The Winds Of Change

I reckon I could fit 4 kids in that!

I had been becoming quite hypomanic over the last week, I have been driving too fast without realising it and going distances over 100km away with the music up and the windows down just for coffee, had the odd psychotic symptom. I randomly started writing a novel, bought three new pairs of shoes I didn't need including one for my daughter that was two sizes too big (they were on sale, she'll grow into them!) I've been visiting car yards and really having to work hard to stop myself from gambling.

But things are changing again, I am faced with that uneasy anxiety in the pit of my stomach that hits when things are creeping to places beyond my control. I got some news yesterday that flipped my already racing mind into serious self reflection mode, I knew this news was coming eventually but it still knocked me for a six.

 

To be honest everything I have done in adulthood seems to have been a shallow repeat of everything I had already done since I first became unwell as a young teenager and I wonder sometimes if this is like some sort of subconscious regression? You know how people say that reincarnation is a way of learning life lessons and that we will repeat ‘themes’ in each of our lives until that lesson is understood?

It feels kind of like that, but all in the one physical life; divided perhaps, by babies, suicide attempts and breakdowns. It seems at times like this as if the world has gone on without me and I am just an observer, trying to grasp the meaning of the lesson from different view points. There are days when I genuinely wonder if I am even really here or will I be like Bruce Willis’s character in The Sixth Sense, finding out I have actually been dead the whole time after all and just haven’t realised it.

My health has always been cyclical, the Mania’s and Depressions, the eating disorder I thought I had beaten as a teenager came back when I was 27, that weird neurological condition with symptoms similar to MS comes and goes every so often, but even friendships with the same people cycle in and out, I’ve moved house 6 times and lived next door to three different women named Jo who breed dogs and three different hair dressers, even bizarre things like having my own three dogs one after the other (different breeds from different places) ending up with the same rare genetic disease. WTF!? 

A big part of my life that has come and gone has been my job at the pet store. I first started there in the year 2000, left periodically to have babies but always returned part time. It is the best job in the world, I loved the people I worked with, the customers and of course the animals. 

I did try other jobs in between but I would eventually end up back there as well doing weekends. The day I officially left for a proper full time “adult” job was heartbreaking but I knew I always had a place there, which was proven to me when leaving that “adult” job after my major breakdown my amazing boss (who is like a second mother) called me and asked me to come back to work as a casual.

Now the winds of change are blowing again, after 17years in my life and after more than 35 years in theirs, yesterday my bosses have announced that they are retiring and will be closing down the family run store in April. I am happy for them, this is the right step for their declining health but I am also devastated that I have to say goodbye to the Pet Shop I love so much, closing this chapter of my life forever is downright scary.

Somehow it feels like I am losing my last shred of independence, it was the one thing I had left of my very own life, the thing I found myself without help, the thing that supported me between moving out of my parent’s home and getting together with my husband. I did everything so young that every other aspect of my life has been shared or handed to me. Now I have nothing left to call my own and I am once again left wondering exactly how I define who I am.

I had been fairly well for quite a while and now this nervous hypomanic energy is threatening to turn around on me I have realised that my support network has been slowly dissolving. My best friend is moving away; her house up for auction this weekend. I no longer have a psychologist to talk to, I am annoyed with my GP and now that people around me have finally stopped being nervous around me I don't feel like I have anyone other than you guys in Internet Land to vent my frustrations at (sorry!).

Thank God for modern technology, I know I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for the support I have had online over the years. I'm just worried that my mood is fluctuating - I get a lot of mixed episodes and I don't want whatever 'this' is, getting out of hand. My concentration span is shot. I have gotten up from the computer about 20 times writing this because I keep remembering things I am supposed to be doing and I don't even know if it makes any sense. I am due to see my Psychiatrist at the end of March, but right now that feels like a long way away. I really don't want to need meds again.

Mental Illness Vs Crime

What is our responsibility level as mentally ill people? What are we accountable for, what is our personality, what is our illness and at which point does the fact that bad or criminal behaviour isn’t “us” but our illness cease to matter in the interests of public safety?

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In the aftermath of the tragedy in Melbourne on Friday 20th January 2017, Australia has been left reeling with anger and questions. Mental illness is now in the spot light again but for all the wrong reasons. 

If you are unfamiliar with the story, on Friday the 20^th January 2017 a man by the name of “Dimitrious Gargasoulas” went on a rampage through the streets of Melbourne that ended with him driving a car into the busy Bourke Street Mall and ploughing down anyone in his path. At the time I write this 4 people are dead including a 10yr old child and many others in serious and critical condition in hospital.

The perpetrator received a gun shot wound to the arm and was dragged from his vehicle and arrested, images show him lying cuffed on his back wearing nothing but red underpants while other images show the now empty mangled pram that was dragged along the street. 

