In Sickness and in Mental Health: Living with and Loving Someone with Mental Illness

By Diane Mintz

"In Sickness and in Mental Health" is a personal journey through the madness of living with mental illness and the uncommon discovery to the road back to health. Author Diane Mintz shares her terrifying experience with bipolar disorder and how a symptom of the disorder itself, coupled with various addictions, impeded her recovery for a decade.

Diane discloses her soul with transparency, searching for answers which ultimately leads her to the balanced and abundant life she has enjoyed for over twenty years. Early in her recovery she meets her future husband and draws on her experience, strength, and hope to help him recover from an even more complicated illness called schizoaffective disorder. Throughout their marriage, Diane gains insight into what very few people understand.

A story of deep, abiding love, this book reveals powerful lessons about the road to recovery, how to have healthy, meaningful relationships, and especially what it takes to have an extraordinary marriage. Together for nearly twenty years, this couple has defied the odds. They enjoy each other, their two children and their thriving business.

"In Sickness and in Mental Health" provides genuine hope to those who are affected by mental illness that a healthy, happy life is possible.

Visit Diane's website:
www.dianemintzauthor.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: Diane Mintz
• Release date: Oct 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781935953616

Diane Mintz

DIANE MINTZ was born in Newark, New Jersey where she lived until her family moved to California when she was 9. With the exception of graduate school and travel, she has spent her adult life in Berkeley where she got her B.A. from UC Berkeley and raised her two sons. She has worked as a teacher, an editor,  a translator, a secretary, a newspaper reporter and a realtor (while founding a nonprofit, YES.Families.org), all while stashing  her writings in drawers.  This is the first time some of her writing has been allowed the light of day.

Book preview

In Sickness

and in

Mental Health

Living with and

Loving Someone

with Mental Illness

Diane Mintz

Copyright 2013 by Diane Mintz. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional when appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, personal, or other damages.

In Sickness and in Mental Health: Living with and Loving Someone with Mental Illness

By Diane Mintz

1. Psychology: Mental Illness 2. Self-Help: Mood Disorders 3. Biography & Autobiography: Personal Memoirs

ISBN: 978-1-935953-61-6

Smashwords Edition

Cover design by Lewis Agrell

Interior design by Stephanie Martindale

Authority Publishing

11230 Gold Express Dr. #310-413

Gold River, CA 95670

800-877-1097

www.AuthorityPublishing.com

This book should not be used for diagnostic purposes and is not intended as a substitute for medical or other professional healthcare advice and treatment. If you have questions or concerns about your health, please contact your healthcare provider.

To my amazing mother

who showed me how true love

grows in sickness and in health

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,

Nothing is going to get better.

It’s not.

Dr. Seuss

Contents

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION…TO HOPE

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

PART ONE DIANE D

CHAPTER ONE ONSET

CHAPTER TWO DEBILITATED

CHAPTER THREE MANIA UNLEASHED

CHAPTER FOUR ROLLER COASTER

CHAPTER FIVE THE POTATOES ARE IN THE TRUNK

CHAPTER SIX SOBER AND SANE

CHAPTER SEVEN DISCOVERY

PART TWO GREG M

CHAPTER EIGHT THE MEETING

CHAPTER NINE AND BABY MAKES…THREE?

CHAPTER TEN HAPPILY MENTAL AFTER

CHAPTER ELEVEN SCHIZOAFFECTIVE UNVEILED

CHAPTER TWELVE IN SICKNESS

CHAPTER THIRTEEN MISSING MANIA

CHAPTER FOURTEEN WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER

HAPPILY EVER...AFTERWORD

APPENDIX A THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

APPENDIX B RESOURCES

PREFACE

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), mental illnesses are more common than cancer, diabetes or heart disease. Sadly, most people suffer silently due to stigma and the lack of support from loved ones—who probably just don’t know how to help.

It can be terribly messy to get involved with someone with a mental illness. I should know, I used to be one of those messy people. People shake their heads at us and say, Why don’t they get help? Might as well tell someone with a broken leg to run to the doctor.

Someone has to be willing hold our hand because we cannot simply help ourselves. It is impossible to fix a broken brain with a broken brain. My mother supported me when I limped through life by helping me navigate my way through the broken mental health system. My mom believed I could get well, and I did.

Then I married a messy person, but by that time, I was equipped to guide and encourage my husband. This is our story of recovery and discovery of deep, abiding love.

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

To God and all who supported our recovery—we are eternally grateful. Thank you to my courageous husband who permitted me to expose our struggles along with our hope. Jordan and Richelle, thank you for all the joy and laughter you bring to our lives. Special thanks to Ken Bluemel for helping me identify my calling, Jerolyn Bogear for leading me onto the publishing trail, and to Marialice Dockus for the final push to finish this book. Finally, my sincere thanks to Stephanie Chandler for her help and encouragement through the publishing process.

