Walking Across A Minefield

Over the last few years I have probably joined a couple of dozen health related forums looking for new tools to add to the mental health toolbox. With some forums I participate for a couple of days then just disappear for good where others I appear on a pretty regular basis over the course of years such as Healthboards where my post count is around 3500 and Crazyboards where my post count is still pretty low but it is a rarity that I do not visit at least once a day over. Forums are a great way to gain a new perspective on your situation and they also are a firm reminder that you are not the only one fighting monsters.

There are drawbacks to forums and I will go through the list of where I have the most problems with that have chased me from various places across the web.

1. Judgmental people - Have never figured out why people with one disorder will quickly turn around and slam a different disorder. Borderline Personality Disorder is such a target and to often I see the comment "Well at least I am not BPD". The other issue that I keep coming across is people who believe BPD is not treatable and relay this message over and over again which is not only not true it probably scares people with the diagnosis away. People go to forums to get help and some individuals seem to forget this.

2. Triggers - There is always the chance that you will run across something on a forum that may set off a trigger and there are days it will seem like your walking across a minefield. Crazyboards uses the skull icon to warn readers that something in the thread may be a trigger which is a great idea and some thing that Healthboards and many others do not. The two big categories for triggers are Self Harm and PTSD. When it comes to self harm I have more trouble with images then from actual words or descriptions but this is obviously not the case for everyone and a simple paragraph detailing a self harm session may be enough to send someone running to the "tool" of choice. PTSD is a different story as most people share common symptoms even though the main event can differ and where I have the largest issues is when others describe the PTSD event. To me the event does not belong on the forum or at least not a detailed account as the potential for triggering someone else is too high. Nothing is going to change what already happened but the focus should be on the symptoms that can be changed such as fear, loss of control, hyper vigilance, nightmares/flashbacks and what have you. If you were in a car accident then say "I was in a car accident and now I am dealing with A to Z" but don't describe the actual event.

3. Arm chair therapists - There is a reason why therapists have spent a long time in school for it is a lot more then asking the question but knowing how to handle the answer that the client gives. Too many people throw question after question and theory after theory at a person hoping something is going to stick which is not only irresponsible but potentially dangerous. When someone is asking for others input then that is the time to send a theory their way but a lot of people go to forums just to know someone else is there and they are not alone. Seen too many new members disappear after other members tried to dig into the persons head right off the bat.

4. Diagnosis - People trying to guess the diagnosis of someone else is a problem that appears on a regular basis. It is one thing to say that the person should look into a particular disorder to see if it fits and another to say someone has diagnosis X. Diagnosing a mental illness is not as easy as it appears for it takes some time and knowing the complete situation. Borderline Personality Disorder and Bi Polar Disorder are two diagnosis that people love to diagnose others with but there is a massive difference between having tendencies of the disorders and actually having the disorder. Telling someone they have something should be left to the professionals and even they tend to screw it up from time to time.

Forums are a great place to gain extra support and can go a long way in terms of recovery but like everything else a little caution is in order. In case you are wondering I do not post on Healthboards or Crazyboards as untreatable/untreatableonline but as trg247. Take care.

Depression Versus Depression

In the last few years I have spent a lot of time on various forums around the world wide web mostly in forums that revolve around depression. As of late I have begun to participate in a variety of sites where someone asks a question then a bunch of different people try to answer it which can be helpful but a lot of misinformation takes place at the same time. Part of this is due to just basic stupidity on some people's behalf but the other issue is the definition of depression.

Depression case number one - A person just ended a long term relationship with their partner and is now moping around the house going through box after box of tissue.

Depression case number two - A person has completely isolated him or herself from friends and family. The person has either gained or lost a lot of weight recently. This person may view there life as hopeless and is constantly thinking about suicide.

Two completely different cases yet they both fall under the same category and this is where some of the confusion comes from as the way to treat case number one is not the same way case number two is approached.

The treatment for case number one may be as simple as time. Allowing yourself to grieve over the loss of a relationship then after this period the person will improve. In some cases the help of a therapist may speed up the healing process but the thought of medication should not even be a valid subject at this level. Problem is too many people watch those damn commercials and rush off to their doctor for the fast fix and a lot of doctors rather hand over a prescription then actually deal with the actual problem. At this level it should be all about making the right lifestyle choices, focusing on the positive and not screwing around with the chemicals in the brain. Why is it that your antidepressant is not improving your situation? A med can not fix something that is not broken.

