I need to do something about my weight, too. However, I have started getting healthier. I quit smoking three months ago. That's good but it also added a little weight. But I'm never going back to that. I feel better now that I've quit and have probably extended my life by many years.

I was drinking about 5 liters of Diet Coke a day. Today I exchanged that for water. I feel kind of sluggish without all that caffeine, but I'm hoping that will pass. I've heard that diet sodas can make you crave sweets and it looks like they may have been having that effect on me. We'll see.

I agree with you about artificial sweeteners.

Last edited Thu Oct 4, 2012, 06:46 AM - Edit history (2)

Circular discussion. I keep trying to get away from the same feelings of "my life is over because of this if anyone finds out". And, it keeps just coming back. I have a couple of good days where I feel better about things, and then something big or small just brings it back to me. So that was my only topic of discussion. And it all keeps rolling along like a snowball going down hill, gathering speed and size and picking up the misc. debris of my childhood and life as it goes. And honestly, it pisses me off on one level and makes me profoundly sad on another, because it's the same thing over and over. Right back to how I felt the afternoon I had the first meeting with the psychiatrist and right back to how I felt many times since. And it seems like I just can't shake it because something new always pops up to remind me.

So, the discussion I had with my therapist was pretty much a carbon copy of the big one I had with the hospital therapist in the group that Friday afternoon 13 days ago, except that my therapist, being a woman for one thing, wasn't quite as "boot camp" on me as he was. The basic gist is the same as what the hospital therapist said, in a nutshell, it's no one's business, but if they do find out, so what? and worst case scenario, if someone makes it an issue, tell them to go to hell or whatever.

Easily said, but I still have the same fear: "they" (whoever, employer, family, society at large, all could be "they&quot will find out, I can't keep it a secret forever and I can't keep lying without getting caught, and when "they" find out that I have a mental illness, "they" will crucify me for it. And it will be game over, and right back to the "I'll end up homeless, in prison, or in the state mental hospital".

ALL very irrational, I know. Disturbing, upsetting, anxiety-provoking to me none the less. Michigan doesn't even have state mental hospitals anymore, all were closed and patients moved to community setting group homes, etc.

But I just don't know how to shake the feeling while it's ongoing. Maybe I SHOULD take out the full page ad in the Detroit Free Press, "come out" and just get it over with. Then at least I wouldn't have to lie and sneak around and worry about every little thing and about who knows which puzzle pieces and who is going to put it all together.

Even the positive things I am afraid to admit to. I joined the health club, tomorrow morning I start in their fitness/weight loss program. And, I have gone a couple of times now to just get used to the place. And that in and of itself is causing consternation, because when I tell my family, it will be just another notch in the belt of evidence that "something is wrong with him". Because they just won't understand the entire concept that I hate my life as is and I want to change it. The reason, as my therapist pointed out to me after I pointed it out to her, they like me "in my place" because it's comfortable for them, they can control me and get what they want out of me, and any "rebellion" on my part is questioned as "what's wrong with him."

And honestly, I wish I could tell them most or all to just "go fuck off" as the hospital therapist said I needed to do. But I can't because the family dynamic is such that rocking the boat causes all hell to break loose. So I am stuck here in the same place emotionally.

And honestly, I just don't get it myself. I know the world is full of people who are total asses, and sure, many of them would look down on me if they knew about my MI. But, it's a big world, I don't need to associate with the ones that think I'm second class or less than that. There must be enough enlightened people in this world that no one with this problem need put up with that.

Then I read the horror stories on MI support web sites about family turning their backs and employers finding ways to fire or get people to quit without getting the ADA/FMLA type laws in play. And that scares me.

A final irony. The therapist's office is located a few miles further down the same road as the psychiatrist's office, so going home Tuesday evening from therapy, I retraced my route from the day I was diagnoses and told I had to do a psychiatric hospital program of some sort. And that day really flooded back to me as I drove. Then I had to go through the same freeway exchange area as that day, and I saw the concrete overpass supports that I "thought of" that day as a tool to "resolve my problems" and that was emotional because I don't want that, I would have just "resolved my problems" and done without the last anxiety and tear filled weeks if I were of that frame of mind. I have fought too hard to lose, and I don't know how to win. And the final thing, I had to drive right by, at slow speed, the rescue mission in downtown Pontiac Michigan, and because of the hour, 7 pm roughly, there was a lineup of homeless men waiting to get in for the limited beds. And they had the look of the homeless, disheveled, dirty, really downtrodden. Because this country is fucked up beyond all repair when it comes to our support systems, and morally void when it comes to much of our leadership such as the entire R party. And I just kept thinking, oh God, that's going to be me in a few years. And I had the iPod playing over the speakers, and the nice backpack, the new Columbia jacket I just bought, a bag of stuff from REI in the back seat, some more clothes and some bike accessories, and I thought about how much I DO like all of the trappings of a middle class suburban lifestyle, and all I could do was think "kiss it all goodbye, "they" are coming to take it all away from you."

Last night, I had the evaluation with the club's fitness specialist, and set up a complete program to get myself going for both weight loss and training. Because at this point, I am desperate for anything that will help me, apparently all of the lamictal and seroquel in the world won't solve my issues, and honestly, I just don't know what else to do. I guess it's like a phrase I once heard, "If you're traveling on the Titanic, no point in going anything less than first class". God help me, because I don't know how to help myself.

Over and out for now. Back later.

It all boils down to what I wrote above: "I have fought too hard to lose, and I don't know how to win."

and I'm not just talking about your stigma phobia. You seem to want everything resolved right now and you're freaking because it's not happening. There is no pill and no therapist that can make that happen. It will require time and work. You've been living a certain way for most of your life. It's hard to get outside of that and really see yourself, but that's one of the things you are after in therapy.

What the medicine does when it is working good for you is take care of the symptoms. It will knock down your mania and lift your depression. It will not take care of issues that you need to deal with, but it will put you in a better place mentally so you can do that. This is why most mental health patients need both medication and talk therapy.

So try to relax a little and see what this new treatment is starting to do for you. You might feel like shit for a little while longer, but hang in there. Try not to worry about appearances or what other people think so much. I know people who have more serious illnesses than you who are getting along in life just fine, including me. I'm not homeless. I've got a great life and nobody is going to take that away from me. They can't. I won't let them. Yes, I'm that strong and I think you can be, too. But it sounds to me at this point that you've spent much of your life riding in a car that someone else is driving. You just go wherever they take you with no input from yourself on where that might be, let alone actually getting behind the wheel. Well, it's time to steer.

More later, right now again I'm dead tired, have a few things I have to do before I can go to bed.

I'm just telling it to you like I see it.

Last edited Sat Oct 6, 2012, 03:01 AM - Edit history (2)

And that is just as important.

Anyway, I know you have a full plate, so please don't feel like you have to respond at all if you don't want to.

I feel pretty good about myself right now, I got through my first group workout, a whole hour on a treadmill with some weights and resistance bands. And I made it! Through the whole hour. And I even kept up. Not bad for a newbie.