SERIOUS MENTAL
HEALTH ISSUES
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If you are currently under the supervision of a prescribing medial professional for this illness and are following their care plan, I am happy to work with you. This can be around managing your specific illness or other issues. You have a mental heath illness, you are not that illness. You have the same battles, challenges, and issues as everyone else and we will work together to address them.
SERIOUS MENTAL
HEALTH ISSUES
——
If you are currently under the supervision of a prescribing medial professional for this illness and are following their care plan, I am happy to work with you. This can be around managing your specific illness or other issues. You have a mental heath illness, you are not that illness. You have the same battles, challenges, and issues as everyone else and we will work together to address them.
Bipolar Disorder
In addition to the stretches of Depression that you experience, you also have times that are starkly different. You have increased energy. You do not need as much sleep. You are productive, creative, and feel like you are your best self. While your rapid speech and energetic actions might irritate others around you, this feels like the real you. You are able to take risks, really enjoy things that feel good, like sex, spending money. Certainly more than when you are depressed. As good as this feels, this is a low level of mania and it our brains are not able to stay here. A crash back into Depression is coming, or worse, a continued increase into the higher energy of full blow mania. Worse, the medications you have been given stop this state from coming back. They may help keep the lowest lows and highest highs at bay, but they also wipe out the state that feels like the best you.
In full blown mania, your need for less sleep becomes a near lack of sleep. You have racing thoughts you cannot control. It is hard to stay on any one task. It is hard to even complete a thought when speaking. You feel both full of energy and exhausted at the same time. Even worse, your thoughts increasingly are disconnected from reality in your euphoria. While manic you have made rash and illogical decisions like quitting a good job to start your sure fire business. If you go long enough without sleep, you will have a psychotic episode. Even once you have your inevitable crash, you may have months of lingering distortions to your thinking. At least in a state of depression you are not out wrecking your life.
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is the most devastating mental illness. Your very ability to think is disrupted. Your senses lie to you, with voices and visions, maybe even other senses like touch and smells. Without treatment, your very beliefs are distorted. It is not surprising that so many people with this diagnosis suffer with paranoia: How can you trust anything if you cannot trust your own senses? When you are not in a psychotic state, when you are yourself, it can remain a struggle to think, to get organized, and even to read the emotions of other people. You have seen the inside of a mental hospital, most likely because you were sent there against your will. You are better now and do not want a repeat of that experience.
The medications you have been prescribed do not help your sense of energy or worth. It is hard to move through the fog in your mind.
It is Hard to Find a Therapist
The National Institute of Mental Health defines psychosis as:
“A collection of symptoms that affect the mind, where there has been some loss of contact with reality. During an episode of psychosis, a person’s thoughts and perceptions are disrupted and they may have difficulty recognizing what is real and what is not.”
Both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia can have psychosis as a major component of the mental illness. The possibility of psychosis presented mania and schizophrenia is not only scary for clients, it is intimidating for therapists too. It is hard to find a therapist willing to treat you. You have found that therapist in me. I have a quarter century working in community mental health treating the full breadth of mental illness. Whatever your story, however scary it has been for you, I promise I can be there with you to help you manage your symptoms and help you build coping skills to move towards a fuller life.
Medication is a Must and so is a good Psychiatric Provider
As someone working on recovery from one of these mental illnesses, I will require you to be under the care of a psychiatric provider. This is because experience and the scientific literature has proven that therapy alone is not enough for your treatment. In order for your therapy to be effective, the underlying biological issues in your brain have to be treated as well. This is no different than Type I diabetes: all the good diets in the world are not enough.
I know you do not want to hear this. I did not want to be told I had to take a statin for my sky-high cholesterol. Worse, unlike my Lipitor, your medications can cause daily side effects. They can make your mind feel dull. They can rob you of your energy. It can feel like they change your sense of self. I have years of experience working with people on medications and working with their providers. If needed, I am willing to work directly with your provider to coordinate your treatment. I will help you prepare to talk with your provider to make sure your medication is what it needs to be. This can be complex. Medication management is as much an art as it is a science. It is vital for your recovery.
How do we fix this?
Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are life-long illnesses that will need ongoing treatment with medication. Your goal is to get into recovery. In recovery many of your symptoms get less intense or disappear, and you are better able to cope with daily life. Some of the symptoms of your illness may linger in recovery or appear in less intense ways. With appropriate treatments, the vast majority of people successfully enter into recovery. You can live a more connected and productive life.
Both medication and therapy are vital parts of your recovery. Medication will address the underlying biology. Therapy will address the thoughts and feelings associated with your illness. In therapy we will also develop the coping skills needed to maintain your recovery. And just because you have been diagnosed with a mental illness does not mean you do not have the same struggles with stress, anxiety, and unexpected life events as everyone else. I will support you working in those areas.
None of this is going to be easy, but you are already familiar with treatment not being easy. You do not have to do this alone. I will be with you to keep you safe. As your therapist, I am there as a guide. I am not part of your family. I am not a friend. I stand outside your day to day life. You will have the opportunity to be open, vulnerable, and scared with me in a place with no moral condemnation, no castigation of weakness, and no judgment. I will not be afraid of you, even when you are afraid of yourself. I will remind you of your progress when you feel there has been one. I will help you face yourself to move into recovery. I with you to help you manage the impact of medications and their side effects. It will be hard and I know you can do it, like the many people I have seen walk the same road.
What does “better”
look like?
“Better” is getting into recovery. Mental health takes the idea of recovery from the substance abuse field. Recovery is a process of change through which you will improve your health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and work towards reaching your full potential. With help, you can overcome your illness and regain mental health and social connection. Recovery allows you to regain control over your life, managing your remaining symptoms (if any) and achieve a level of functioning where your illness no longer significantly disrupts your daily life. You will have a greater understanding of your illness with plans in place to monitor yourself. You will build a support network with family and friends. We will develop strategies for taking on daunting tasks. You will have new ways to move yourself to action.
Like with substance abuse, it is not a one-time event, but a lifetime change. Recovery is life practice, like changing your diet, as opposed to going a brief diet. As we say, it is a journey, not a destination. Your recovery will be based on your needs, your situation, and your desires.
You are not your mental health diagnosis. You are a unique individual. It is so easy to feel defined by your illness. Better means no longer defining yourself by your diagnosis; it means regaining your sense of self as the precious human being you are. While it may feel like you have lost your creativity, I promise you we can find ways to reconnect with that part of your being that do not involve the associated loss of control and subsequent crashes into depression and/or delusion. I look forward to helping you find your best self who does not have
to live in fear.
Therapists providing
counseling in Atlanta
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