The treatment for case number two will more then likely include medication which will hopefully reduce the symptoms of depression so the person can then focus on the root of the problem. It is very difficult trying to focus on changes that will improve your quality of life when the immediate though behind it is whether or not to just toss in the towel. A person at this level needs to be watched carefully purely based on safety reasons alone and a possible stint on the psych ward may be a realistic solution in some cases.

Two different treatment approaches to the same question "I am depressed. What should I do?". I think part of the stigma that surrounds depression stems from the word having too many possible definitions. I can tell someone that I have depression and I may get a old cliche of pulling up my bootstraps and the person rolling their eyes but when I say I have severe depression with psychotic features then chances are the reaction will be completely different.

Two forums that illustrate this point are healthboards and crazyboards. On healthboards there are cases of severe depression but the majority tend to be closer to case number one where crazyboards ninety percent of the depression forum is a variety of case number of two.

One word with too completely different realities.

The Highs And Lows Of Borderline Personality Disorder Part 2

The most popular post on this blog has been the Highs and Lows of Borderline Personality Disorder where I attempted to show how one subject can be viewed from both sides of the scale. I am going to expand the subject here by showing the views from a few new areas.

Doctors -
High - My doctor is always able to figure out my problems with no difficulty. My doctor makes every decision with my best interests in mind. My doctor is a main reason for my recovery
Low - My doctor tells me the same thing he tells everyone ask as he is not listening just responding. My doctor learned everything from a book and has no idea what I have to go through on a daily basis and I doubt he even cares. My recovery would be a lot further along if my doctor was any good. All my appointments are is an opportunity for him to destroy my self worth that leaves me picking up the pieces

- I go into appointments with set answers in my head just to get out of there as fast as I can for it does not take much to go from one perspective to another when I am around him. The doctor knows this and has said he says very little in the worry that the wrong thing will set me off. Not exactly what you could call a healthy relationship and a lot of it is probably my fault but not all of it.

Forums/Groups
High - This site is better off because I am a member. All of the members are wonderful people who will always be there when I need them. My recovery has come along way do to the insight I have gained from other members
Low - This site is full of people who are just trying to get attention. Most of the people on this site do not have a clue what real depression is. Time and time again some member believes he/she is a therapist and tries to cure me but all they do is create more damage. The only reason why people pay me any attention at all is because I have been on the site forever but even then none of them really get me.

- Some days its best I just avoid forums or groups as chances are I am just looking for a fight. At one point I completely walked away from all the sites that I participate on for a few months with the belief it was doing more damage then good. Finally my brain clicked on and I realized that 95% of my support system is from other people online.

Depression
High - My depression does not control me but I control it. I have come along way and time and time again I make gains over the monster that others thought would be impossible. I am strong and focused so there is no reason for failure.
Low - My depression completely controls my life. I can't do anything right because the depression is always standing in the way. In three years I have made zero progress and chances are have gone the other way. My entire life is now a wreck all because I am weak and not able to beat the monster.

- Depression and Borderline Personality Disorder are a very bad mix especially in the low perspective range. A deep depression and a low perspective have put more then one person in the ground. It is bad enough that a strong depression has you on edge but when your BPD brain is constantly reinforcing all of the negative comments/emotions you end up in a really bad place and after a while suicide looks like a dream come true.

The goal for anyone with Borderline is to find the middle ground and stay there which is difficult. The problem is the BPD brain is trained to react to basically anything so if it perceives something negative or a threat then it becomes defensive very quickly as it was designed to protect a very fragile self image. My doctor has made mistakes during our relationship and my brain is unwilling to forget this so it stays on guard at all times which helps no one. The forums and groups are a big reason why I continue to try and move forward but there has been times where some really bad advice was given from a few people but somehow in my brain the whole site becomes tarnished. At one time I was very open about sharing my story in the hope it would help someone but an incident happened and now I am pretty careful on what I say and it has affected many different areas of my life in a negative way. As for depression it goes from bad to really bad and when I end up in a high perspective position it never lasts for very long.

Steps That I Have Taken To Beat The Monster

Part of this comes from a thread I started on Healthboards a few months ago to just show the steps I have taken to battle against my mental disorders. The odd thing about the thread is it turned into a good conversation that deals with the ins and outs of Borderline Personality Disorder, 291 posts and almost seven thousand views which is a pretty neat trick.

Anyway here are some of the steps I have taken and hopefully it will help someone else and answer the question of what I have been doing for the last three years.

