Tag: dailyprompt

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What does being mentally ill feel like?

So as everyone can tell I’m working of speaking when I’m uncomfortable.

But I’ve never actually told everyone what mental health issues feel like.

It’s similar to walking down a steep hill. You start slow and quickly realize that to stay upright you need to walk faster but you keep speeding up just to stay upright. Until you are running so fast that you wonder how long you can keep from falling and you have no idea how you got here.

The complete loss of control and abject fear is palpable

Then your loving partner asks you to take out the trash or empty the dishwasher and you think, HOW, every bit of my energy is taken up with focusing on running down this hill and not tripping on my feet. How can I empty the dishwasher as well?

That’s what living with mental illness feels like. You are working as hard as you can just to survive and your wondering how the fuck it got so out of control.

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Am I still, Richard

So what’s been haunting me for my entire life has now become evident, as a child my personality fractured into pieces. The piece that lived with my mother and Me or as now gives me relief, Dickie, the piece that lived with his loving grandparents in the summers.

Now my manifestation of DID doesn’t feel like the movies portray. It’s more of a compulsion to act but maybe there is more to it as I can’t look at mirrors in the dark as I’m terrified to. Umm…more memories to investigate.

People close to me have heard me say for a few years that it doesn’t seem that I’m in control of my amygdala. You see, my physical level of agitation never seems to fit my environment. There is a disconnect and now I am convinced that “Ricky” has been in control of my fight or flight center. The only thing experimentally that doesn’t line up perfectly is Dickies’ martyr complex. Hmmm…

So I’m left with the question, am I still Richard (don’t sue me Lisa Genova) the answer is YES I’m still me but now with the ability to talk. I’m still the loving caring person I think I am but with almost uncontrollable emotional dysregulation. By working on my anxiety but not the underlining cause I’ve created a perfect storm. Rickys’ pain and suffering have been hidden for so long that it’s inconsolable and now Dickie has no defenses from Ricky stepping on our amygdala. There doesn’t ever seem to be a correlation between my physical level of tension and my environment.

So yes, I’m still Richard, but I like to be called Dickie. ๐Ÿ˜‰

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Why I’m going to speak to everyone like they are a 5 year old and you should too

Those that know me well know that I love seeing a story from two or more perspectives. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead was my favorite movie growing up, with a close second Akira, of course, as one does.

I’ve been watching both the left and my right leaning personal circle and it appears to me that neither side is listening.

Mundays’ list for life (at least mine)

  • Explain your opinion on a hot topic issue like you would a 5 year old.
    • Be kind and don’t dramatise the issue
    • Stick to facts
    • Tell both sides
    • Explain that this is only your opinion and they should form their own
  • During a disagreement
    • Be kind
    • Understand that this disagreement can only be a misunderstanding
    • Explain it in the simplest terms
      • Takes the burden off of you
      • Makes you reach to articulate properly and focuses your thoughts
  • I really thought the list would be longer, maybe ill think of something else later.