INTRODUCTION…TO HOPE

Clouded by alcohol and drugs, racing at warped manic speed, or enclosed in a black tomb of depression; my brain has been on a turbulent ride with many obstacles. Although I haven’t had a drink or a manic episode in two decades, it’s difficult to unscramble the muddled thoughts and emotions of those roller coaster years to recount my story.

Before our paths crossed, Greg and I each spent many years living in conditions that should have resulted in homelessness, incarceration, institutionalization, or death. But against all odds, we are now living joyful, productive lives with two beautiful children and a thriving business.

Our lives used to revolve around substances and behaviors that kept us in bondage and seriously affected our mental health. Sometimes we were so mentally ill that we were locked up and bound in strait jackets or tied down in four-point restraints. Then our paths crossed on the road to recovery, and two broken people became one. We found freedom and a love beyond our wildest dreams.

We spent many years unaware of the full scope of our condition. Our natural survivor instinct persuaded us to be in denial of some aspect of our many issues. Without some sort of denial, people like us can feel utterly hopeless.

But there is hope. I have not been hospitalized nor had a manic episode or major debilitating depressive episode since I got sober on December 22, 1991. I know I’m not cured, because to think along those lines might cause me to stop taking my medications and drink again.

Now that I have been stable for over twenty years, taking medication is no big deal; it allows me to live the wonderful quality of life I enjoy today. Of course, I didn’t always feel that way. As it turns out, denial of being sick is not just a major obstacle, but an actual symptom of bipolar disorder. More on that later.

The first part of my story is about my own experience with addiction and mental illness. The obstacles of denial and unawareness, made my road to recovery very long and treacherous. It is my hope that others will take a shorter road to the place of acceptance and compliance so they can experience stability earlier in their lives.

My first experience with psychiatrists was at the age of twenty-two when doctors diagnosed me with clinical depression back in 1983. After a manic episode a year later, they changed my diagnosis to manic depression, now referred to as bipolar disorder. Like many people with serious mental illnesses, I was not correctly diagnosed for several years. This is often due to the fact that alcohol and drug use can mimic and mask psychiatric symptoms. I had been abusing drugs and alcohol for seven years prior to my first diagnosis. Therefore, I have changed most of the names in my story to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent.

Don’t let the words addict and alcoholic throw you. I wasn’t a gutter drunk or a back-alley junkie with a needle in my arm. It is difficult for anyone to admit they may have a problem when those terms conjure up such extreme images. Actually, there are many faces and phases of addiction. The truth is, most substance abusers blend in to our everyday lives.

The second part of the saga is my crazy love story. After I was sober, sane, and stable for two years, I discovered my challenges with mental illness weren’t over after all. My behavior wasn’t crazy anymore, but I was crazy about a man with an undetectable mental illness that remained a mystery for a long time to come.

Now that I have observed my husband’s illness over many years, I have experienced mental illness from the inside out and the outside in. Loving someone with mental illness is a heartbreaking battle with an invisible foe. But today we live in victory and have genuine hope for others living with mental illness.

Greg discovered hope when he got clean and sober on April 13, 1990. He was barely 21. Because Greg suffers from a more complicated illness, his diagnosis took longer and has been more difficult to treat. Over the span of nearly twenty years, Greg was given many diagnoses. We were married for several years before we heard the term schizoaffective disorder, which finally fit the bill. My simplified explanation of this complicated illness is to call it a hybrid of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, which makes it rather unique in each affected person. It has taken many years of trial and error for me to learn how to best help Greg manage this unpredictable condition.

Greg and I have been on a long journey of recovery from serious mental illness and addiction. By addiction, I simply mean we had uncontrollable compulsions to use substances which negatively impacted our lives; but despite unwanted consequences, we continued to use them anyway.

One surprising discovery on our journey occurred when Greg and I started to share more openly with others about our mental disorders after we had lived in secret shame for many years. Before I opened up to people, especially after my first stay in a mental hospital, I could only see myself as a mental patient. There weren’t any advertisements for psychotropic medications like we see today. Mental illnesses were never discussed. I felt like I had a branding on my forehead that said mental or defective brain inside. I didn’t want anyone to look too closely or they’d realize my brain was on the blink.

Everywhere I looked I saw Judge-Mental. I was certain that everyone would judge me if they were aware of my condition. I don’t worry about what people think anymore. It shouldn’t matter that I have a history of mental illness because my problematic times are now ancient history. I am determined to fight the stigma and give people intimate insight into what it is like to battle and have victory over these disorders.

