Coming Clean and Family Support

My most favoritefavorite crazy writer is Natasha Tracy, whom you know if you are not a first time reader of the Rant.  I am merely poser-writer  and find myself stealing many of Natasha's great lines.  Happy to follow her train...goin' along for the ride, her ride, so-to-speak, makes me feel like I'm moving forward in my own struggle to put order in my brain.  She wrote recently about mental illness words you cannot say - found here.  I have been thinking about how important words are more and more, realizing anew that we don't have to be bound by another's "definition" of - whatever craziness we may suffer.  I've been pleasantly surprised lately with my own family's openness to talk about what has been "ailing" me.  Maybe it's the crazy blog, maybe it's my own willingness this year to come clean with "the diagnosis".  Anyway it is no surprise that my family wishes to think I'm not as "crazy" as I think.  Who wants to "live with" crazy mom, aunt, friend?

I wish I were not as crazy as I think.  HolyMoly, my dear father-in-law would say.  Who wants to read definitions from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and find that your Shrink isn't as crazy as You think - but you Do say yes to every symptom of a.....disorder?  Who wants to ruminate/deny/ponder/obsess/ignore/accept/tell/don't tell about a...Mental disorder?  Not me, bucko, but I think I am and I do do and think all the crazy things that I shouldn't do and think.

Sigh.


The DSM (published by the American Psychiatric Association)  first appeared in 1952 with revisions made until 1994.  A new revised edition is due in May of 2013.  The manual is supposed to provide common language and standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders for hospitals, clinics, insurance companies and for research.  In the beginning census statistics and help for the returning WWII soldier were the goals...now the accusation by some is that the manual exists just so Shrinks may make more money.  (((bummer.)))  My accusation would be that Shrinks want to be "politically correct" and maybe it is about money.  (((more than a bummer.)))

It doesn't matter to me if the name or symptoms of Clinical Depression were revised to become something new, or more detailed.  I don't care if the new 2013 version describes my every thought process, all my crazy words, ideas and actions....and declares me a perfect Lunatic.  Who cares at this point?  I didn't jump off the Bay Bridge (again, this time) and no longer think about it.  Again I have slowly clawed my way out of the dark place and see that light I mentioned in DERAILED seen here.  But THIS time I found myself flying out towards "the end" because I have found the family support I have heard so much about and have coveted for years.  This crash and return has been a unique one to be sure.  And some people I know now have a hope that (((sit for it))) I may never crash again. 


I must admit that discovering THIS as I clawed out was a beautiful thing, so in keeping with my innate "motherliness," (((and believing that water and music heals)))  I give you every good thing: