Like a sick bird

It is known that when birds are sick, they do everything they can to not appear sick when seen by other animals or birds. When they clearly appear sick to others, that is usually a very dire sign. I think some other animals do the same.

I've written a little bit about feigning wellness in the past in my blog. I know that many people do feign wellness in many circumstances, particularly at work or in front of people they are not closely attached to, like miscellaneous people in public or acquaintances vs. really close friends or loved ones. However, sometimes I feel like I put on a strong face even in front of some people I am close to. Sometimes I even do that when my husband is home, when seeing my therapist, or seeing my psychiatrist. When seeing them, I often seem OK and then when they're gone I'm far from seeming OK. Or they'll only get just a small part of the story.

Sometimes when with other people, I actually do feel a bit better. Sometimes when I'm even home alone I convince myself that I'm better if a moment provides a simple pleasure or I distract myself. And yet, if I really analyze my overall situation, and perhaps look in the mirror, the "not so OK" situation seems clearer. I don't want to scare or concern others, especially if they've had a lot of it in the past. My own acceptance is surely a reason I do that. I just get sick of being unwell. I want to give myself some points for progress, even if it's imaginary. I fool myself sometimes.

I've done the above a lot in my lifetime. When I do clearly show distress in front of others, it is usually quite quite dire. I know that when strangers or people at my past workplaces recognized something was wrong, I was usually in extreme need of psychiatric intervention. I've even been so unwell that I scare myself when home alone. I've finally called for help during extremes.

Do other people do anything like the above-mentioned? Or do you clearly show your mental state/situation accurately at all times? How might I prevent myself from putting on that "feigned wellness" at inappropriate times? I don't want to exaggerate my situation, but I don't want it hidden either. I don't want to let myself seem "too weak", but also not let my situation become too dire before help is sought.

I'm much better now at being congruent but I used to do that I'm fine so well that the only time anyone knew something was wrong because I had attempted suicide. Then anxiety got out of control and I appeared unwell constantly but now I appear as I am, me in all my range of emotions.

I'm pretty good at hiding my emotional pain. I do it because I don't want people to think I'm different. I don't want people to think less of me. I don't want people to feel sorry for me. I want to appear as a "normal" everyday person. My parents and family don't know half the **** I go through and I don't really want them to know so I put on a "everything is ok" face, even if it's not. Even at my worst (psychosis, hallucinations, a delusions) I attempted to hide it from people but by that point it was kind of obvious. The only person that really knows my symptoms and signs and can read me well is my wife and I STILL try to put on a strong face so she doesn't worry about me.

Now that I've had my stroke 3 months ago I'm going through the same kind of thing, but only physically now. I have no feeling in my right arm or leg and right after the stroke I could barely walk and my arm was useless. Hell, I've had to relearn to write and tie my shoes (which I can now tie my shoes on my own... one of my few and very proud accomplishments in the last month might I add). In therapy I fight like hell and I try to hide/mask my pain the therapy is causing. I try to play it off and I'll tell everyone it's really not that bad... when sometimes, it is. I even mask/hide the anger and frustration I feel when I can't even do simple things like fit a peg into a hole or recall words. Everyone tells me it's ok because I had a stroke and that's just part of it. But again, I get so angry with myself that there are times I lock myself in the bathroom and cry so no one sees me all the while trying to play off the strong person that can do anything to overcome these challenges.

So, yeah I do it... both emotionally and physically. I wish I could change that but I can't seem to get past it.

I tend to smile and laugh a lot, so people don't believe me when I say I'm depressed.

Yes, I fake it a lot. I even sometimes fake it with my new pdoc… my old one, too. I tend to fake it in front of everyone. I do not know how to relate the level of my inner turmoil. I am also often in a lot of pain. It frustrates me and infuriates me sometimes.

I tend to look happy go lucky no matter what.
It's all so overwhelming to me, I guess I think others will also find it overwhelming.

Great topic!


WC

Sometimes I do show it in front of H and my daughter. I usually put on a brave face, but one day something while I was in the grocery store checkout line got to me, and it was one thing too much. I remember I abandoned my cart and ran to my car sobbing. I spilled blueberries everywhere trying to get out of there. No one intervened. I sat in my car sobbing and screaming (with the windows closed, car just in park with the AC on). It happened 5 or 6 years ago. I cannot remember what upset me so much. I never told H what had happened to me that day.

