The Pills

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be ‘normal’ without some kind of external influence; to be able to honestly say “I’m fine” without needing artificial chemicals allowing me to say sos. Maybe one day I’ll be in such a tolerable condition, but for now it is simply a distant dream. This is a foolish thing to say, considering my psychological disorders are much less dire than those suffered by the more unfortunate—schizophrenics, for instance. But it is somethings that has been plaguing my mind these past few days.

I had been diagnosed with a few mental illnesses throughout my life. When I was a child, my primary disease was social anxiety. I would avoid the gaze of other peoples, sit quietly in the corner of a room, bawl my eyes out each time someone yells or speak loudly. Yet due to my young age, I was not given medication, nor did my psychologist urge me to visit a psychiatrist. Instead, I was treated with therapy sessions. They taught me methods of how to deal with people, how humans are not as dangerous as I believed them to be. I can’t say that this approach was particularly successful, as even now at twenty-one years old I still shy away from crowds and strangers. Minus the crying part, obviously.

Later on, as some of the readers of this blog may already know, I chanced upon a new mental disorder: depression. I was nearing twenty when I received the diagnosis, and was not exactly surprised. I had suspected its existence for months, as I had been having suicidal thoughts, unwillingness to do anything, and an uncaring view of the things that go on around me—how I came to such a state can be seen in my previous post Depression: How it Led Me to Suicide. This time, the assessment came from a psychiatrist, and he prescribed me several types of medications: serotonin-boosters (happiness hormones), two different types of sleeping pills, one to induce a state similar to relaxation mixed with exhaustion, and another to hinder my ability to think.

The psychiatric treatment was much more effective than the psychological one. I stopped hearing the voices telling me to kill myself after a year or so on the pills. Unfortunately for myself, another problem reared its obnoxious head; I might just be Bipolar—type II Bipolar Disorder, to be precise.

What this latest sickness means is that my mood is basically on a constant fritz. One moment I would frantically write down essays, blog posts, articles, whatever else I can spend my energy one. Then, I’d feel as if nothing I do matters, that all I’ve accomplished are utter pieces of garbage. The suicidal thoughts return with these low mood swings, and at times I find myself looking down from some high-up ledge, debating whether or not I should take the leap. But that is not the worst part of my presumed condition.

The absolute worst of my episodes is when my anger erupts. I do not flare like a normal person would; I erupt, explode, blindly assaulting anyone—including my sister, in one particular incident—and anything near me. In these moments, everything is a blur, and all I could feel is rage, a sense of complete wrongness with the world. Nothing is right, all around me are mistakes, ones that I must fix by force. I do not realize my erroneous nature as these periods pass, and that blindness is what makes me a danger that needs to be put down.

Nevertheless, whichever abnormalities we’d like to focus on, each of them has an unexpected side effect. One that is unrelated to their specific natures, but must not be ignored if we at all care for the well-being of mental patients. With each diagnosis, a patient is handed the appropriate medication for his specific predicament(s). For myself, they come in the form of pills. Yet these are not cough drops. They are solidified chemicals designed to alter how one thinks, feels, and acts.

Who are we? The man or woman others say we are? Or the face we see on the mirror each day, thinking and imagining things that only we know of? I would argue that we are the latter. For however we conceive ourselves—ghosts in the machine, an organism run by a brain “designed” by evolution—who we are is always the person whose innermost thoughts run through a screen that only we can see, understand, and act upon.

Now, imagine that all of those thoughts must be altered continuously. Changing the “who” of us repeatedly by the use of substances either lacking, or not belonging in our bodies. How would we feel if our souls, our brains, whichever way we term our minds are explicitly known by us to be controlled by elements originating from somewhere outside? Yes we swallow the pills willingly, but how far they can affect us is entirely up to them as we can only feel their effects course through our psyches. How much of myself, after I take the pills, is truly me? This is a question that I ponder each day, and perhaps one that wanders through the thoughts of those standing in similar shoes.

Every time I swallow the pills I feel very different: relaxed, focused, undistracted by the little things that would usually bug me. My behavior is transformed drastically, perhaps for the better. All the while, however, I know that there exist two versions of myself simultaneously: the unstable man who desperately needs help, and the controlled yet troubled alter-ego. I cannot say for sure which of the two I really am. All I know is that I swap faces on a daily basis.

I cannot say for certain that my fellow patients are plagued by the same disturbing thought of being molded into someone else. But for those of us who are, remember that this is the price we have to pay for being different. One that needs to be remunerated if we ever hope to be a functioning, and—perhaps most important of all—accepted member of society. I know how demeaning it is to force ourselves into something we are not because of the demands of others, it is part of the course I’ve chosen. One that needn’t necessarily be yours.

