[MotownJohnny]

I'm friends with the monster that's under my bed
Get along with the voices inside of my head
You're trying to save me, stop holding your breath
And you think I'm crazy, yeah, you think I'm crazy

- lyrics by Eminem (hook sung by Rihanna)

I bristled so badly at any hint of "you have a mental illness" from anyone. I also derided myself terribly about it, felt like a total pariah, and, well, most of you know the story. Bottom line, hated myself for it.

I think I'm accepting it a lot more, because I am "becoming friends with the monster".

What that means is - I don't fear it like I did. I no longer see it as a grave threat to my survival. It's beginning to become just another annoyance in my life. Yes, at times I still get triggered and upset, yes, I'm taking prozac and lamictal (but instead of being ashamed and afraid of it and feeling like I was taking it under duress, I kinda like it now ), and yes, I can talk about it a little more without all of the drama and hyperbole and having my hair stand on end and getting a big flight or fight reaction.

As long as I can be a completely functional, completely normal crazy dude, I guess I got no problem with it. It's kind of like some of my other issues, like asthma, I wish I didn't have it, but hey, it's pretty easily treated after all. Not a game ender.

This is an ENORMOUS turnaround for me. Two years I fought this tooth and nail, going to real extremes to obfuscate, cover up, and deny, questioning everything.

I still question symptoms and "what I have" - I know, it isn't functionally important, but I'm the kind of guy who likes concretes, definitions, and certainty. I would feel better, I guess, if I weren't in the grey zone of DSM land, where everything has the same symptoms and there are no tests that are measurable and quantifiable and start with drawing a vial of blood or putting someone under a CT scan machine. Nope, it's all just someone's opinion, and trial and error of "what works".

I still want a name for it. Bipolar spectrum? PTSD? CPTSD? Both, all, none. That frustrates me. I don't know which road to travel if I don't know the name and the treatment plan and goal, because they aren't the same.

I definitely have some symptoms consistent with bipolar. $$$ is the main one. I keep taking these online tests, and the results are always that I score very low. However, they are kinda crap, in that they are really transparent and sometimes ambiguous. But PTSD also correlates to so many of these symptoms. And so many conditions overlap in symptoms as noted above.

When I read patient accounts of bipolar, most of the time I go "that's not me, I don't do that." When I read patient accounts of CPTSD, I generally can say, "yes, I do that". And I score very high on the online PTSD screening tests, but again, they're pretty transparent. A good, sophisticated test keeps you guessing how it will score out.
Still, this is huge.

[ManOfConstantSorrow]

Define 'nuts' since you are a facts and details sort of fella.

[MotownJohnny]

Nuts to me - well, definitely meeting the criteria for a mental illness, or at least having done so in the past. Yes, again, subjective and back to my old frienemy the DSM's. Having thoughts that are inconsistent with objective reality - for example, my paranoia of my family and their reaction to all of this, or society's treatment of me in general because of a diagnosis, has NOT been what I believed it would be. I'm slowly "coming out" more and more - I even told one of my sisters on Thanksgiving that I was taking prozac, and she was like "no big deal, maybe I should try it, I'm stressed out all the time." NOT what I expected at all. Having it adversely affect functionality - like my former panic attacks, when I was walking around town all night and turning my feet into hamburger, like envying Robin Williams and moping for a while. Like questioning my role in society and my fate to the point I'm not having any real pleasure or appreciation of everything I have.

Honestly, the thing I want to define is functionality. It's the opposite. For me, it means having a career, having a home and family, doing what I want to do, being responsible and reliable, being liked and respected, being a good citizen, doing good for others, and having people not think that I'm somehow "damaged goods" or "crazy" but just "eccentric" or "pleasantly quirky".

However, just because I view functionality as the opposite of nuts, doesn't mean they can't simultaneously exist. My new T is the first one that has talked about the mental illness "spectrum" - making me see it as a continuum rather than an absolute. Before to me, it was completely "black or white" = either I was total "crazy" which left me cut off from everything I valued in life, or I was "sane" - and I busted my butt trying to be the "poster boy for sane" to the public eye, hiding my "crazy".

If I see it as a continuum, I see it as so much less threatening, because I am pretty damned functional if I do say so myself. And with some continued work on growth, therapy, and a better attitude, I only see that getting better and better. I guess it's like heart failure, some people have a 20% loss of pumping capacity, some people have an 80% loss. I view myself as on the very mild end, and to me, that isn't so scary. I never viewed myself as anywhere on the "mild end" - I just assumed that everyone else in the world didn't even know there was a "mild end" - to the world, I thought, it was "black or white."

So, yeah, it IS better. In fact, I am WAY less tense and WAY more focused on "now" and "the future". Which is amazing. Even more amazing, the pain from the event of 2012 and it's aftermath is fading a lot - good old brainspotting or just plain good old self-improvmend and hard work, not sure, but don't care - whatever works.

[ManOfConstantSorrow]

Are you saying that you lack 'functionality'?

How do you square denial of mental health issues with your apparently clear and lucid recognition of behavior/thoughts inconsistent with 'objective reality?

[MotownJohnny]

No, the opposite, I'm very functional. Even during my day hospital fiasco, I was struggling to keep functioning - I went into my office at night some nights and tried to get through some work in the quiet of a deserted office building. I admit I was marginal in terms of work performance, quality and quantity sucked, but at least I tried.

I never denied per say, I just denied my initial diagnosis of bipolar, because I really, really feared that. When I had a couple of them tell me the initial was wrong, PTSD instead, I was totally thrilled with that, at least until I came to realize I was just as unhappy - in that case, label didn't matter.

I'm becoming more and more aware that my paranoia or hypervigilance or whatever concerning both society and personal/family reaction to all of this is not reality. Funny, just over last weekend, I was surprised at how warm, friendly, and even close some of my relatives now seemed, when in the past, I feared them. Now I want to develop stronger connections with them. Weird, huh, who knew?

[ManOfConstantSorrow]

Yes, you seemed very functional and aware - my therapist and I spend a lot of time working out why I am always watchful, very reserved and defensive. I reckon that I have good reasons but they do make me feel miserable.