1. Two voluntary hospitalizations lasting a total of over three months
2. Electro Convulsive Therapy - 5 sessions in 2005 and one sessions in 2007 (the whole forgetting how to breathe stopped this treatment pretty quick
3. Medicine -
(A) Antidepressants - Celexa, Paxil, Remeron, Effexor, Wellbutrin, Nardil, Trazodone
(B) Mood Stabilizers - Lithium
(C) Antipsychotics - Zyprexa, Seroquel, Clozapine
(D) Benzodiazepines - Ativan, Xanax, Valium, Klonopin, Temazepam
4. Diet - Due to the wonderful world of Zyprexa my weight shot up to 270 pounds so the last six months I have made it back to 200
5. Exercise - One day upper, second day lower, third day rest, repeat for the last two months. Missed three days due to Nardil withdrawal
6. Wrote out my entire life history and handed it over to my psych doc so that he would understand me better which made our relationship a lot more productive at least for a while.
7. I tracked every single behavior, emotion, when I took my meds, when I slept all to provide the doc with better information so he would know which dosage would work best plus it allowed me to identify any trends that I could work on or at least prepare for when it came to self injury.
8. Therapists - The best one was during my first hospital admission. The next one dealt with PTSD but once I made the mistake of telling her I cut one night she deemed me too unstable to treat. There were a couple of others who never made it past the third appointment again using self harm to stop my treatment. After the second hospitalization I sent a letter to the CHMA which is the Canadian Health Mental Association asking for their help to find a therapist in the area which they said they would look into, it has been three months now and nothing. Chances are for me to see a therapist I am going to have to accidentally forget my Borderline diagnosis to make it through the door.
9. Education - I spend a lot of time surfing the net studying different therapies, research and what have you then trying to apply it to my own situation.
10. Support - 96 percent of my support comes through online friends who over the years understand me to a higher level then anyone in the really real world as most of my friends have disappeared over the last few years
11. Came up with the perfect treatment plan for me which my doctor supported while I was in the hospital. Problem was the hospital was not equipped to handle some of my need so the decision was made to receive the help in the community. Once in the community I sent the letter to CHMA, applied for a bunch of support groups and nothing came of it. I brought up the situation to my doctor who then stated "I was too borderline for treatment" in other words I am untreatable.
12. Forums and this blog - It gives me a chance to focus on something else plus gain new perspectives on my own situation.

Nice eh. Any way this is some of the steps I have taken in the last three years or so to get to a more stable and better place. Depending on how much my depression is at play decides whether I believe any progress was made at all. I guess the real question is not what have I done to make myself better but what haven't I done.

Forums, Forums and More Forums

I spend a couple of hours everyday on various forums around the web and as of late have joined a couple of different discussion groups but really have not participated much as of yet.

Forums are the strongest support group that I have which is rather sad if I think about it so I don't. A place where people of similar problems meet to gain new perspectives, ideas and suggestions on how to beat their personal monster. A group where you feel that your ideas and thoughts will not be judged or scrutinized so you are open to share which helps towards the goal of recovery. There are people who I have known for a long time that I know close to every detail of their life but would not be able to point them out in a crowd. Knowing that when ever a bad thought or period enters my life I have a place to go for help adds a slice of safety that goes a lot further then the actual site. Unfortunately like everything else in life there is a catch to it.

For what ever the reason some people like to appear on forums and either stir the place up through idiotic statements or they start to scream suicide. Depending on the forum determines how long this behavior will last. One forum I am on if you mention suicide your post is deleted and your count is suspended or banned for they feel that if you are in that much trouble a forum can not help and you need assistance from someone in the really real world. A stance which I completely support. Don't get me wrong if you want to dig to the deepest of your depression and ask for my help I will try to be there every step of the way but if your telling me you want to take your life what else can I say but "Go get help now". If your at a point where suicide is the best option then you need to get to a safe place and that is not in front of a computer talking to someone thousand of miles away. I swear if I knew how to locate someone through a computer I would have picked up the phone and call the local police station where ever the user was and I am a bit curious at what they would have found. Would they find a person in a deep level of depression who can not speak because of the pain or would they find someone with a grin on his or her face as they can not believe that someone fell for their story. Remember forums are not conversations so it is very difficult to see the whole picture so it basically throws the majority of my counseling skills out the window and I am left in a position telling the person they need to go get help. I have had people come back to me and said what ever I wrote played a huge part in them seeking help and getting back on the right path but at the same time there have been a lot of people who never come back to say what took place which takes some getting use to and to be honest a reason I left forums for a good period of time.