Even at home, most of the time I am just putting on a brave face. When I do lose it in front of my husband and daughter, it’s hard. H wants me to snap out of it and get back to what is my “normal” around him and my daughter. If he only knew how hard it is to even cook a meal without burning a thing and remembering to turn on the oven before you stick the raw chicken in and wait 45 minutes for it to cook...These racing thoughts I hate. I hate that I have lost my creativity. I hate that often I make snap decisions without consideration for the consequences. I hate that I can spend so much time panicking. I hate how many pills I have to take. I don’t know, is the real me under there somewhere? But the real me gets horrible suicidal thoughts and cannot sleep more. I either swing to bad mania or depression. I hate having this disorder. Mental illness runs on my mom’s side of the family. My grandfather had something like 10 siblings, and many were alcoholics. My great-grandfather hanged himself. So, yeah, I know where it comes from. The ED not from that though. I think from being sexually molested as a girl and having little control over life with an angry, domineering father.

If H knew how often I dissociate (though most times I can bring myself back, I just can’t control when it starts), he’d freak out. If he could read my mind. “God why did you eat that? I need to fold laundry (proceed to dump clean laundry on the bed) I’m so stupid. I’m going to get fat.what was I doing? Now I’m in the garage. The cat litter needs cleaning. I am worthless. I’m a horrible mom. I didn’t exercise today, stupid! What was I doing before? Let me find a recipe in a cookbook for dinner..”(Glance in bathroom mirror, see bony chest). I need an easy recipe to cook today. Maybe I DO need to gain weight. Oh, there are no more towels in here. Stupid rain! I can’t go running. I am going to wake up weighing more tomorrow morning. Well, it’s your own damn fault. I think I am starting to have a panic attack. I have to get my daughter from school. Where is my cellphone? God, what did I do with the keys? Stupid scale will probably read 5 lb. more tomorrow. I am just worthless. I should have died with that ulcer, stupid keys, where are they!? Oh,look the mail came . I should got through that, but I was doing something important, what was it?” And on and on and on. Two hours later I will see laundry on the bed to fold. That is literally my brain most of each day, which who wouldn’t want to dissociate from that? So H thinks none of my psych diagnoses is a big problem and that I would be better off without meds. I told him once things settle down for us financially, and I feel more secure, I will look to start lowering these meds with a pdoc’s help. Though I won’t give up the dosage of Seroquel I need to fall asleep at night. OMG, it’s a lifesaver to be able to fall asleep so easily when I have struggled with falling asleep my entire life until I got on Seroquel. A Trazodone/hydroxyzine combo did help for a long time, hydroxyzine was added because it took ages for the Trazodone to work, and then I’d feel hungover all morning. Also, it started getting harder and harder for me to fall asleep and not wake up zombified on the dosage of Trazodone I really needed to fall asleep. Seroquel is so much better for me.

The meds usually do help some with racing thoughts, as without them, yes, my thinking actually can and does get even more scattered, and I cannot stay on task. H has no idea how hard it is to put on the “normal” to him, my daughter, other family. H tries but doesn’t understand why I cannot stop it.

I don’t fake a facade with the pdoc. If I don’t tell him, he can’t help me. Though I have found it is very bad to come to a pdoc appt fully manic in her waiting room and office. By that point, I was beyond helping myself. Probably should have gone to the hospital, but H came, promised pdoc he would make sure I was sleeping well on stronger sleep stuff (before starting Seroquel). I slept a lot, and it broke the manic episode. I was WAY beyond stopping that one and right in front of the pdoc. That episode got me a wonderful bipolar I diagnosis.

Thank you, everyone, for your shares on this.

Nammu, I hope I can get closer to where you are on this. I would imagine that is some kind of relief for you. I hope so.

LacunaCoiler, I'm sorry to read that you've had a stroke. I'm glad that you are making some progress in your recovery from it. You seem brave. I know that letting out the frustration and misery can be brave, too.

Downandlonely, I do the same thing, even with therapists I'm not altogether comfortable with. Sometimes I get home from therapy and think that I have totally misrepresented my week to her. Although sometimes my laughter and joking turns into a clear-cut sign of anxiety. One of my past therapists really understood this well. By the end of my most recent therapy session I was having such a time with this that I became discombobulated at the end, dating my check 2015 and making jokes about that, too. I think she sees through out, though.

