My previous mental healthcare provider for a lack of better words was complete shit. I have wasted 2 years of my time with them. I recently became fed up with them and started to look for a new doctor. I came across this service called Cerebral. They basically offer virtual mental health services for a monthly fee * They do not deal with patients who have severe issues*. They have medication management, therapy and counseling. My anxiety has been pretty well managed; however, the depression not so much. I have felt for some time now that something still wasn’t right. The meds I was on were working to an extent but not 100%. After they fucked up my treatment plan and my medications, they basically stopped following up and fed me bullshit when I have had appts. After my first appointment with my new provider via Cerebral, it was determined during my extensive appointment and assessment that there was something else going on and not what they thought or guessed. My anxiety was confirmed. The OCD was confirmed. The PMDD was cancelled out and the MDD (depression) was basically a competency error of my previous provider’s part. Depression is sometimes confused with a few mental health disorders. One of them commonly being Bipolar disorder; which is sometimes hard to diagnose.
Hi, My name is Breyona and I am bipolar.
The crazy thing about all of this is I knew. I knew there was something else. I knew it was not just depression. It was not getting better, but it was not getting worse if that makes sense? It was more so semi managed by the wrong medication. I still had episodes of agitation etc. even on the main med. The reason I was failing so many drugs was because they kept giving me SSRI (Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) medications and not medications meant for mood stabilization. So when I was in school obtaining my psychology degrees, I briefly touched on certain topics such as medications. I hadn’t gotten to that point in my education. SSRI’s are not the best thing to prescribe to someone who has bipolar disorder because it can induce mania. In my case it did. It has thrown me for a loop because hello! I have several degrees in psychology and a med education history (I dropped out). I basically diagnosed myself but then had several people tell me I was wrong lol. I was never in denial. I knew. At the end of the day it is called practicing medicine after all.
So here I am in 2021, writing yet another blog about my mental disorders only to completely change the narrative of this blog. I have always been a big mental health advocate but this is going to make me advocate harder for better mental health care. Since I have shared more about my journey with my mental issues, I have built rapport with a lot of my blog’s followers. There are a lot of people who can relate but in confidentiality. I hate that the topic of mental disorders (I do not like to use the words Mental illness) is still taboo especially in the minority community. I don’t care if people view me as being “crazy” or whatever, but in reality there are a lot of people who have a high level of intelligence that have a mental disorder. People get the misconception that when a person is diagnosed with a mental disorder, it means that they are not intelligent. Granted, there are some mental disorders that impact intelligence, not all of them do. Bipolar disorder is often called the dark side of creativity. A lot of “creative” individuals such as myself are commonly diagnosed with some form of bipolar disorder.
One of my favorite stories of all time is Alice in Wonderland. I have several tattoos with the theme. Even as a kid I loved this story. I was immediately drawn to the characters of the Mad hatter and the white rabbit who was always late. If you analyze the story, there are several things that stick out about the characters. Hence we are all mad here.
Alice was schizophrenic
The white rabbit had anxiety
The queen was a narcissist
The mad hatter had bipolar disorder or manic depression
The caterpiller had delusions of grandeur
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum had ADHD
So what happens now?
So what happens now is, I begin my new journey of figuring out what the fuck is wrong with me and making it right. I will start the new medication soon. We are leaving everything else the same dosage and schedule wise. The only thing that changes is the SSRI will be eliminated and the mood stabilizer will be in it’s place. I am told I should see a big difference and get more relief within the next few weeks. TBH, I have been waiting for this moment since I was 13. I am glad that I decided not to continue to be told that I was wrong about how I felt. It’s my fucking brain after all. I am proud of myself for not giving up on me. I am holding myself accountable for my wellbeing. I refuse to give up on me period. I will be utilizing my time this year to get ready for our next move into our brand new 2nd home, sticking with my treatment plan and utilizing therapy once again (even though I know my triggers and have basically eliminated a lot of them, in case I have missed something), continue to grow my successful businesses, and work more on my art to really push my paintings. You can either be here for the growth and the glow up or unsubscribe/unfollow now because I am just getting started.
Hello & Welcome! 