We live in an imperfect world, as members of an equally flawed species; a place whose inhabitants would treat its neighbors with cruelty should the latter be of an odd character. Here lies a crossroad for the mentally ill.

Would we choose to be who we really are—not matter how defective—or be someone who is judged to be acceptable? I’ve obviously chosen the latter option. For although I have few qualms against my actual persona, it is one that has caused harm to the people I love. It needs to be controlled, its urges subdued by whatever means necessary, lest more and more suffer from my deficiencies. No mother or father should hear that their one and only son thirsts for death. No man, woman, or child should be beaten without reason. I do not intend to repeat these same mistakes, nor allow any more to come forth.

Whatever choice you make regarding how you treat your condition, is one that I cannot control nor would attempt to influence. Your scale may differ from mine. And it is difficult to choose between keeping ourselves who, or protect those dear to us. I would not blame anyone for choosing either path, so long as they know of the consequences of their choices.

As for me personally, I will continue taking the pills. I’ll keep on visiting my psychiatrist. All the while aware that I’m being turned into a mutation of my actual self. For the price of not following through my therapies is simply too high. I do not wish to cause grief to innocent peoples—like anyone sane enough. If who I really am is capable of harming those who have done no wrong, what use do I have for such a character?

Lurking Eyes and Loud Noises: An Illustration of Social-Anxiety

What does social-anxiety feel like? Is it just being mildly uncomfortable when you’re surrounded by people you don’t know? Is it the unending shivers you get when you have to walk up to a podium? Or is it a constriction, as if something was holding down our chest, forcing us to not breathe whilst in the midst of the unknown? The last guess is probably the most accurate one I can provide. As many have probably correctly assumed, this post will be a discussion on social-anxiety: what it is, how one feels under its effects, and how one might possibly overcome it. As a disclosure, I have to say that I do not have a degree in psychology, and have only read a few books regarding the condition. My observations and opinions will primarily be based on personal experience and the account of sources I’ve deemed reliable. With this introduction out of the way, we can finally begin to delve deep into the world of the socially-anxious.

When did I first learn of having social-anxiety? I can’t put an exact date on its occurrence, but I can assume that it began quite early on in my life, as I began to see therapists at the tender  age of nine. The reasoning behind being put in a psychologist’s office is quite a handful, and I hope you’ll endure the minutiae I am about to tell you. For now, let us just say that the roots of my problem lies within my family and the school I was put in.

I didn’t have the most peaceful of families growing up. When I was born, my parents were in the middle of a divorce. I stayed with my mother, without really knowing why my father only visited us every four or six months. As a barely-grown toddler, I thought the situation was nothing out of the ordinary, that perhaps other children see their fathers as rarely as I did. I was wrong, of course. My family was anything but average.

There is a certain peculiarity to my siblings’—all three of them are women much older than I am, the youngest being born twelve years before I was—response to the predicament they found their family in. In films, literature, and other works of fiction, the children of the divorced or of troubled households usually pursue a life of crime, vices, wild escapades away from home. None of these things happened in my walls. My sisters and I stayed with our mother, maybe for the worse.

It is not often you see sibling rivalry that could be described as “hazardous,” but that’s exactly the sort of relationship my sisters had. Plates were regularly flung between them—once the ballistic object was the spiky fruit knows as ‘durian’—on a specific occasion, one of them tried to crush the other by toppling a cupboard, and knife-duels were not special events, rather ones that happened every month or so. They were violent, terrifying, and were the people I tried to avoid most in my early life.

When my sisters did not have an immediate target during their periods of angst, I was the only one left. And the most vulnerable. Fortunately, perhaps since they still had some amount of sense in them, they never threatened my physical well-being, just the mental counterpart. Scoldings, chewing outs, and all sorts of verbal abuses were thrown at me—complete with foul language in volumes with intolerable decibels. Sometimes, these acts came out of a clear but insignificant reason, such as dropping a plate, at others they would come out of the blue. As I played my old PlayStation, read my books, either one of my sisters would come hurdling into whatever room I was in, telling—yelling, to be precise—me that I had made a terrible mistake, that I was a disappoint, that I was a moron. To their credit, they had a very diverse vocabulary of mockeries.

To my young, impressionable mind, my sisters formed the template of humanity in my mind: that we are all cruel, savage creatures, who would lash out at whatever target we deemed suitable. Thus I was afraid. Not only of the members of my chaotic family, but of everyone around me. Especially those older, and in possession of larger physical statures than mine. As a result, I became a timid, reclusive child, one that can’t adequately be described in a single sentence.

