Thoughts on the book of Job May 27, 2012

As I stated in my last post, I am attempting to read the Bible in one year. I started in the middle of Job. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it goes like this: Satan and several other angels appeared before God. It is not clear why they did so, but God boasts about how faithful Job is. Satan thinks that Job’s faith will fall away if he loses everything. So God agrees to allow Satan to test Job’s faith. Job, a wealthy man with a large family, loses family to raiders and his posessions to various mishaps and disasters all engineered by Satan. He has several friends who remain by his side after the aquaintences no longer want anything to do with him and his now miserable existence. These friends come to the only conclusion they can and advise Job to repent of his sins so God will bless him again. Job insists he is blameless and cries out to God for answers. Eventually God speaks up and restores Job’s wealth and blesses him with a new family.

My thoughts? Number one, the book is too long. It seemed to drag and the friends arguments were repetitive. I got it the first time. And I didn’t even read the whole book! I suppose part of my issue here is cultural.

Number two – Job was pretty sarcastic. I liked that. I never picked up on that before.

Number three – I realized that when a friend is hurting, he or she doesn’t always need advice. He/she doesn’t need me to overanalyze the situation. He/she probably would prefer it if I quietly sat beside him or her and provided companionship. Job’s sarcasm showed up because as well meaning as his friends were, they weren’t really helping.

Number four – I was reminded that there are forces at work in this world that I am unaware of that affect me directly. They may be people doing things behind my back or spiritual forces doing things behind my back. Either way, all I can do is remain faithful to God.

Thank you for reading. I welcome your thoughts on this.

Reading the Bible in a Year May 18, 2012

 When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I read the Bible cover to cover twice, and a third time with a “Chronological Bible.”  (For those of you unfamiliar with the Christian Bible, it is not entirely in Chronological order and some of the passages are variations on the same story. )  At my church, we were challenged to a daily Bible reading program for the first part of the year.  It covered 100 passages that are often considered foundational to Christianity.  Now that is drawing to a close.  Another member of my church happened to send an email about Bible reading that got me thinking, “Now what?” 

So – now I embark on another quest to read the entire Bible in one year.  Will daily study of these scriptures change me?  I hope that they change me for the better.   Some of you may be thinking, “Oh boy!  She’s becoming one of those people…“  If, by “one of those people,” you think I am becoming a fanatic who persecutes people for disagreeing with my beliefs, rest assured, that is not who I am and I hope I will never be like that.   I hope to find a deeper spiritual connection and relationship with my God.  Through doing that, I hope to become a more loving and kind person.

Where did I begin this current quest?  A popular devotional, ”Our Daily Bread,” includes a Bible in one year program.  I assume they started in January at the very beginning in Genesis 1.  However, I don’t like playing catch-up, and from previous study I am familiar enough with the beginning to start in the middle without getting completely confused.  So I looked up today’s reading and started there.  I am in the middle of Job.  An interesting starting point.  Already I am finding that I understand more than I did the last time I read that book. 

Has anyone else taken up this challenge?  How did you fare?  In my previous reads, I picked it up and put it down many times before completing the task.  Are you of a different belief system?  Have you tried a similar reading program?  I am interested in your thoughts and experiences.

Thank you for reading my blog.  Don’t forget to click “follow” so you don’t miss a post.  You can also find me on facebook at www.facebook.com/meghantellsit. 

Mental Health Awareness Month May 6, 2012

It seems like there is a day or a month to make us aware of all sorts of things.  May has been proclaimed Mental Health Awareness Month.   If you have been following my blog or have known me for more than five minutes, you probably know that my husband has Bipolar Disorder.  Thus, I am all to well aware of mental illness. 

If you want to find out specifically about him, browse through old posts.  If you want to find out more specifically about Bipolar, use Google or any search engine you prefer.  Today I would like to talk about mental health in general terms and my observations about how people view it.

