Glaaaaaa!!!!!

I have a headache. I've had it all day. It's 6:30 p.m. Why am I still here at work? Is it possible to be so busy you forget to breathe?

Is this even healthy? I've been pulling long hours for a few weeks, and it's not letting up any time soon. Tomorrow looks like an 8:00-7:00 day (getting home close to 8:00), and Saturday my day will start around 5:00 a.m. and I will facilitate a training session for 24 people that wraps up after 4:00. I should get home around 5:00, but I'm sure my day won't end there.

At least I've been getting some quality sleep.

Yesterday I had an appointment with the psychiatrist. He's a nice guy, overworked, not at all pretentious. He has no office staff, and he does all of his own bookkeeping. His wife takes care of the insurance billing.

I told the psychiatrist that I've been feeling sad about my illness. Not depressed, just sad. And alone--very alone. I told him about some of the cultures I deal with, where they truly see any health problem as just that--a health problem. He said, "They don't stigmatize mental illness?" I told him that no, they don't because there is no mental illness, only illness. Illness is seen as a problem of both mind and spirit, and you must treat both to get better, be it pneumonia, cancer, or bipolar disorder.

I want to live in a world where my illness doesn't even raise eyebrows, let alone carry any stigma. I don't want to be sick. I dream of the morning when NPR snaps to life on my clock radio alarm and the news story I hear isn't about politics or hurricanes, or the economy or a foreign war; rather, the story will be about the stunning and long-awaited scientific breakthrough that has led to the cure for bipolar disorder and chronic depression. I never, ever have good dreams, so maybe a really good wake-up story is in order.

The doctor asked me how I help myself manage my feelings about having my illness. I said that it's hard for me to have so many doctor appointments, yet when coworkers ask me why I need so many appointments, I can't tell them. I don't lie about the gynecologist or even the urologist. The psychiatrist, though. I cope by lying. "Doctor, I changed your area of specialization. Today I said I had an appointment with the neurologist. I always say it's the neurologist. If pressed, I say I have a seizure disorder. I do take anti-convulsant medications, after all. I'm not in any way diminishing the field of psychiatry, but it does have a bit of a perception problem in the public psyche."

The doctor told me he wasn't offended at all. He said, "May, at least you have the right doctor if you're going to use the neurologist excuse. I am as close to being a neurologist as you can get without having the title. For what it's worth, look at my Board certification certificate. It clearly says that it's given by the Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. That aside, a lot of my practice overlaps with neurological work. Not many psychiatrists can say that, but I am qualified to make that claim. So, May, you really aren't off the mark when you tell people you're going to see the neurologist. I'll back you up if anybody gives you a hard time."

He gave me a kind, somewhat sad smile. He must hear this sort of thing a lot. The doctor can patch together my broken brain, but there's no hope for the thinking that goes on outside of my head. He knows it.

I accept my illness, but I am tired of it, weary even, and I want it to just go away. No more doctor visits, no more handfuls of medication to choke down, no more blood draws every eight weeks, no more jagged sleep patterns, no more living in fear that my secret will be exposed, and no more dreading the havoc that comes with the change of seasons. I want to say I can't take it anymore, but that is not true. I can endure this until my brain snaps, or my liver fries, or my kidneys stop making the effort to withstand the medications. More than anything, though, I just wish I didn't have this thing to endure at all.