Massage and Bipolar disorder

Reblogging because of all the posts I’ve made, this is the most popular.

The Pillars of Her Earth

So this is the easier of two posts to write, the other post being why I started blogging in the first place. Over our 6.75 year marriage, I have seen how my massages have affected bRaving Bipolar and maybe she will chime in and share her first-hand experience as to the effects she feels.
Massage does wonders for the body and the mind. About one in every day and a half I’m massaging something on her. I have spent considerable time looking up different techniques, employing Swedish massage and trigger-point techniques. The hardest part about massage isn’t actually massaging. The most difficult aspect is figuring out where to massage; either in response to her complaints of pain/tension, or by probing, or maybe even a little of both. Not only this, but one would need to understand the relationship between muscles, nerves and the vascular system of the body. For example…

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Pizza Delivery Drive Instructions: Still daylight, minivan in driveway

Yes, I live in one of THOSE neighborhoods that most delivery places won’t deliver to after sundown.  

One time I was feeling froggy when the place called and told us that, my reply was “I can provide cover fire during the infil/exfil, and pyro for on-call illumination”.

The Mental Health Stigma is alive and well in the military

This post graced my Facebook timeline today. It was made by a Staff Sergeant (E-6) in the Marine Corps. I know the guy, he’s the douchebag that got 2 people hurt so bad that one lost his arm and one with an extremely bad TBI. I digress.

The first comment is mine. The second comment is someone I’ve never met. If you think the military is doing a good job of erasing the stigma against mental health issues, you’re mistaken. It will take another 8 years before the NCOs and SNCOs (E-4 through E-7) have cycled out and are no longer in a position to treat Marines like this. Back in 2006 they still punished you if you had a mental health issue and couldn’t “fit in” like everyone else. Got demons and drink? NJP.

Clearly you aren’t responsible enough to take care of yourself, so fuck you, I’m going to take half of your pay, put you on restriction and extra duty. That will teach you to not have demons. I’m so sick of the zero-defect mentality; it is a delusion that kicking people out for these issues will make the Corps better in the short term or the long term. If you send the message that someone with a mental health issue, like PTSD, or TBI (TBIs do have an effect on the function of the brain, and can lead to depression, anger management problems, and cognitive errors) will be kicked out, those with the issues will no longer tell you because of the fear of being kicked out. This causes Marines to suffer for years, hiding their injury and living in shame that they are hurting and cannot confide in anyone. Their performance will degrade, and they may or may not spiral out of control. Ultimately their loyalty is not to the organization, it is to themselves-and why should it be to the organization when the organization would kick them to the curb because they were mentally injured doing what the organization asked them to do?

Have faith, however, because the 2nd commenter that I don’t know serves with the aforementioned douchebag, so there are people out there who will defend you if the shit goes down. Some people seek out the military because they get authority and they get paid to act like douchebags to people who cannot quit their job. The original poster is that guy.

Update to the depression…

Talked to her doctor, and the doctor thinks that bRaving’s night of drinking temporarily altered her brain chemistry.

So far she’s on her way back up and as near as I can tell, it’s going well.

We talked a little bit about how her depression was affecting her, and she mentioned that she had suicidal ideations. Of course, that term may mean something different for each person, so I asked her to explain. I won’t list the explanation here, because I think that’s a bit too personal and not really my info to tell. Suffice to say, I was a little shocked, but in a good way, at least now I know.

So, she recently picked up more work with her at-home job of social media management. I’m proud of her and I hope we can deal with the stress of catching up history with her new clients. 3 of my classes are ending tomorrow, 2 more started on the 1st of August. Those 2 new classes are the last of my major, and will end on 15 October. On 1 October I will start 2 more classes, the last 2 classes of my undergrad, and will officially be done with my undergrad on 15 December.

I’ve been working at it 1 or 2 classes at a time, from scratch, for 7 years. I don’t know how I’ll feel after I get it.

Bipolar affects more than the person diagnosed…

bRaving went to her support group party this past weekend, and I was sick so I stayed home.  At this party she had 9 shots of Fireball whiskey, and came home a VERY sad drunk; tears and everything.  The next day she was extremely depressed.  

Reminded me of the manic cycle we had in 2011-2012.  Fucking sucked.

I’d been worried all day Sunday and a bit the last few days.

Mostly my own emotional reactions to a reminder from how bad it was back then when we didn’t know what was going on, but also an extreme feeling of…

Helplessness…

I felt like I couldn’t do anything but let it happen.