Australia understandably wants blood, as more information comes into public light people are calling en masse for the death penalty. It seems the man had a history of mental health problems, drug use and violence and was actually out on bail relating to a stabbing incident the previous weekend.

 Most troubling are his recent Facebook posts, religious themes and delusions of grandeur indicating that he was probably in the midst of a psychosis. This is particularly upsetting because the start of the tirade of posts predates his recent arrest which means he was questioned by authorities while obviously mentally unstable and he wasn’t sectioned or held in custody, he was bailed.

Facebook post from 9^th Jan “TODAY THE GODS HAVE GIVEN ME WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE. THEY HAVE AWOKEN ME. IHAVE MY ANSWERS ALSO VISION OF A FUTURE THAT IS CLOUDED THE WORK OF SATAN TO FACE ME AND FAIL OVER AND OVER AMUSES ME RATHER THAN SHAKE ME TO THE GROUND”

Facebook post from 16^th Jan: “I DECLARE WAR ON TYRANNY TODAY YOU DOGS WILL HAVE THE OPTION TO EITHER BELIEVE IN ME AND HIS POSITIVE ENERGY HE OFFERS AND STAY FAITHFUL TO ME OR SERVE THE ONE WHO ESLAVES YOU AT HIS FEET I OFFER FREEDOM NO WORK NO BILLS JUST THAT WE ALL KEEP FAITH AND BELIEVE IN THE ONE GOD THE ONE HIGHER BEING BEING FOR THE GOOD AND PROTECT THE ENERGY THAT HE GIVES WITH YOUR HEART GOD BLESS EVERYONE IN THE WORLD IT IS ABOUT TO CHANGE XOXO”

Note the escalation of content, lack of any punctuation, grandeur, capital letters and phrasing. I write this way when I am manic.

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 An overwhelming amount of Facebook commenters are angrily saying that “he will just be let off because of his mental health problems” while “drug induced” is a common phrase, they are also fearfully throwing words like Bipolar and Schizophrenia around like they are dirty and dangerous.

I fear that this incident will undo a lot of the good work and results we have been seeing over the last few years to end the stigma surrounding mental illness. Situations like this are not the norm. This scares the public, this scares ME.

During my stays in psychiatric hospitals I have seen many, many people with what I will call “organic” psychosis, an episode brought on by their illness – bipolar, schizophrenia etc – the majority of them are in their own worlds, opinionated yes, perhaps an unintentional risk to others, but not really what I would call “scary” dangerous. 

ICE induced psychosis however was a totally different ball game. That was TERRIFYING. I remember one guy in particular coming in with about 6 police officers, 2 ambulance officers and half of the staff in the unit trying to hold him down just to sedate him. If a two year old had walked up to him and smiled he wouldn’t have hesitated to rip its arms and legs off.

Mental illness is certainly unpredictable; does that automatically make people with mental illness’s dangerous? Does that make ME potentially dangerous? Could I actually be capable of doing such horrific things? 

During manias I have certainly experienced the feeling of being “God” or at least “at one with God”, I have made very poor judgement calls and been paranoid but I have never, ever wanted to hurt anybody other than myself. Could that change?

I can say now while I am well that if I were ever to do something like this I would want to be imprisoned, because even if I was ‘unwell’ and ‘not in my right mind’ when the incident occurred, just knowing that I was capable of such horrific things if I was to become unwell again is enough to make me fear being allowed to walk in public.

Frankly, sick or sane, in most instances if we commit a violent crime I feel that we should be held accountable for that. We can’t just let dangerous people out on the streets because they have a mental illness. If someone is deemed ‘dangerous’ they need to remain in custody / hospital for the duration of the time they are considered dangerous, then if a crime was committed and a prison sentence is required, it should be served.

I guess this is what happens when are ill and we get sectioned. It’s happened to me, and as much as I hate being sectioned because “I know better”, I have to respect the fact that the doctors don’t know me as a person, they can’t see inside my head and feel my feelings and if they declare me “a danger to myself or others” based on my outward actions then they are doing that to prevent incidents like the one in Melbourne and I want incidents like that prevented.

You have to wonder if this tragedy could have been prevented if only Dimitrious Gargasoulas had received proper care for his psychotic episode earlier, or if he had not been released on bail only a few days earlier. Is he just an asshole criminal who belongs in prison with or without mental illness as a factor, or is he changed into this terrible person only when he is unwell?  

When all is said and done, every criminal incident involving mental health factors needs to be treated individually based on the persons lifestyle choice, interest and willingness to maintain good mental health ( I hate to use the word 'compliance') and of course scale of the crime and chance of repeat offence. There simply is no 'one size fits all' solution.

I send all my love to the victims and families of the Bourke St Mall tragedy, I pray that Dimitrious Gargasoulas is prosecuted to the full extent of the law, regardless of his mental illness and I sincerely hope that Australia can continue working to end the stigma regarding mental health in times of fear and uncertainty.