If you read my post about jury duty and you know my life with my husband, you may wonder why I didn’t find in favor of the plaintiff when she came to court seeking compensation for emotional damages.  The fact of the matter is, she did not prove to us that she suffered unduly and the defendant’s actions did not fulfil the legal requirements to be made to pay.

Do I discount anxiety or emotional strain as being “in her head?”  No.  These are very real things.  They are very real mental disorders and illnesses.  I see my husband’s anxieties play out almost daily.  I see other people struggle with anxiety.  I have seen and known sleeplessness and felt my own stomach knot up with worry and fear.  These things should be recognized by our legal system and by our society as very real illnesses just as a broken bone or diabetes are recognized as such.

One of the problems I see in our society, thus our legal and healthcare systems, is a refusal to believe that these are biological disorders.  Even though mental illnesses respond to medications, many people would have us believe that someone can “snap out of it” or “just get over it.”  Because of this attitude, people suffering from a real illness are reluctant to seek medical advice for it.  Would you tell someone with a rash that won’t go away no matter how many over the counter creams and lotions they have applied to it, to “just get over it?”  No!  You would advise them to see a doctor.

As I have learned about my husband’s illness and my own postpartum depression, there are many pills available to help people through mental illnesses.  There are many counselors out there to help people through stressful situations that arise from the illness or from an external situation. 

My inclination is that the woman in the court case I watched play out last week is to believe that she had a situationally triggered  illness of some sort.  The problem was, she had been too reluctant to have it evaluated.  To compare it to a cut, there was no way of knowing if this was a small scratch that healed easily or if this was a deep wound that would have required thirty stitches, or somewhere in between.  What if our culture made it easier for her to see a counselor?  Or even to just visit her primary care doctor for an evaluation?  That case may have turned out much differently, especially since we don’t have any visible scars to indicate the level of anxiety she had experienced as we would an external flesh wound. 

What can be done?  I ask you, reader, to evaluate how you see mental illness.  Do you believe that it is a physical illness affecting the brain?  Or do you believe that it is something else?  Do you believe that all people with mental illnesses are “crazy” and don’t deserve the time of day?  What do you believe?

I believe that all people deserve to have their bodies cared for, whether it is their brain or their pancreas that is ailing them.  When I encounter people in mental distress, I encourage them to seek counseling.  When I encounter someone with a diagnosed mental illness, I don’t assume anything about how it affects them in their ability to function and work on a day-to-day basis.  Every person is different.  Every person deserves to be treated as a person with real feelings and real problems.  No one deserves to be told, “Just get over it!” when it comes to their health.

Thank you for reading my blog.  Don’t forget to click, “Follow” so you don’t miss any posts.  You can find me on facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/meghantellsit

“All rise!” – Lessons learned in a jury box May 5, 2012

This week I appeared as summoned to my local courthouse for jury duty.  Book and bottle of water in hand, I arrived prepared to wait as I have in the past.  The previous time I was called, they placed me on a Grand Jury.  It was interesting work deciding if a criminal case should go to trial.  Most of them did go to trial, though I don’t follow court reports to know if the defendent’s were ever found guilty or exonerated.  I would imagine most of them were found guilty as the District Attorney’s office generally brought us cases that included quite a bit of incriminating evidence.  But I digress.  This post is about this week’s civil case.

After we were all checked in, we were brought into an empty court room to be presented a video about jury duty.  All Massachusetts jurors see this video.  It was nice to see that there is a new one.  Our county has two court houses on the property, and the other one needed jurors, so they took twenty of the sixty of us over there.  I remained with the other forty. 

In MA, the jurors are preassigned random numbers, so they call up people in numerical order to fill the box.  As the judge weeded out those with a good reason not to be there and sent them home, the box filled.  Once there were twelve people willing and able to stay, the defending attorney requested that several of the older women be dismissed.  I don’t know if the judge was required to comply, but he did.  That brought me into the box.  Both attorneys were satisfied with my presence and eventually we had twelve acceptable jurors. 

