About

Welcome to ‘Mentally Questionable’, a blog to record some experiences, thoughts and ideas as I do battle with mental illness.

___

Bio: I’m a recent graduate in the UK in my early twenties, struggling with depression and anxiety since early 2012.

Current diagnosis: Depression with suicide ideation and DSH and Anxiety

Past diagnoses: Psychotic depression, Dysthymia, bipolar

Current medications: Fluoxetine (Prozac) 60mg daily, Lithium 700mg nightly, Mirtazapine (Remeron) 45mg nightly, Propranolol (Inderal) 160mg SR daily

Past medications: Amitriptyline (Elavil), Olanzapine (Zyprexa). Quetiapine (Seroquel). Risperidone (Risperdal), Zopiclone (Imovane/Zimovane), Venlafaxine (Effexor) 75/150/225/300mg daily, Sertraline (Zoloft/Lustral) 50/100/150/200mg, Trazodone (Desyrel) 50/100/150/200mg, Propranolol 10mg/80mg slow-release

I’ve received a short course of ketamine-treatment from my local psychiatric hospital.

I’ve also been in therapy for several years now

In this blog I’m going to be completely open and honest. This means discussing things like self-harm and suicide, so I’d like to issue a little ‘trigger alert’. I know some of my posts make for some hard reading, but this is my reality.

_____

If you want to know why I have these problems, join the queue. My past doesn’t contain any family tragedies or personal traumas, and it’s for this reason that it took me at least six months to admit my mental illness existed – I believed that mental illness had to have these kinds of triggers.

My therapist describes my case as the weathering of a rock; there are cracks in the structure, and over time this rock has been worn down until the cracks are exposed. The cracks are the result of growing up in a dysfunctional family – alcohol addictions, a toxic marriage etc, a family-wide inability to apologize or ever talk about feelings and emotions – the list goes on, and the upshot is that my childhood development was a little twisted off course at times. I’ve always been proud of coping, but those coping/defence mechanisms are haunting me now.

_____

If you have any questions about any of the above, questions relating to blog posts, or if you just fancy saying hello, please don’t hesitate to get in touch! My email is mentallyquestionable@gmail.com