in the world is going on with her".

I just kept getting worse not better then add a workmans comp case I decided to try for on top of that (court anything is guaranteed to make anyone worse not better). Then started suicide attempts which left everyone scratching their heads. Insurance force me to go to UCLA med center psych ward to see if they could figure me out. Absolutely NO ONE including myself really understood all the dynamics that were contributing to my condition. It was like "she is just overreacting to the loss of her career". They got the depression & the anxiety & the anorexia but they didn't get what was the real cause of that or why it was getting worse. I mean I had started taking riding lessons, bought my first horse that I had wanted all my life. I got a wonderful little eskie dog & started training & showing him then got another & started breeding when she was 2 so I was surrounded by adorable baby puppies.....really how could my life be so bad that I was continually attempting suicide & not the kind that was just for attention, they were the real deal & I was serious since I still did it after the pdoc said he would quit treating me if I did it one more time....I didn't care because I never planned to be around to care. Tontopnthat off I was having horrible continuous migraines that made me not want to live either.....& I was sick & tired of being a psych med guinea pig.

T & pdoc both said I was way too intelligent to be having the issues I was having & the reactions to the loss of career I was experiencing & honestly during most of this time it was like a black hole in my life that I only have fleeting memories of things that happened between Jan 1994 & Jan 2003. Had tons of medical issues during that time along with a neck fusion I barely remember.

I started going to a new pdoc when I was hospitalized one time. I remember being unhappy about the med situation & told staff I wanted a new pdoc assigned to me. They suggested I talk my issues through with him & they let him know that we were going to have a discussion. It actually turned out great & he listened & we worked through the issue of my having horrible side effects & that some other solution than meds needed to be found.

I don't know but he seemed to respect that I had been a degrees professional & was capable of sitting down & having a logical discussion because we came away from that discussion both respecting each other in a way I hadn't before.

Everyone bynthatntime had just settled on the fact that I had major depression reoccurant along with major anxiety & that was actually the diagnosis that my first pdoc had applied for disability for me with & there was absolutely no question or denial & their psych review people foe disability agreed.

I hadn't been in therapy since I had lost that first pdoc but after one hospitalization that was due to abuse on my H's part though the abuse was really both of us having enough of each other with my having had enough first & probable initiating what came down from there.....but T was required after leaving the hospital along with 6 months of out patient hospital groups.

With all that going on & by then feeling horribly trapped in my bad marriage that had really been bad from the start....all the therapy in the world doesn't help if you aren't dealing with the REAL underlying issue...which instill didn't link with the bad marriage because I had lived in it for well over 25 years & being angry at my H for his stupid behavior had just become my norm

So chat therapy which was useless & a pdoc that really did work on alternate treatments than meds was the new hamster wheel I jumped onto. No solutions.

It wasn't until I left & moved totally away & went to a new T who I was only able to afford for a few months but he realized that I had not only gone through the trauma With the home care person when my mom was dying of cancer but that the loss of my career & the earthquake & even living in my marriage were traumas that I had lived through & with & he was the first one to suggest the possibility that I had been living with a H who was ASD, not just the adult ADD he had been formally diagnosed with. Though he couldn't formally give the dx because my H wasn't here, he took the information about the IRS debt & his actions surrounding that along with many other descriptions I gave & he was pretty sure that describes the struggle I had lived with for so long that created traumatic situations I had to deal with. Wow was that a lot to grasp. All of a sudden it wasn't me that had been reacting so wrong to my environment but in many ways my reactions were normal for what I had gone through. By then depression & anxiety had become more controlled once I got out of that living environment & what I was dealing withnatnthentime was the current PTSD.....but I couldn't afford to continue treatment. It took me almost 2 more years to find the wonderful T & then the DBTgroup & I never did go to a pdoc because I wasn't about to take any meds living alone & not knowing what kind of reaction I might have alone in my own home out in the country. All OT the ones here in Ky just went with the depression, anxiety & the new PTSD Dx's I came here with but the awesome thing was that I finally got REAL treatment & we finally could get down to the REAL CAUSES of what I was dx'ed with & treat the causes not just the symptoms......finally 16 years after I first started having issues.

Honestly I don't think if they had known the REAL CAUSE that it could have been treated. I had separated on & off over those years from my H but being trapped in the environment with nonfinancialnway out there was nothing they could have donentonhelp me resolve the situation I felt so trapped in. It felt more like emotional abuse but it didn't fit all the points either so a shelter was no better than just going to my moms home & staying there.

I honestly can't blame any of the mental health professionals for not doing more or knowing more. Sometimes crap it what it is until it takes a more definite shape. We aren't always ready to deal with anything until that point anyway because our mental state isn't always open to help when we need it most & they can't FORCE help on us.....the only help that works is when our T's can guide us into LEARNING what we need to do to take care of ourselves in the situations that are truly causing us the distress.

I have realized this 23 years later & being able to compare good & not so good treatment & my own state of mind & my environment. It is ALL important when it comes to our healing.