To give a purview of what my childhood-self was like, a brief retelling of my first few years in academia is necessary—not out of narcissism, as no other period of my life embarrasses me more so than that of my earlier years, instead this decision is made for the purpose of clarification. I was a small child, shorter than almost all of the boys in my kindergarten and elementary schools. I would refuse to engage in any type of social interactions with my fellow students, and could never look a teacher in the eye. When someone older than myself came to talk to me, concerning matters which should not cause me to be fretful, I would look away, pretend to be unable to hear, and pray that the person would simply walk away in frustration. When I walked, my eyes were glued to the floor, as I was afraid that someone—be it a student or teacher—would find me to be a delectable prey. And sounds, be it the banging of a fallen object, faraway shouts, yells directed not at myself, were all enough to send me into fits of hysteria. This is a brief description of what I was like, but I hope it has managed to illustrate a vivid enough image in the readers’ minds.

I have to say, that it is not without reason that I had adopted the mantle of reclusion at school. My place of education was not a very tolerant one. It was one of the highest ranked schools in my district, and it proved its status by popping out alumni worthy of scholarships, exchange programs, and such likes. Yet their methods were harsh, even by my present standards. An ‘A’ is considered as average, and a ‘B’ as unsatisfactory. The educators would show their displeasure by corporeal and oral punishments, dishing them out almost every day to the unluckier of my peers. I was spared these misfortunes due to my aptitude in academics, yet the fear they deliberately instilled in their students was stuck within me. That of, “meet our expectations or expect the consequences.” Already a fragile, unstable, anxious child, the atmosphere of my school worsened my condition. To the point that by the fourth grade I refused to attend any formal educational facilities whatsoever, once jerking the steering wheel of my mother’s car to ram it into a wall of bushes. That’s how afraid I was of schooling, of the people inside of it. That I was willing to risk my life just to avoid another eight hours of class.

Perhaps this is the moment where I should try to describe what social-anxiety truly feels like. It is as if each pair of eyes in the room is looking straight at you, through you; seeing every flaw that you have whilst you yourself know that you have no redeeming qualities. A lingering fear of someone, one you may or may not know, pouncing on you unexpectedly, beating or—a gentler act—yelling at you for no reason. Meanwhile, you have no defenses for yourself. Your arms are as frail as twigs, your words as meaningless as a breeze in a storm. Defenseless in the face of unknown adversaries, with intents you can scarcely guess and merely assume the worst of them all. At its most hurtful moments, it could lead one to panic attacks qne asphyxia, all due to what the sufferer perceives as—though more often than not, non-existent—terrifying judgments from people who he knows likely by face alone. Then there are the dreams.

As you fall into your slumber, a person, an animal, a beast, or whatever it is your mind can conjure up will appear in your dreams. That being will chase you, endlessly, through forests or cities, mountains or oceans, it shall never stop. No matter how far you think you’ve run, it will always be behind you, breathing down your neck as the chills run down your spine. You do not know what it wants, why it’s running after you without pause. All that is in your mind is a sense of dread, which dictates that whatever happens you must not get caught by the figure behind you. If you do, as I have been, you’ll scream through the stillness of the night, with your chest feeling as if boulders had been forced upon them for hours on end. Sweat, difficulty to breathe, overwhelming fear and paranoia will plague you throughout the hours of the night, gone only when the sun finally rises and your eyes red and heavy from sleep deprivation.

Such are the symptoms that hunt the sufferers of social-anxiety.

Unlike depression, however, I may have somewhat overcome social-anxiety. At least to a certain degree. I can now make friends, have tangled a bit with romantic relationships, can look at authority figures in the eye, et cetera. I still get the shivers when I have to walk up on stage, but even extroverts have to endure that nervousness as well. Judging from these aspects, I assume that I am ‘cured,’ or at least improving. There is no easy way to reach this step, one of general improvement. To say that there was a wall of granite blocking my way would be an understatement. But I have, with copious luck, and the permission of circumstance.

Recall that I was, from a subjective pair of eyes, witnessed the abuses my sisters committed on each other and suffered a few of them myself. To save readers from the gruesome details, I’ll make the description of how the whole situation resolved as plainly as possible. I grew bigger, both physically and mentally. I learned how to fight back, and thus used the weapons they once bared at me back against them. This is not something I am proud of, but it is the beginning of how I managed to suppress my anxiety.

Behind my issue—and perhaps that of others’ as well—lies easily traced back roots. All I had to do was locate and tear them from the ground they were in. Suddenly, I found myself empowered, confident, unafraid of whatever the world would throw at me. How could anything be worse than my siblings? I was gravely wrong, of course, life doesn’t have a “happily ever after,” and numerous problems continued to surface time and again. Yet such a fact does not necessarily mean all my struggles were meant for nothing.