Some people also seem to forget that depression comes in more then one flavor so there is no such thing as a one stop cure all. Where medication worked for one person it may have little to no effect on the next, when someone responds to cognitive behavioral therapy it may not be as effective to the next and time after time I have watched people reply to twenty plus posts with the same answer then wonder why people are not overly thankful for their wisdom. To a new user on a board they will see my name and assume correctly that I have depression but unless they have gone through an extensive amounts of older posts they will not know I also carry the Borderline Personality Disorder and the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder labels so chances are a basic depression common answer will not apply. This is also the reason to find one main board, build relationships and stick to it so the advice you are seeking is more tailored made for you. I understand that the persons reply is based off of limited knowledge so I am grateful for the reply and I know the position they are in as it is the same one I take when a new user comes to the board(s).

When I am answering a reply my goal is to hopefully provide the poster with the information they are seeking but at the same time it is written for the people who will come by and just read the posts and not participate hoping to find some help for their current situation. I had a thread recently on a site that had somewhere in the mid seventies for number of written posts, four people participated but the views were close to a thousand which was rather a weird feeling as towards the end I kept having that feeling that someone was watching and apparently they were. That one post was basically a conversation with two people with BPD exploring every avenue of the disorder and the other two popping in with questions that determined the next direction that would be took. It was an amazing piece of therapy for me and I believe a lot of others learned a lot about a misunderstood disorder which to me is exactly what a post should be.

Healthboards is my main board that I have been on for a couple of years now and I have a very strong support system through a number of different users. It is a rather large site compared to others but there is a strong base membership who post anywhere from a couple of times a day to every couple of days. If I don't post for a couple of days new threads show up asking me where I am and if I am ok which gives you a really good insight to the heart of their members. The only downside to this site is it goes through periods where all sorts of new people will show up and start a couple of threads then just disappear but I would imagine this is pretty typical for any forum but this site seems to get a lot of it. Healthboards has a wide variety of forums covering almost every area health related that you can think of.

Crazyboards is my secondary board that I use when I am looking for more specific answers and when I have questions regarding medication or behaviors due to concurrent disorders. This is a smaller site but the knowledge they have and can access is truly amazing. When I was given a very strict diet due to starting Nardil crazyboards was my first stop to get the real ins and outs of my new dietary regime which they were quick to respond providing all sorts of real information that took away almost all of my anxiety regarding food intake. This site is a lot more technical then any other forum I deal as they pick a part disorders and medication to a small degree where other sites tend to give out more generalized responses. Crazyboards concentrates on everything that is mental health

Like I have said before there is no such thing as too many tools or weapons in the war against depression and other mental disorders. Forums are a great place to pick up new information, new approaches, support and a gentle reminder that you are not the only one fighting.

Chantix Quit Smoking And Welcome To Hell

A new FDA warning came out on Friday, February 1, 2008 that Chantix may cause psychological programs in some users. Apparently the FDA has received reports that 39 people have taken their lives and close to 500 people made a serious attempt at suicide do to exposure to this drug. The company Pfizer Inc has added a new warning to the box so people know that quiting smoking may potentially kill them or at least want to. The non smoking aid Zyban has a similar warning on their box and as most people already know this drug is also called Wellbutrin a top selling antidepressant out on the market place.

I wonder about the research trials that goes with each new drug and have to question how accurate these studies are. Why is it that every few months another drug is being banned or forced to add additional warnings to the box because people are showing up dead or in great stress due to the medication. Is it not the purpose of these trials to make sure the drug is safe for the public? There is a drug called Trovan which is a drug created by Pfizer to battle meningitis but during the last part of testing in Nigeria a high number of children either died or were disabled due to their alleged interaction with this med. The country of Nigeria sued the makers of Pfizer then went one step forward and criminally charged executives from the company. The other odd part about Trovan is that it is allowed for limited use in the US for adults but Europe has completely banned this drug, at one point the receptive audience for Trovan was much larger in the US but people started dieing and liver damage began to show up in increasing numbers so the FDA restricted this drug. But not everything is negative in the Pfizer world as they are responsible for Viagra and that has made a lot more people happy then Pfizer's antidepressant Zoloft, a drug that is getting its butt kicked in court as people believe that it increases suicidal ideation and actions. Nice eh.

I think there needs to be a worldwide standard when it comes to medication so if it is good enough for the people in Europe then it is good enough for me. The drug trials sound like they need to be a lot longer then they are currently and larger in numbers to make sure that all side effects are known before the med is made public. The side effects that are showing up when it comes to Chantix did not take that long to appear so how did this get missed during the trials? I would like to think that all drug trials are a hundred percent accurate and safety reigns over profit but I also think that maybe tomorrow I will wake up and all of my problems will have disappeared.

Do your research on any and every drug before you swallow it. Start at crazymeds.us as the webmaster has done a lot of work for you already.