A Vicious Cycle

Throughout my life, I’ve been diagnosed by several mental health providers and treated for depression, anxiety, and bipolar II. These diagnoses served as stepping stones to eventually being diagnosed with CPTSD, or Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Diagnosing mental health concerns is not as simple as taking an X-ray, MRI, or blood test to have a definitive diagnosis based on hard science. Mental health is a soft science. The willingness, cooperation, presence, and communication skills of the patient influence the diagnosis and treatment. Emotional damage isn’t always visible.

Over time, the understanding of my diagnosis has evolved with my understanding of myself, my past, and emotions. The more I learn of CPTSD patterns, the more I see them within myself.

When I was a kid, I recall asking my mom if I could speak with a therapist. My mom then went off on a tirade about the mental health industry, claiming it was all a scam. At the time, I didn’t understand why she was reacting this way. I later learned it was due to her parent’s struggles with mental health . Stemming from my mom’s unfounded beliefs on mental health, I was unable to go to therapy when I was younger.

I managed to find myself in a school counselor’s office one day of fifth grade after an emotional breakdown. Suicidal thoughts had come up during recess, and I had become inconsolable. An adult saw the emotional distress I was in and walked me to the school’s counselor office, having been unable to console me, or even get me talking. It took a moment for me to have the capacity to respond to inquiries from the school counselor. It took longer still until I could stop crying. Being frightened of learning my mother’s reaction to these events, I didn’t tell the school counselor much.

It wasn’t until college I possessed the ability and privacy to be discreetly seen by a therapist. I was quickly asked if I was open to medication as an assistive aid to ongoing therapy. I was not able to articulate myself well, as emotionally opening up to someone was unfamiliar and frightening to me. My introspection abilities were very limited at the time and I struggled to express what I was really going through.

A tricky thing about the effectiveness of mental health treatment is that it’s influenced by emotion. – After you’ve fortified yourself behind an emotional wall, only the screams of your emotions are ever truly heard. Years after discontinuing use of the antidepressants, I ended up downing a bottle of pills with the intention of ending my life. A friend helped me check myself into a hospital for treatment. After two weeks of intensive emotional treatment and therapy, I was released with a diagnosis of Bipolar II and a commitment to healing myself and regularly seeing a therapist.

Healing has involved a lot of holding, exploring, and expressing feelings – many of which are still uncomfortable to think about, let alone discuss. My current therapist has caught me unconsciously holding my breath from a sense of danger presented by my sympathetic nervous system. One of the ways I’ve attempted to ameliorate emotional distress over the years has been through the use of various maladaptive coping mechanisms.

I recognize eating food as for emotional comfort is a maladaptive coping strategy. I’ve done this countless times though, originating in my childhood. My mom said “Eat, you’ll feel better” as a means of regulating my emotions, instead of addressing them. Endocrinologically speaking, while it is possible to trigger a spike of the neurotransmitter Dopamine through eating, this simply isn’t a healthy way of addressing emotions, especially in the longterm. Hearing “Eat, you’ll feel better” influenced me enough to develop characteristics of disordered eating.

While I’ve accepted that food is fuel for the body and should be nothing more, I’ve also found myself utilizing food to ease emotional distress – when I’ve become distressed, I’ve eased my distress with food, and gained weight. This maladaptive, self-destructive coping mechanism led me to weigh 435 pounds (197kg/31stone) by college graduation.

Without healthy emotional outlets in my childhood, food was used to ease emotional distress. This coping mechanism only served to fuel the fires of emotional distress stemming from being overweight in the first place through bullying. The cycle continued and I ended up significantly increasing my weight.

When the college graduation robe I was sized for was found to be undersized for graduation day, it ruined any pleasure I might have felt from graduating. I felt deep shame. Day of graduation, my mom escalated my emotional distress by conversing with my therapist and learning about my treatment plan.

#FeedTheGoodWolf