Identity Theft

Along with your diagnosis of bipolar disorder, you will receive, free of charge, a brand new identity. An identity in which you are dangerous. Irrational. Unpredictable. Subhuman. "Other." Keeping your old identity is not an option.

My introduction to this form of diagnostic identity theft came about a week after I first heard the words "bipolar disorder" applied to me by a doctor who knew nothing about me or my life. I was on a business trip for the day with two people from my office--a fellow attorney and a C.P.A. Though they are both at the top of the org chart, being political appointees and all, we're equals in terms of experience and ability and I'm only about a half step below them on the office food chain. We're colleagues of long standing and we have, or had at the time, a comfortable, easy working relationship.

After being on the road for about three hours we arrived at our destination a bit early and stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall for some breakfast burritos. As we sat at the rickety, oil-cloth clad table and munched our hand-held burritos, the conversation, out of the blue, took a turn to bipolar disorder. Attorney Colleague, whose son is a city police officer, began talking about how many drunk/domestic disturbance calls his son had to respond to on the graveyard shift. "You know what the problem is," he exclaimed, "they're all bipolar!" After twenty-five years of practicing law I have a poker face that's second to none, and it took everything I had to keep it in place.

"They're bipolar," he continued authoritatively, "and they go off their meds and they get drunk and they just lose control. If bipolars would just stay on their meds we wouldn't need so many cops."

C.P.A. Colleague agreed enthusiastically. "When I owned my firm," she said, "I had an office manager named John. Well, he had chronic back problems and had to take lots of meds. He always complained that the women he dated didn't understand his medical problems. Then one day he told me he met a woman that also had to take meds every day, so finally there was somebody who could understand. So I asked him what kind of meds she took, and he told me she took lithium. And I told him 'John! She's bipolar! You should RUN, not walk to get away from her!'"

The conversation continued along that road, but I was shocked into a daze and I don't really remember much after the 'run, not walk part'. This was my new identity, according to two people I liked and respected. My old identity had been stolen by a prescription drug and a psychiatrist and had been replaced by this new person from whom others should 'run, not walk' to get away.

I somehow managed to get through our meeting and the three hour ride back to the office, even making conversation on an as-needed basis. Then I went home and proceeded to get good and properly drunk. Contrary to the what would be expected from one with my diagnosis, I did not assault anybody, but when I was about 1.5 sheets to the wind I called the executive director of my agency, A.K.A. "The Boss," at home, for the first, and only time. I told him what had happened. I swore, copiously and creatively. Swearing is rare for me, and it got his attention. He's a good guy, and he listened and asked me what I wanted. I told him I only wanted to make sure that I never had to listen to that kind of conversation again. Nothing more. I told him that I was going to take a sick day the next day and go on a long bike ride. I wanted him to talk to Attorney Colleague and C.P.A. Colleague and make sure that it never happened again, and make sure that they knew that my diagnosis was highly confidential.

And I said to specifically tell them that I did not want them to come apologize to me.

The next day, after about 65 miles on the bike I felt somewhat better. Though it's hard to to ride a bicycle when you're periodically in tears I got up and down a couple steep hills mentally and physically. I went back to the office and to work the next day. That was two years ago this month.

I still work with Attorney Colleague and C.P.A. Colleague. Tensions were pretty high for a few months. They both made me pretty nervous. I can only imagine how they felt in my presence. But people of good will can work things out, and slowly, over time we have.

My only regret about how I handled the situation is that I told The Boss that I did not want either of them to apologize to me. The truth of the matter is, they're both good people and I'm sure they both would have apologized, in all sincerity, had I not speciically refused an apology. But I was upset to the point that if they had apologized, I would have just started crying. And I seriously did not want to do that. Later I realized that things would have gotten back to normal much sooner if they had been able to sit and talk to me about it. An apology serves a social function, I think, if given and received with an open heart and mind. It allows people to begin to repair relationships.

And now, two years later, C.P.A. Colleague has recommended me for another, possibly much better position in government. Tomorrow morning I go to breakfast to discuss that possibility with another "Boss." I think, over time, I've changed her mind about "run, not walk."

This Explains Everything

LosingThe family and friends

The most painful thing for me about being labeled as a nutter is the damage it's done to my relationship with family and friends. WWhen family and friends hear that a medical doctor has branded you with a label of a major mental illness such as bipolar disorder, well, their perception of you changes. When their perception changes, then shared reality changes. And suddenly you become "crazy" in their eyes. Your normally skewed sense of humor, which everybody used to enjoy, will become evidence of your mental illness. Your sister will look at you, shake her head, and say "you're just not right." Your asshole brother will find a justification for his assholery--It's not him, it's that his mentally ill sister misinterprets things. It's a really convenient way for people to blow you off and demean you--"Well, she's a nutter, you know. Her perceptions aren't valid. We're all okay, it's just that she's not." There's no possibility of discussing with these people the high probabliltiy that this diagnosis is incorrect and insupportabe.

And so you begin your descent from valid personhood to nutter to be ingnored, perhaps even pitied, most certainly condenscended to. All with the magic wave of a psychiatrists hand you lose that which is most valuable...your distinct, valid, perceptions of reality. You lose your sense of self. You become sub-human because the mind makes us human, and if a psychatrist has declared on nothing but her subjective value judgments that your behaviour is aberant, then you are fucked if you believeit. You are fucked today and every day that follows. You just have to rebel, revolt, deny, run and hide from this corruption.