As we listened to the case, several things went through my mind.  First, “Why are we here?  The Plaintiff has no evidence on which to base her claim.”  As I mentioned above, this was a civil trial.  A woman was seeking monetary damages from a man (Man A) her husband (Man B) had issues with and who subsequently dragged her into the dispute.  She was claiming emotional suffering and wanted money to compensate her for the suffering. 

In a nutshell, the dispute over some money had gone on for some time between Man A and Man B.  She claimed to have no knowledge of the dispute until much much later.  As the dispute went on, each man claimed the other would drive by his place of business yelling, “F*&% you!” and flipping the bird.  Mind you, at the time, both men were about 50 years old. 

As years went by, yes years, the acrimony rose.  Finally, Man A got so frustrated and fed up that he took to carrying a black permanent marker around with him and writing on men’s room walls from Chatham to Fairhaven (for you non-Massachusetts readers – that is over a 60 mile route) during his travels.  He would write what you might expect in a men’s room message.  “For a good time, call Mrs. B at ###-###-####.”  Sometimes the graffiti was very graphic and included things Mrs. B might like to do for fun.  Use your imagination.  I don’t need to repeat it word for word here.  He claimed he thought the number was Man A’s business number and no one else would pick it up. 

As a result, this woman, Mrs. B got a series of phone calls from men looking for a “good time.”  These occurred over about a six month time span before one of the police departments caught wind of it due to his repeated visits to one bathroom in particular.  They successfully prosecuted him for malicious destruction of public property.  Shortly after the police found him out, he stopped his scribbling on bathroom walls and the calls stopped coming in to Mrs. B.

So – during this time, she never sought any help or evaluation of the anxiety she claims to have experienced upon receiving approximately 15 of these calls.  They didn’t change their number.  They didn’t put a block on private calls until after Man A had been identified as the author of the graffiti.  (The caller ID always said, “private.”)  She never missed work.  No one came to the trial to testify to the level of anxiety they saw in her.  No one from work came to say she was making mistakes or doing her job less well than before it all started.  No friend came to say that she had expressed a high level of anxiety.  Her own husband had little to say about how anxious she was.

Let me assure you, dear reader, that I am not unsympathetic to this woman.  I believe she may have suffered some anxiety over this.  But the law was pretty clear about the grounds upon which we were to find in her favor.  She didn’t meet the criteria.  There was no legal reason to grant her money.  Maybe there should be criminal law that pertains to writing someone’s name and phone number in such a manner.  Maybe there is and it wasn’t pursued (I am not a lawyer, so I don’t know.). 

What is the lesson here?  If you have been hurt in some way, please get to a doctor.  At the very least, go to your primary care doctor and get it on record that you have some sort of problem.  No matter how embarrassed you are at the time.  No matter how scared you are at the time (in cases of rape or domestic abuse and the like).  No matter how trivial it seems at the time.  You will have little to go on later should you decide that you want to pursue legal action for the wrong done to you if you can not document that you suffered an injury, be it a black eye or an anxiety attack.  Get it on record so someone can verify you were hurt.

The other lesson?  Massachusetts is awesome in that a plaintiff is not allowed to specify the amount of money they would like to receive when asking for compensation.  If we had found in this woman’s favor, it would have been up to us jurors to decide how much money she deserved.  If more states adopt this sort of law, perhaps we will see a reduction in the number of outrageous claims in the millions of dollars for things that most people would not think warranted that sort of money.  I wonder if the woman who received $5 million from McDonald’s a few years ago after getting burned by coffee would have gotten that much money had the jury been able to set the dollar amount. 

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National Princess Week April 26, 2012

I have been reading a lot about the “Princess Culture” that marketers for companies like Disney have created for our young girls over the past 15 years. I have been dismayed as I shop for toys that so much has been divided by gender. Now several major department stores have declared this to be “National Princess Week.”