There are so many people suffering from mental illness all around us—yet some are the silent successful, like us. We’ve learned how to live full and joyful lives, without anything holding us back. We are successful in our business and active in our community. Friends who are unaware of our past would be shocked to learn that we were ever debilitated by such serious mental illnesses.

When I was first diagnosed, the possibility of living a normal life seemed completely unattainable to me. What made matters worse was to be the absolute only person on earth I knew who had a serious psychiatric condition. Many people still feel that sense of isolation. But we are far from alone.

As many as one out of four adult Americans could be diagnosed with one or more mental disorders in a given year. One out of seventeen live with a serious mental illness like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective, or major depression.i Why do millions of people silently suffer from conditions my husband and I have lived successfully with for many years? Do these people know they have a treatable illness? Are they getting proper treatment? Are they afraid of stigma or self-medicating?

Everyone needs to realize that mental illnesses are equal-opportunity diseases. Those of us who are afflicted are not crazy, lazy, or weak-willed. It doesn’t mean we are stupid, incompetent, or need to be feared. When we are ill, we can’t simply try harder to behave appropriately. We need proper treatment. Similarly, freedom from alcoholism and drug addiction is not a matter of willpower.

Addicts, including alcoholics, are often high functioning and successful in many areas of their lives for a long time before their substance use might come into question since some problematic behavior can be concealed. If serious mental illness is involved, however, lives unravel and become unmanageable more quickly. The parameters of what are considered problematic drinking and substance abuse broadens; more is affected ... our very lives are at stake!

An example of changing parameters would be when a woman who drinks in moderation becomes pregnant but doesn’t change her alcohol consumption throughout her pregnancy. Now that we are aware of fetal alcohol syndrome, a pregnant woman’s drinking under these circumstances may be an issue of abuse. Likewise, someone may not be considered a substance abuser, but if they slip into clinical depression or become psychotic and continue to drink and use, it can be seriously problematic. The fact that substance use interferes with diagnosis and treatment of mental illness is undeniably an obstacle that keeps us from wellness. Having a mood disorder also increases the likelihood of addiction and visa-versa.

Some people may refer to a psychiatric condition combined with a substance abuse problem as a co-existing disorder or dual diagnosis. During our struggling years, Greg and I saw our destructive habits spawn and morph into a variety of other compulsions as we tried various ways to cope. So I refer to our package of problems as a combo platter, since we’ve dealt with a changing menu of issues (and because it makes my husband cringe when I say that). We are perpetually silly with each other. Humor is a key ingredient to coping with a combo platter.

Treatment centers for dual diagnosis and twelve-step programs such as Dual Recovery Anonymous or Dual Diagnosis Anonymous were not in existence years ago when Greg and I needed it. We had to use a ping pong treatment approach. We had to bounce back and forth from seeking psychiatric help to making attempt after attempt at sobriety. Recovery seemed impossible when it was left up to us, the impaired ones, to integrate treatment. The problem is obvious—our mind gets in the way of treatment.

I am not crazy about revealing the humiliating behavior of my crazy days, but I am compelled to tell our story because there is still so much stigma around mental illness and very little empathy concerning addiction. We are often ridiculed because we suffer from conditions that affect our behavior, but if people had a greater understanding of our afflictions, we might be treated with greater compassion and respect.

Perhaps we’ve come a long way since the Holocaust when the mentally ill would have been first in the gas chamber. The next big step up was to be institutionalized for life. Things are better, but there is still a long way to go.

Thankfully, in recent years Greg and I have received considerably more understanding and acceptance—which happens to do wonders for our overall mental state and actually accelerates recovery! It is my hope that more people like us will be able to experience greater support and acceptance as well.

The mentally ill certainly do not receive support from the media. Hollywood misrepresents the mentally ill as violent, scary, evil people. News reports focus on tragic murders and other violent crimes, which are rare but sensational due to the senseless nature of the crimes. We are more comfortable with daily reports of violence when there is a motive of greed, jealousy, or envy to pin it on. If a violent act is caused by an ill person who has not been able to get complete, on-going treatment for their condition, it makes no sense at all.

Sometimes the police and other authorities don’t know how to identify and respond appropriately to a frightened mentally ill person who is unaware of their situation. Personally, I never had any physical altercations with anyone in my life until hospital staff tried to detain and restrain me. Then I thought I was fighting for my life.

Criminal behavior seems to occur most often when someone with dual diagnosis gets intoxicated and goes off their medication. Then they often pay dearly for their weakness. The desire to stop taking psychotropic medication is very strong for many reasons, but one thing that surely gets a person off track is to be too intoxicated to take proper care of their condition. If the only regular psychiatric treatment available to them is in our prison