Psychiatry is an evil that presents itself softly and gently to many of us. It presents itself in the guise of a healer that wants to ease our sorrows. We suffer, undoubtedly, psychiatry offers us freedom for suffering by giving us slavery to drugs. Pyschiatry teaches that our thoughts and visions are dangerous and should be quashed.

I propose a different way. Psychiatry could help, though I doubt it willl ever be open minded enough to do so. I'll explain this in more detail in future posts. Nutters are a special breed, and they should be nurtured.

Losing Meg

Today marks nine years since Meg died. She died on her 51st birthday after battling ovarian cancer for over 6 years. I still miss her terribly.

The Actual, Official Diagnosis

I received my actual, official diagnosis of bipolar disorder about a year after Lexapro made me crazy. I had resisted seeing a psychiatrist, because I believed no good could come from it. I was right. No good came from it. But I had to do something. The Lexapro had triggered a malevolent and persistent process in my mind, I kept crashing into vicious and non-functional depression. Finally I made an appointment with an academic psychiatrist, Dr. M.C. Big mistake. A truer biological psychiatrist never lived. She interviewed me for about one hour and twenty minutes and then casually tossed the words "bipolar disorder" and "lamotrigine" at me, and then she rushed off to her next appointment.

Dr. M.C never had a real conversation with me. When I tried to get some explanation at our next appointment, she merely said "you have an illness of the brain." I'll never forgot those words. She was dismissive. There was no explanation an no support. I walked out of our appointment in a daze. And it never got any better after that. The doctor that cut up my knee spent about an hour and a half explaining everything to me. He answered all my questions. The doctor that labeled me "bipolar" acted put upon when I tried to ask her for an explanation.

Nobody ever has talked down to me like Dr. M.C. and her colleague Dr. Mo. I encourage every person who contemplates seeing a psychiatrist to think about the implications. Chances are you will be labeled, with very little evidence, your health care will suffer because of the label, you will have to live in a society that disparages you because of the label. In my experience, nothing good will come of allowing yourself to submit to psychiatry. Think about it. Think about it some more. And stay far, far away.

Branded for life like a cow

When my primary care doctor closed her practice, and left me flapping in the winds of the Lexapro aftermath, I was close to losing everything I'd worked for in my life. I'd enjoyed a good reputation as an excellent litigator, a fair-minded person, a good and loyal friend, an honorable and worthy adversary in the courtroom, and a damn funny wanna-be stand up comic. I had a good sense of self, built on my own principles and my relationships with others. Then that was ripped apart by a drug reaction, a subsequent label that was applied to me and the stigma that follows to this day.

My outgoing primary doctor decided that, based upon my adverse reaction to the Lexapro, "You're bipolar!" As her final gift to me, she wrote this insight into her transfer memo to my new primary care physician. My new primary care physician has therefore decided that I'm a med-seeking nutter that somaticizes everything, and really there's no need to take anything I say seriously. Our conversations consist of "I'm not going to prescribe you any narcotics, Peggy." Um, okay, I mentioned that I'm having headaches, doctor, I did not ask you for any narcotics. I just want to know if I need to see someone about these headaches. Actually, I hate the way narcotics make me feel. Ahh, the joy of being pigeonholed.

Once a doctor labels you as a nutter, your health care will suck. It's just the way physicians think.

Bad to worse--suicide becomes an option

Lexapro made me crazy in an enduring way. I was crazy for months. It's hard to describe crazy. I've never been so frightened in my life. I would have lost my job, were it not for the fact that the people I work with supported me fully. I would have lost my mind and ended my life were it not for the fact that I kept the faith that I was experiencing a temporary drug reaction. I came close to losing my life to impulsive sucidality, before I realized that it was induced by a legally prescribed drug that I took exactly as my physician directed. Even after I realized that, it was hard not to give in to the impulses screaming at me "just do it! Pick up that gun and shoot. SHOOT YOURSELF!"

Lexapro introduced a brand new evil demon into my life; a demon that wanted me dead. I locked up all the guns, It took some of apart and stashed the pieces around the house so they were unuseable; I spent long hours and days thinking of everyone I would hurt if I killed myself, to keep myself alive. I thougth of how the action of killing myself would send ripples of pain and negativity out through the world of the people I care about. How deeply immoral and unethical that act would be. I thought of ways I could kill myself and make it look like an accident. I formed a plan. I sought comfort in the plan. Tomorrow, I would tell myself, tomorrow. And then I wouldn't do it. The pain would lift. I'd become hopeful. I'd be okay for a couple of weeks. And then it would start all over again

Over and over, the effects of Lexapro kept coming back to haunt me. And the crash and burn would start all over. After a year of this, I decided I should see a psychiatrist. I thought this would help me begin to get better. Instead, it sent me on a path that made me much, much worse. Within two years, I'd be sitting at my desk counting pills and calculating my body weight. I was going to shuffle off this mortal coil on that Sunday night. But then my sister called and the ethical objections returned, and I lived another day--another 8 months now, actually. And I've begun my separation from psychiatry and psychiatrists. I think that's the only way I'll ever get my life back to a healthy balance.