Posted by Nancy on April 11, 1999, at 10:01:55
In reply to MORE Re:misbehavior / please answer us, posted by v on April 11, 1999, at 5:39:59
I agree with v. Furthermore, Harry has been supportive and helpful to me. Please, don't block him from this forum. His pain is very much a part of the disorder that he tries so hard to live with. I feel that he has been reaching out and aggressively seeking help from us.
I have rages when I'm manic. But, that is not who I am. I'm not "misbehaving" while I'm manic. I'm JUST MANIC. I practice methods that help. But, even with all my education, compassion, psychotherapy, medication, and so on, it is still the rapid onset acute mania that trips me up.
There are no signs that I'm approaching madness. No flags pop up in the mind to warn me of the impending neurocatastrophy. Boom...it's just there. Even when I'm insane, I KNOW I'm NOT insane. I'm certain that my perceptions are correct even if I question their validity. I ask myself if I'm manic. But, at the time, I'm certain and I know that I'm not. I do not misbehave...I'm severly manic depressive with psychotic features. I work very hard at managing this disorder.
But, I suppose all the aforementioned is why society used to have the mentally ill chained down in tiny rooms of asylums, perform brain surgery to stop a patient who misbehaved.
I've run into many who truly believe that mental illness is a behavioral problem. All of these people were in the psychiatric health profession.
What Dr Bob has called a behavioral problem in Harry is not a chronic condition. Harry hasn't been coming to this board intentionally to do harm. Can you say that you've read elsewhere on this board and found that Harry was doing harm? This is an isolated case. A single issue was raised to which Harry responded passionately.
Can any of you say that there is not one issue in your life to which you've had a passionate response. An issue for which you or others insisted that you needed counsel. Whether that counsel came from a friend, a doctor, or your mother, makes no difference. Did you find help for that personally disturbing issue? Did those to whom you turned for counsel, whether it be that you turned to them in anger or in tears, abandon you?
I'm not insinuating that Harry has had an acute breakthrough manic episode that may have been triggered either multifactorially or as a result of rapid cycling and high lability.
It was yesterday that I finally realized that Harry needed help on this issue.
I'm sorry, Harry, that you were chastised, attacked, and abandoned. It was wrong. It never should have happened in this day of enlightened treatment for mental illnesses. I wish that I had realized sooner that you needed help with this issue. I wish that others had realized it, too.
I hope that I'm not misbehaving...really...not meant to be a fascicious statement. Should I even be writing about all this...my ideas...my concern? Is this issue taboo?
Nancy
> perhaps i also need to say what i forgot to mention...
>
> that this forum is a very powerful tool.. and while i don't condone name calling or personal attacks, i do appreciate the fact that many here stepped forward to contain any damage and correct any misunderstandings
>
> i think that this opportunity to take care of ourselves is a very valuable one... as well as the opportunity to perceive what someone is trying to say, even when the language may suggest something else... obviously, we all communicate differently - my english can be as much a foreign language to someone else as any other...
> it's good to have to sometimes see past ourselves and our fears in order to really hear someone else
>
> and for this as well, i ask that you not block harry from posting
>
> we all have so much to learn from one another
>
> v
poster:Nancy
thread:4030
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19990401/msgs/4687.html