Is it wrong for girls to fantasize about being a princess? No. But what is wrong with our corner of the world is that we don’t want our girls to fantasize about much else. “But that’s not true!” you say. “My daughter is smart and can be whatever she wants when she grows up!” Yes she can. But what are you and the other people in her life encouraging her to think about? Actions speak louder than words. Has your daughter been given and encouraged to play with a toy medical kit and a white doctor’s coat? Has she received a science kit? Has she played swords or guns and been told she could be a soldier? Has she played school and pretended to be a teacher? Has she been given a fireman’s suit and pretended to respond to a fire? These are all thigs we pay lip service to telling girls they can do, but when it comes to play and encouraging fantasy, we often hand our girls pink and purple taffeta dresses and tiaras and a movie where a man saves the day.

What does this say to our children? What does this say to our boys? I don’t want my son to grow up thinking women are weak and helpless. We aren’t. But again, actions speak louder than words. I don’t want my son believing that pink and purple are for girls. They aren’t, they are for everyone. I don’t want to take a step back in time and have him believe that girls aren’t smart enough to be doctors or lawyers or strong enough to be soldiers and firefighters.

What happened to Wonder Woman and Princess Leia? These were princesses who also knew how to solve problems with their minds and were able to kick some serious butt when confronted with a physical fight. Princess Leia could shoot a gun and kill some storm troopers, then attend a formal award ceremony and be elegant and feminine. Wonder Woman was a reporter when she wasn’t saving people from the bad guys, and no one would have ever questioned her femininity. (Or Princess Leia’s for that matter – who didn’t try to get that hairdo and don a white dress like hers?)

This morning as I helped my son get ready for preschool, we looked for a show and tell item. The theme was “Something Purple.” I was dismayed to find that we really had to search hard for something purple. It is a beautiful color. A boy should have purple items available to play with. Commercialized Princesses have hijacked pink and purple and our children’s minds.

Let’s take colors back from marketers. Let’s offer our girls more choices and let our boys know that our girls are just as capable of being smart and strong as them. And let’s let our boys know they can like pink or purple as much as the girls in their lives. Let’s try to demonstrate egalitarianism and not jut pay lip service to it. Actions do speak louder than words.

Looking Up April 7, 2012

I hurt my back yesterday. Technically it’s my pelvis, but I feel the pain in my back. As such, I can’t bend over or change positions without a great deal of pain.

What’s so “looking up” about that? Mr. Man has been super helpful. He is coming out of his spring madness and is able to comprehend my pain and do things for me. Like clean up the cat puke. Ew.

We aren’t out of the woods so to speak. He requires a lot of coaching to keep him on task, but the attitude over the past week has been wonderful.

March Madness is not just a series of basketball games. April 1, 2012

This time of year is particularly trying for me.  Mr. Man gets very Manic this time of year.  He has difficulty sleeping, gets easily irritated, has difficulty focusing on anything outside of what’s in his own head, and other symptoms that vary from day-to-day. 

What does this mean for me?  It means that I bring Crazy Boy with me everywhere unless someone else can watch him for a few hours as Mr. Man at best isn’t mentally present enough to keep track of an active four-year old, and at worst is in a bad mood and likely to overreact to our son’s shenanigans.  It is why I work primarily from home.  Crazy Boy can hang out in the other room where I can hear him and have access to me if he needs something.

It means that I must have a very thick skin and not take things that he says personally (way easier said than done!).   For example, he thought I was spending too much money on groceries (a topic I don’t wish to debate here, but the response is what I wish to tell you).  I imagine a more typical couple would have some sort of discussion or even an argument and hopefully take a look at what exactly had been purchased and decide what can be eliminated or changed going forward.  In our case, he ate approximately eight pounds of meat in about 48 hours in order to punish me for overspending.  It hurt the budget and his digestive system.  It did not solve our budget disagreement.

It means that if I need Mr. Man’s help or attention, I have to be willing to repeat myself a zillion times and not get upset if he doesn’t understand me because the thoughts racing through his head are too difficult for him to silence long enough to hear me out.

