Dave A

My life has been held hostage by my mental illness and it seems the biggest and most surprising stigma i have faced is from the community of professionals in the mental health and ERs i have visited desperately seeking my freedom from my illness.

I guess what i am dealing with is unusual as most people who see the symptoms of my illness get mad at me and throw me out of offices and clinics for the behaviors i try to warn them about before the first appointment.

See the issue i deal with, well there are many, but the big ugly monster in the room is what for lack of better term i call rage attacks. Mine come in the form of verbal aggression where when nervous, angry, or upset i lash out verbally saying some of the worst things i can to the person or persons around me. I will use personal stuff against the person – for example i’m glad your mom is dying she wont have to deal with a bi&$% like you. Because of the personal nature of the attacks i have had professionals say i am doing them on purpose. I have made promises i am stopping only to be cussing another person not more then five minutes later. I begged god take it from me and yet it is still there and like the ticks of Turrets the more it is noticed and commented on the worse it gets. When the storm passes and i return to normal again i desperately want to go and tell them how sorry i am and how i did not mean to say those things. I want to make it right but once the harsh words have been said people don’t want to hear it and think that the uncontrollable nature is an excuse to get away with saying those things. So i just gave up apologizing because they didn’t want to hear it and most of the time they were still smarting from the words that were said.

The professional community i have approached trying to get help have thrown me out of offices and clinics on every occasion i tried to get help. I have had them threaten on me. This is even when i have tried to warm them of the monster prior to the appointment.

I remember on a couple of occasions trying ERs to get myself in to psych wards as a way to jump start my recovery. I told them of my story and the uncontrollable nature of my outbursts. I had one nurse ask if i was a danger too myself and i said yes because the illness i deal with is going to have me mouth off to the wrong person and i going to end up in intensive care or dead. Well that is not what we mean the nurse replied. What am i going to have to come back in a body bag to prove my point. The second psyche nurse they sent i told her the same story of the uncontrollable nature of my out burst. Well a little while later when it was decided they were not going to admit me she gave me a phone number to a free clinic and i called on my phone and the guy said something where it caused me to go off on him. The nurse i just finished telling about the uncontrollable nature of the verbal aggression jumps out the chair she was in and says you need to learn to control yourself. I roll my eyes and think this is the issue i came here seeking help for and just told you about but what comes out of my mouth is a bunch of insulting curse words were she gets up and gets security to escort me off property for the very issue i came seeking freedom from. This also happened in another ER were i tried to explain the same thing, lost it on a social worker and was escorted by five security guards off property.

I been to several mental health clinics seeking help and freedom. One i went to after my three hour intake and several days later when i call to find out what was going on with my case said there is nothing wrong with me and i began to lose it on the lady and she said you can’t come here if you are going to act like that. To which i said that is the reason i need to come here. Well no one will work with you like that. After about 15 minutes on the phone i hung up knowing they didn’t get it and let them go. Another one where i got triggered big time just ended up kicking me out of the clinic. I was even kicked out of a advocacy group for mental health for this issue. Too be clear, i am non violent but i have people tell me people would not work with me for the same reasons they would not work with a person who uncontrollably beats people up.

All i want is my freedom from this ugly monster that has done nothing but raped me of any kind of decent life and left me feeling like i need to isolate my self to minimize the causalities of my illness and not deal with the anger that comes from people when meeting my monster.

I’ve been beat up, kicked out and told this was my fault. Who would live like this if there was choice? I want to know love but hate seems to have become more familiar as result of my illness and i want freedom.