Am I Crazy?

As stated in my comment responding to Sonia (please go to http://my.opera.com/Raznay/blog/2009/07/29/am-i-crazy for Sonia's comments) I'm going to write a little bit about what to ask yourself if you think you might have a mental illness.

Sonia brought up a really good point about being misdiagnosed as a response to my "DO NOT SELF DIAGNOSE" warning in my last post. For me, this brought up a rather interesting combination of responses, mostly dealing with fear surrounding confusion and the age old question "Well what do I do then?"

I'm not a doctor nor have I been medically trained in any way. I am not a psychologist nor do I have any psychology certificates, degrees or training. I am only, and therefore can only offer, a guide to some possible ways of dealing, learning and discussing mental illness.

I will reiterate that I do have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and as a result also suffer from depression and anxiety. I write from my own experiences and those shared with me by others.

I can not stress enough how bad it is to self diagnose. If you suspect that "something is wrong" go to mental health websites (I will list some in this blog) and read about what you feel. You can also google the words you feel (ie. sad, emtpy, broken, hurt, depressed etc) and learn about mental illness that way. Be careful with the google search as you will inevtiably come across a lot of junk.

Some mental health websites will offer a questionaire of sorts for you to answer that can be used as a guide (only a guide!) to help you begin to understand that you are not crazy, weird, a freak, strange or broken.

Let's just step back a couple of steps now. I realise that a lot of people who read this who might not be feeling "quite right" are the least likely to jump straight into mental health websites. A lot of us start off in denial, secretly knowing that something is wrong but not sure where to start and even thinking we're making it up. We are literally our own worst enemy.

To help a little bit I'm going to ask some questions, if you find you can relate to them on quite a deep level I actually BEG you check out a mental health website (or 100) and find out more.

These questions are based on my own thoughts and feelings as I've gone through the emotional rollercoaster of being mentally ill!

Questions:

• Do you feel sad and/or upset almost all the time?

• Do you find it hard to sleep or have "broken" sleeps?

• Is there a particular negative "voice" (or constant thoughts if you're not comfortable with the voice term) that undermines everything you do?

• Is food an issue? (Over eating, not eating, binge eating, etc)

• Is your mood erratic, swinging from one extreme to the other?

• Do you find that you are "missing time"? (Either you simply don't remember periods of hours, days, weeks etc or maybe it's all so repetitive it's hard to separate the days)

• Do you have extreme trouble maintaining friendships because you feel unworthy?

• Do you feel unworthy of being happy?

• Do you deserve the way you feel? (if feelings are negative)

I'll cut the questions short there because not only am I starting to get upset (not good for the writer!!!!) but I think there's enough there to ascertain whether or not further investigation is for you.

Without sounding like those cheesy teen magazines if you found you answered "yes" or felt quite "strange" as if a bell was ringing somewhere inside you, then I again beg you to look at some mental health websites.

Here is a list of some of the ones I prefer for their easy explanations, easy navigation and practical approaches.

RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia

http://tinyurl.com/ngutya

Brilliant list of further information sites.

Positive Directions - Queensland and Northern Territory based site

http://www.positivedirections.org.au/useful+mental+health+websites.aspx

Another brilliant source for more information.

MentalHealth.com - American based

http://www.mentalhealth.com/whnjs.htm

A good overview of disorder, further reading, explanations and more.

SMHAI Website

http://suicideandmentalhealthassociationinternational.org/

This site is a bit more complicated but does include some test that you can do to help understand where you are at regarding mental illness.

I apologise for more of the Australian sites, I am a little biased there being an Aussie myself. Alternatively you can google "Mental Health *insert your area here*" for even more information that is local for you.

Even though these sites are Australian, the disorders and feelings don't change. Unfortunately those are universal and it doesn't matter where you read about it. What differs can be the treatment approaches, so if you're not from Australia perhaps it's not the best idea to read the treatment sections.

For fear of information overload I'll stop this post here and begin the next one.

What to do if you feel you do have a mental illness after reading the websites.

Cheers,

Raznay