Mental Health Versus Physical Health: Rant

I am angry, sad, pissed off, depressed and a whole host of other thesaurus terms for: blah.

I made an appointment today with the locum at my GP’s place. I had a blood test a while back that showed that my glucose was normal but I need to know for sure if PCOS is contributing to the weight gain so I am being refered for a pelvic scan.

And, the utterly demoralising routine continues. Another 6lbs of weight since last month. I was completely disbelieving. I haven’t been eating enough by anybody’s standards. I’ve been going for walks and yet my size 16 trousers split today. I am getting fatter, and fatter, and it feels like there is nothing I can do about it.

She said that yes, the medications I take are notorious for weight gain. She’ll refer me to a dietician and I should eat breakfast. I told her that I don’t want to eat at all anymore because I seemingly can’t stop gaining weight.
We talked about the trade-off between physical health and mental health. There is one, definitely. Before I started treatment, I was a smidgen above nine stone. That’s still a little overweight for my height, but I’m not built for being a waif, I have broad shoulder and “fine, childbearing” hips. I was a very comfortable size 12. I had lost some weight, quite a lot of weight, in the mixed episode I had been going through.

Now, almost a year later, I am nudging twelve stone, not fitting into size 16s, losing my hair and feeling knackered all the time. I am having trouble breathing and waddling around like a penguin in a nappy. I am open to all sorts of weight-related illnesses like diabetes and heart disease.

Before anyone pipes up: join a gym, do more exercise: I can’t join a gym, I can’t afford it and I can’t wear short sleeves in public. I take walks regularly but blasted into space by medications that make you constantly tired, depression that drags you below sea level, you try getting up and doing laps.

The two main medications I take are Seroquel and Depakote. Both are geared towards what are perceived to be my biggest problems: mania, psychosis and impulsive behaviour.

None of them do a thing for depression so my natural state is depression. And with the way I look, I am becoming more and more depressed. I can’t bear it.

I told her straight out that I am considering coming off my medications. She said to discuss it with the psychiatrist, although the chances they’ll even consider that are next to nothing. She said that yes, the weight gain is hard to deal with, but surely the mental symptoms are harder? I do know that I go a bit loopy off my medications; every little”experiment” I’ve done proves it. I know that “the mental symptoms” are hell but does that mean that I have to accept this?

I feel shallow for being so vain. I hate the way I look right now and I feel powerless. I am twenty one and feel like an old woman. And look like one too; my shaky plump hands, my breathlessness, the rotundness of my body, losing my hair because of Depakote, the exhaustion.

And the threat of getting really sick again and having a proper with bells on manic episode, and constantly being reminded that I’ll be put back in hospital: it’s starting to feel like, “Whoop de fucking do”. I KNOW.

I have been trying not to say this because it is most kickable offence in the manic depressive handbook but: I feel like my medication is stripping away, layer by layer, who I am. I think fast, I don’t sleep, I keep going. That is not just a “mental symptom”, that is part of who I am. I talk lots. I think lots. You know, once upon a time, I laughed lots too. I could stay in the pub with my friends without having to crawl back home for my medicated bedtime, I could go into work in the morning without feeling like I had been beaten up the night before, I could think clearly, write clearly and not stumble over my words like I do now, not spend ages trying to write one tiny piece of text. I could drink without worrying about the “interaction”, half the time I feel completely frozen; grasp hold an emotion and then watch it float away like a wayward balloon. I wasn’t as forgetful. I didn’t have “meds” to rely on just to be almost like a normal person. I didn’t shake like a drying out alcoholic. I could brush my hair without it falling out.

I know I will get even sicker without medication. That’s why I have to take it. It doesn’t mean I can’t resent it. Because I really, really do. I hate these medications that make me fat, stupid and dull. I can’t say, though, because then I’m “non-compliant”.

I’m not idealising my life before medication. My medication has definitely helped mania. But sometimes (kickable offence number 2) I miss being that energetic, never-ending person. And again I know when it got bad that I was a danger to myself and that I slipped close to insanity and had no idea what was going on around me. I know this too. I know when it ended I regretted it, tortured myself, killed myself with guilt and shame. I know this. I know afterwards that I hated that arrogant, cruel, grandiose person. I know that, with extreme moods, my personality metamorphises from depressed to playful and productive, feeling sexy and seductive, to cold, cruel, angry, rampant, confused, anxious, panicked, paranoid and psychotic. I know this and I know other people don’t like that person either. I know I have lost years of my life to that. I try to keep it in mind. Even if I didn’t, everyone else seems to keep it in mind for me.

I have to keep reminding myself that there is a reason I take these fucking pills. All that crafty mania that doesn’t happen manifests itself in agitated depressions and mixed episodes. I was told that the medication would probably only make episodes less severe and not stop them altogether.

And here I am, fat, blunted, sad, single, wheezing, shaking, balding and exhausted, wondering, then, what the fuck is the point?