It means that I get little if any emotional support from him for whatever I may be going through because of or apart from him. 

It means that I will get varying responses from family and friends when they read the insanity he posts on the internet.  Fortunately I have some very good friends (including my family).  I have people to call and who will call me to offer support.  I have places I can go to get a break.  And I have places to go if things get too wild and I really need to leave for good.  All in all, I am blessed.  

About a week ago my sister asked if I knew how long this would last.  The answer isn’t clear.  It seems to happen every year.  Sometime in January I see little signs of the mania starting.  Sometime in February it hits with full force and continues through March.  From there?  I couldn’t tell you when it will end, though he has always seemed to settle down by June.  Not having tracked it that closely, I don’t know how exact the pattern is.

Why do I deal with it?  Why don’t I pick up and leave?  Some days I ask myself that very same question.  It’s hard.  I don’t like living with him when he is like this.  But then he does settle down.  He becomes closer to the man I fell in love with.  He listens to me.  He helps me out.  He supports me.  Summers with Mr. Man can be wonderful.  Winters aren’t great, but they aren’t usually bad either.  These days I can mostly deal with his depressions.  It’s the spring mania that puts the greatest stress on our relationship. 

In that last paragraph I said, “closer to the man I fell in love with.”  He is not the same person.  Mental illness can change a person a great deal, sometimes irrevocably.  During his last episode when he stopped taking his meds, I read a lot of books about living with a mentally ill person.  One of the things that has stuck with me is that families are often in mourning for the person they used to know.  Yet as a society, we have no formal process or real way of acknowledging this like we do for people who die.  The man I married is gone.  Yet there was no funeral, no period of recognized mourning for me as a widow would have had.  I think a lot about arranged marriages.  How many couples whose marriages were arranged talk about “learning to love their spouse?”  That is what I feel like I am doing.  Sure, some things have remained, but many have not.  I have to learn to love him all over again. 

Sometime last week I had one of those defining moments we sometimes have in life.  I truly realized that this is an illness I am dealing with.  While you may be reading this and thinking, “Duh!” it is sometimes difficult to see it for what it is when you are in the moment of being accused of spending too much money or being told that you chose the wrong religion and are an idolater.  It is difficult to see that when you are watching several weeks worth of food being scarfed down in just a few meals and you are panicking because you don’t in fact have a lot of money to replace that food. 

Suddenly, I felt some of the trauma of the unmedicated phase of his life leaving my heart and compassion for him replacing the pain of the past.  I have worked diligently to let go of my own hurts and leave them in the past.  It has been about three years that he has been on medication again.  It has been three years that I have put one foot in front of the other, sometimes facing the pain, sometimes ignoring it, sometimes wondering if it would ever just go away, and praying daily.  It is finally going away.  

I know the pain could come back under stress, but having even a few days of inner peace is fantastic.  For that, I thank God.  I haven’t talked too much about my faith on this blog.  I would like to say here that without faith in God and some good people I know from church supporting and praying for me, I would be a total mess and utterly overwhelmed rather than moving forward with my life. 

Has my faith been “perfect?”  No.  I was very angry at God for all I had gone through.  I even doubted the reality of God for a while because I wanted a miracle and wasn’t getting one.  Fortunately for me, God loves me anyway and never left my side even though I turned from him, then turned back and shook my fist at him and yelled angry words at him.

What does “moving forward” mean?  Right now that means continuing to care for my family.  It means continuing to accompany Mr. Man to doctor appointments.  It means continuing to make sure Crazy Boy is cared for.  It means doing all of this without dwelling on the hurtful stuff, without dwelling on the stressful stuff.  It means doing what is necessary to hold onto that peace that I have fought so hard for and not confusing it with denial.

Thank you for reading.  You can find me on facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/meghantellsit.  Don’t forget to click “follow” above to receive notifications about new blogs.

