Phoenix Rising

In my last post Descent Into The Unknown I ended the post by saying how my world came crashing down around me and I left work permanently. For my last year at work my GP had been prescribing me Prozac for my depression. When I left work I was placed under the care of the community mental health team. My first appointment with a psychiatrist I left with a prescription for stronger antidepressants, anti psychotics, mood stabilises and diazepam! He didn’t make a firm diagnoses at that time. Things are very hazy about then, but just the fact that I had admitted to hearing voices meant he believed I was psychotic. I wasn’t but he was the professional and I had no idea what was happening so who was I to question him? I do remember feeling hopeless as I left that first appointment. I didn’t feel reassured that everything was going to be ok. I felt chaotic and as I clutched my prescription I felt that the future held a lifetime of being drugged up to try and quell the endless onslaught of symptoms. It wasn’t just mental health symptoms I was struggling I was also struggling with my physical health. I had been diagnosed with Asthma as a baby and although it fluctuated when I was an infant, my Asthma became severe at around the age of nine and I had my first hospital admission due to a severe attack. From nine to fourteen I was constantly being rushed to A&E and even ended up intensive care at one point. When I ran away from home and up until my last year at work my asthma had pretty much calmed down, though I would regularly take a steroid inhaler and always have Ventolin with me wherever I went. When I left work my asthma seemed to go wildly out of control if I wasn’t in an ambulance I was spending a lot of time being admitted to chest wards. My Asthma had become so severe that each time an ambulance took me in I would regularly be rushed to resus first and on several occasions I ended up in Intensive care. The antipsychotics and the regular oral and intravenous steroids made my weight ballon massively. I was then diagnosed with sleep apnea and put on a CPAP machine by the respiratory team. In the middle of all this I would regularly have another mental health crisis. Voices that I didn’t understand, severe self harm that I couldn’t remember inflicting on myself, and a psychiatrist who would chop and change the antipsychotics and increase the diazepam. Up until March 2020 I was on over 20 drugs a day. Four of those drugs where for mental health the rest where for physical problems that had developed over the last twenty years. When our eating disorder Developed we stopped all medication except for a Fentanyl patch for our pain. As I look back on our journey I feel distressed about the amount of medication prescribed to my body. Medication that came with side effects and that made me sluggish and clouded my thinking. That initial interaction with the psychiatrist speaks of one of the major problems with the care system. That he deemed after only speaking to me for maybe twenty minutes at the most he would begin me on a regime of such strong drugs. The drugs came with many side effects and at one point one of the new antipsychotics had to be stopped as I was developing tardive dyskinesia, which results in a condition where the face and body makes sudden uncontrollable movements. I have discovered how my trauma has driven the majority of my physical problems. I no longer have asthma attacks, no more ambulances or stays for weeks on end in hospital. I wonder if I even ever had Asthma as I have learnt how traumatic events led to breathing problems. It seems in our current medical model it’s easier to prescribe medication after medication without ever truly exploring what going on in a persons mind and body. As I stop here for the moment I’ll just say there is so much more to share.