Wild Coyote, following up on what I wrote just above, do you think your pdocs/tdocs could read beyond the smiles/happy facade?

Blueberrybook, big hugs! From your recent posts I know you are having a very stressful time of it. Please know that it can and will get better. I don't know if this would be of any help to you, but I wrote a blog post once about the avalanche of such stressors and the effects it had on me. If you're interested, that post is at Psychiatric Avalanche Effect – Unraveling the mystery of my past brain quirks – Bird Flight I have had a severe bipolar episode since I wrote the blog post mentioned, but things are overall better in most all of those ways. I'm still on disability, but things are better. Gosh, it takes time to heal! It is frustrating! But there are so many things I'm so happy that I have and always had, even if they were hard to enjoy at certain points. Things that seemed tough to accept, like taking meds and not being that "super woman" that I was at 29 years old, I now accept. We are STRONG people! I used to see myself as having grown so weak, but I now know many people never have to live through such hardships and many live through even harder ones.

I'm glad that you are so open with your pdoc. I've been seeing mine for 15 years. I am, or if I'm not 100% open, I think he now knows me well enough to figure that out.

My husband has always tried very very hard to keep me out of the hospital. Sometimes too hard, I think. Sometimes just the right amount. I had 10 hospitalizations between ages 34 and 38, then none since (I'm 57 now) even though I've been quite ill at times, including with psychotic mania. Luckily, I have found a good medication mix that my psychiatrist manipulates. That cuts severe episodes short. Kisses and hugs to my medications! I luv ya! I also have to give huge thanks to my last two therapists. The huge progress I have made would not have been possible with medications alone. Not by a long shot! I hope you find a really good therapist, Blueberrybook. Don't settle for anything less.

I think my old pdoc could see through a lot. We had worked together for 20+ years. I am concerned about how I am coming across to my new pdoc though. I see her again tomorrow and will try to be more up front.

My old primary care knew me well, too. Yet, he has also retired this year. I meet my new one tomorrow.


WC

I am not sure how this therapist will be, but at least she is nearby (as in a 5 minute drive). I have not met her yet though I get the impression she is African American. Which may be what I need. It is nothing I purposely did (other than choosing women therapists), but I realized all my past therapists have been white women. I never picked therapists by race, that’s just how the cards always fell. I don’t know. I haven’t seen a picture of her, more an impression I got from her voice, words she used. But even over the phone, she seems really nice, considering I called early and woke her I think. I had been expecting to get voicemail and not an actual person on the phone. Race likely doesn’t play into it but maybe it does, 12 to 15 therapists, all white women, not clicking with one. Now I think I will be disappointed if she turns out to be white. But anyway, I am going to try her, give her a chance no matter her race; she takes my insurance, has quick availability. Hopefully, she works out. If not, maybe I will go with trying a male T.

And God knows I need someone to talk to, or I would not have sent that email that got me into the CPS thing to begin with.

My old pdoc could see through me too. If she even suspected I was lying about my weight, especially during the relapse I had in 2015, I ended up right on her scale, and she’d call the PCP telling the PCP’s office they needed to call me and make an appointment. If I tried to hide hypomania because it feels so good, she knew it. I have seen my PCP ever since I married H, 14 years ago. I think I got with her just as she was starting to practice on her own. She has seen me normal weight,underweight, severely underweight, pregnant, pretty much everything. She just looks at me and tells me straight out how it is. You get to x weight, nothing will stop me from hospitalization. She sees I have a large water bottle with me and knows I drank a ton of water before getting weighed to weigh more on the scale and deducts numbers from my official weight that visit. Jackets and coats are off. I don’t try any ED tricks when I see her, even if I am having a relapse. But she’s perceptive about other stuff too, such as yes, I do have a disability or disabilities and can’t work. She listens to the psych stuff too even if it is just an annual exam.

My husband tries to keep me out of the hospital too. I haven’t been hospitalized since I have known H (we dated and lived together a couple years before marriage). So far, my last hospitalization was in graduate school, early 2000’s. So it’s been a decade, though I have had close calls or even told H I thought I needed to go (he’d talk me out of it).

I have a hard time hiding my pain. But with a borderline diagnosis as well, it doesn’t get noticed sometimes either. My husband notices right away and my daughter does at times. Most of the time I’m alone though. My pnurse doesn’t notice and neither does my therapist.
So I don’t know.