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Hey Pandas, How Do You Live Your Life When You Have Chronic Mental Illness?
I am twenty-seven years old, living with depression, anxiety, and personality disorder. I have been writing for over seven years now. I try to keep my personal and professional life separate, but writing is both of these things.
I have a borderline personality disorder, and it affects my life in numerous ways. I change my characteristics like I am buying groceries every week. Although things have been difficult and unbearable, I have learned to manage and function with intense and destructive feelings and emotions.
I have been a regular reader of Bored Panda, with it I laugh and get to know amazing artists. I thought I would share a glimpse of my world, my bubble that's expanding limitlessly.
Here is what longing feels like:
"While I roam the endless desert, a glimpse of her brings great joy:
Perhaps, I’m thirsty and tired and need a sanctuary before I roam again,
Go closer to an unknown destination where I may see her in person.
I didn’t know what fabrications this world offered my dying soul,
Yet a glimpse of her brings back the little life I’m keeping hold.
I can’t write more, the desert is calling and I must roam
And hope I will see her in person someday without a veil."
I hope you all would share your positive life. Any comments or suggestions are welcome. Thank you for reading.
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OCD and generalized anxiety here. Something positive….. That‘s not easy! Because of my issues I often feel unable to do things I‘d really like to do (like traveling), and a huge part of my life is just fighting. (I wrote about that for another post you made.)
I try to achieve a balance between keeping up the fight to „function in public“, doing the things I want to do (like I said in my other submission: meeting friends, visiting festivals, etc) and taking a break from fighting by staying at home without the feeling of wasting my time or giving up.
What helps me an awful lot is taking care of animals and plants. Of course I must not neglect them and I never ever do! I have two rescue cats and I also have a big garden with lots and lots of flowers, because I want to do something for bees, bugs, birds and bats. They all need me and that‘s something that motivates me!
Besides that I‘m very much into photography and I also like to make music videos and stop motion films about me and my issues. They are rather metaphorical and I don‘t show them to anyone, but the work itself is really meditative and it feels good to express my thoughts in this way to myself.
May the force be with you always! Love that cat part. I have a cat too...she had kittens last month. I feel you when you say that's not easy! Take care.
Dragging myself through the days. With my CPTSD and major depression I'm just living my life, working and resting. Barely able to get chores done, but learned to always be nice and smile when others are around. That's exhausting, but I can't stop. Never found a good therapist.
One greeted my on our first meeting with the words: "You do live in your own world, don't you" and they wouldn't say it in a good way but judgemental. Another told me that getting beat up in childhood was supposed to make me stronger and I should be careful talking about being sexually abused, because there would be no abuse without a proof of penetration.
Not mentioning the others.
So yeah, I'm just going on without therapy.
Kind of survived
I have depression, adhd and anxiety disorder. I think the best advice I got was “Take one day at a time”. I heard it many times before but I could finally start applying it once i had to go on a sick leave from work due to my panic attacks.
Just don’t think where you are going to be in the future. Max future you should be thinking is a week if you have to. I still think it is harder to do in todays world where there’s a lot of deadlines and everything is connected to each other but you have to breath and focus on surviving the day.
My biggest struggle is depression. Medication is genuinely what helps me the most. It took me years and multiple psychiatrists to find the right combination. I was trying to get pregnant over the past few years and changed my meds to safer options and I could not function. We made the choice to give up on a second child so I could go back to meds that truly helped. I know I’m very lucky to have my first child (before finding my current meds) but I feel very guilty I can’t give him a sibling and I can’t give my husband another child. From ages 2 to 5 he asked for a brother or sister for his birthday and Christmas every year. My son is also a big part of how I’m able to survive. I live for him.
Making the most of the good days (or hours or minutes).
Surviving the bad days (or hours or minutes).
The biggest and most dangerous thing for me is being overly self-critical. Like if I'm having a tough day and not really doing anything, then I tend to beat myself up for wasting my life. That feeds the illness. Catching it early is the best coping strategy I have learnt to date.
Big *HUGS* to anyone that needs one right now. You got this. xx
Very, very carefully.