Psychiatrist or Psychologist or Other Counselor? March 8, 2012

Mr. Man has been to approximately ten mental health professionals (excluding hospital staff) since his first major Manic Episode in college. Yesterday and today he has had appointments with two of those people. All in all he has four professionals guiding him on this life journey.

First is his psychiatrist. For those of you who are confused about the differences the various titles connote, I will try to explain. A psychiatrist is a doctor in the traditional sense of the word. He/she went to med school, completed their M.D. training, then decided to specialize in psychiatry the way some docs specialize in obstetrics. As such, many of these people are very talented at diagnosing disorders and are interested in getting the body in good working order. Mr. Man’s mother found his psychiatrist a number of years ago and he has been a Godsend. This man finally correctly diagnosed him with Bipolar. As an M.D., he can prescribe medications. Additionaly he ran many other tests (bloodwork and rEEG among others) to determine Mr. Man’s general state of health. This doc discovered his food allergies and intolerances as well as other non brain things that were affecting his brain’s ability to function. He got him on a good medicine regimen. He brought Mr. Man to a better state of health in his body. But like many psychiatrists, he is less adept at counseling and helping his patients actually deal with their lives – and often lives are a mess in the wake of mental illness. Being a very intelligent and caring man, this doctor has people on his staff that are very good at counseling.

Here is where a number of other titles come in. A psychiatrist has a Master’s degree or a Doctorate in psychology. A Licensed Social Worker also has an advanced degree. Before seeing their first patient, they should be certified to counsel patients. These people are qualified to diagnose psychiatric disorders. But because they do not have an M.D. they can not prescribe medications. Thus they often partner with a psychiatrist or with the patient’s primary care doctor if the patient needs medication. These professionals are generally adept at helping people live their lives. You can’t talk someone out of a mental illness, but you can equip him/her to live with it. They can also help family members know how to deal with the illness. For example, Mr. Man has anger management issues as a result of his illness. His psychologist has really helped him learn how to deal with anger in a more constructive way. If I have a concern, he hears me out and then works with both of us to resolve it. He doesn’t take sides. If he thinks I am overreacting, he lets me know. If he thinks Mr. Man needs to change something, he lets him know. He wants our lives to work.

The third Professional in Mr. Man’s life is a Nurse Practitioner who also is a licensed counselor. This man works for his psychiatrist. An NP has an advanced degree in nursing (often a doctorate) and can prescribe most medications. But he/she must work under the supervision of an MD. For Mr. Man, the NP he sees provides the best of both worlds. Mr. Man can get meds refilled/changed and get counseling at the same appointment. He is also good at helping us smooth out the bumps in the road of our marriage.

The 4th person on the team is Mr. Man’s primary care physician. When the NP suspected a sleep disorder was making the bipolar worse, he sent him to the PCP to get a sleep study. Sure enough – sleep apnea was keeping him awake and making him crazy. His PCP also helps keep an eye on his general health which becomes even more important when taking medications that can be very harsh on the body. He also evaluates Mr. Man’s state of mind at appointments and communicates with the psych people as needed.

In all of this, the doctors and nurses ask both of us how Mr. Man is doing. They want to know what family sees as well as what he feels.

If you are looking at a mental illness in yourself or a loved one, keep looking for professionals that you feel comfortable with. They will be in your life for a long time. Two qualified people will have different styles and fortes. Find the ones that work with your personality and give them time to build trust.

I need a time machine March 6, 2012

I don’t like being married to Mr. Man at this time of year. His hypomania makes him edgy and unpredictable, thereby making me edgy. One moment he is so absorbed in whatever project he has buried himself in that if I interrupt him I get snapped at. The next moment he is happily chatting away non-stop. I don’t enjoy walking on eggshells for three months out of the year. But just as I think that I am ready to divorce him, his mood will stabilize and the summer will be great. I think I need time machine so I can fast forward to June. Anyone out there have one I can borrow?

New Gadget March 6, 2012

Woo hoo! I got a new phone that lets me onto the blog. Maybe you all will hear from me a little more often.