I take my meds at the same time every day (I use an alarm on my phone to remind me). I get what's the right amount of sleep for me (too much or too little triggers my BPAD). I minimise contact with emotional vampires (aka my family) and I try to exercise. It's all made a huge and positive difference in my life. Five years ago I couldn't even get out of bed. Now I'm writing a novel.
It's a work in progress though. I'm also learning to accept that there are very few people who understand bipolar affective disorder. A lot of people I thought were my friends have disappeared since my diagnosis. I am making new friends, it's just a slow process.
Good going and remember that slow and gradual is the real kind of progress. You'll find friends who get it sooner or later if you want (I don't like having friends outside the the bff 3, but people are different in this). Find a balance and don't play a character when socializing unless you need for a job or something.
Borderline Writer: You have the same diagnosis combo I had at your age. It's not fun, but try to set yourself routines and remember to give big and even medium size decisions a 24 hour thinking period, because impulse control can be a bit shaky. Meds work if they're the right kind. For me venlafaxin has worked well for depression and anxiety without making me hyper like SSRIs and I used to take quetiapin for stability. But here's the good news: Many bpd patients are mostly stable by the age 40, and at 47 I even have the depression and anxiety mostly in control.
Oh I forgot one of the most important bits: Learn to sit down and take time to figure out what you're actually feeling. It's often harder to detect what's going on with yourself with these problems and it can be that you're just coasting along and the feels have been building in the back of your mind and then they come out in an explosion. When you can determine that you're a little sad, angry or happy about something would be the ultimate goal. I know when I'm medium sad or medium- happy angry I can't catch before roast- but it's still an improvement. Compared to my nothing or nuclear from before, that really makes a huge difference.
I have bipolar 2. I feel accomplished just by making it to the next day.
I'm not sure if level one autism counts, but I have that (and ADHD and anxiety) anyway! I have to wear headphones so background noise doesn't overlap what I'm trying to hear. I normally am just that akward girl with headphones. I really can't do a lot, I break down because I can't do my chores. I want to but then when I look at what I'm meant to do I get physically weak and everything seems small and fun and the chore seems like climbing a mountain. Me and my mom get frustrated when I'm like this. It's awful
I have dyslexia. Writing and spelling is really hard. Text to speech and auto correct have been really helpful. Also the recommended words that pop up on phones has been a big help. It is a constant thing of asking other to help me spelling and make sure it all looks right. Also just telling people so they now to double check if I type something crazy. Also being really good at know a lot of words that can mean the same thing or similar to what I am trying to say.
I know the feeling. More power to you! Thanks for sharing...you are awesome!
I take a lot of meds, and have been in therapy since i was four. Its awful, i had sensory overload just a few days ago and hearing anyone talk or touch me made me want to puke and cry. I cant focus on anything and i cant do math in my head because my brain literally cant process it. I have other strengths buts hard because i know everyone just thinks im just stupid when it comes to math when its not really my fault. I just cant do it.
Finally started talk therapy! For 20 years, I struggled with depression and anxiety, getting my meds from my regular GP, but it finally hit me that letting my brain spiral was doing me more harm than good, so I started therapy. My lady is very kind and makes me feel heard, so even if we don't have anything major to talk about, I feel relieved when we're done. It's great to talk to someone whose only concern is me being ok. She does not care what I do as long as no one, myself included, gets hurt. And that absolutely blows my mind since I was raised to put my own needs and comfort last and I don't know how to deal with people making me a priority instead of an afterthought.
Also, I've recently discovered that the CBD I take daily to help with anxiety is 100% working and necessary. I stopped taking it by accident (we got a new kitten, my husband was out of town, I was on my own for 5 days and I forgot to take it) and by the end of the weekend, my anxiety was so bad I was shaking and crying. It took a couple days to get it back in my system, but as a semi-medical additive, I now know it really is doing good things for my brain and isn't just something I could or should stop using. Be sure you get a quality product, though. It might taste like three-day-old death, but a good product makes the sacrifice of flavor well worth it.