I fought and I survived. I’ve gained new talents and removed the shackles that were  chained upon me by social-anxiety; it was like inhaling a lungful of air after being dragged down by waves upon waves of seawater. For better or for worse, and though the means by which I reached this point in my life may not be justifiable, I am happier than when I was a powerless little boy.

Social-anxiety is a complex disorder. One that an amateur in the field of psychology cannot easily describe or analyze. This article should not be taken as authoritative, rather a personal recollection of how the pathology acts upon the human mind, how it came to be in my life, and how was finally eliminated. To those suffering from the same thing, the only advice I can give you is to “cut off the head of the snake.” Find out why you are in the the miserable state you are in, and deal with the issue’s foundations however you see fit—without the employment of violence, if possible. Weakness is not permanent, it is a temporary condition which can be beaten with wisdom, strength, and a healthy dose of luck.

The Invisible Mask

As I’ve mentioned repeatedly in my previous posts, I have several psychological disorders lurking somewhere inside my brain. Social anxiety being the simplest of them all, and severe depression the most difficult challenge I have to endure every single day. I’ve written on the challenges faced by the depressed, yet there is a related topic of similar importance that I have not yet sufficiently touched. That is, the hurdles that must be overcome by each person attempting to reach the psychological treatments they need.

When we’re struck ill by a cold, a fever, or what have you, a visit to the local diagnostician is nothing out of the ordinary. Rather, it is to be expected from those who understand well enough the uses of modern medicine. However, how would one be treated should he say that he is afflicted by “fear,” “the judging eyes of people,” or “emptiness?” Why, such statements would sound positively ridiculous. How could anyone be hurt by things that cannot even brush a patch of dust from our collars? “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me,” remember? But “words” do break bones, unfortunately so.

It does not always take a virus, a bacteria, or broken bones to bring someone to their knees. At times, it is enough for one to be treated so hurtfully by his peers, or to fall under unbearable enough circumstances, to leave his mind crippled. I am of course speaking of the illnesses psychologists and psychiatrists devote their entire careers trying to understand or even cure. These sicknesses exist, and they can be as damaging as losing one’s limb, as they limit their sufferers from performing as much as they should have been able to.

In the worst of cases, such as the ones observed in those suffering from depression, death lurks around every corner. When nothing in your world matters anymore, when there is a future no longer, why should one go on with his life? Why shouldn’t he just end it? That is a question that pops up again and again and again in the minds of the severely depressed (I can personally attest to this). And how does society—at least the society of Indonesia—try to right these wrongs? By being inadequate.

We have PSAs for HIV, cancer, diabetes, et cetera patients. Such advertisements help the general populace accept and understand the incredibly piercing pains inflicted upon these unlucky individuals by biology. Yet I have never, for the life of me, heard a radio or television or even a brochure illuminate on psychological disorders. The only ones being broadcast are ones with some amount of biological roots: i.e. Downs Syndrome, Autism, and their kinds. Do not get me wrong, these are horrendous products of nature and our genes, yet focusing a population’s concerns entirely on them does not seem to be the right thing to do.

For one, it distracts many caretakers from the psychological problems under him. I have repeatedly heard my ill friends report that their parents, friends, aunts, etc. do not believe that what they are going through is anything to worry about; that it is just a phase, one that’ll pass away given enough time. Sadly such things do not fade away so easily, and most times require the help of medically-trained professionals. Yet the problem doesn’t stop with a visit to the shrink to the local hospital. In some ways, it could be seen as being intensified by the peoples in said place of healing.

Have you ever had the unpleasant experience of visiting a psychiatrist in a hospital? I sure hope not. Having visited several in a few hospitals, I can perhaps give some insight to how it goes around here. The registration clerk would try to hide his surprise, other patients would look up when the shrink’s assistant yell out “Mr. Kenneth Sahuleka to the attending psychiatrist” over the loud speakers, and then there’s the collecting of your prescriptions.

I once had to grab my pills over the counter, so to speak. I was in a place far away from the usual clinics and hospitals that handed me out my meds. However, my supplies were running short, and circumstances dictated that I would not be able to visit any of these places soon enough. Hence, I went to several apothecaries, trying to have them hand me the medicine I desperately needed. With a legitimate prescription notice, I was turned down at no less than four establishments. Their clerks wouldn’t even look at me when I handed them the piece of paper. They’d simply mumble “we don’t sell those around here.” As if “those” were narcotics of some kind, and that I was a brash thrill-seeker looking for some kicks. I have taken drugs, the illegal kind, and I find myself unable to enjoy or support them. I am most definitely not a junkie. Marijuana just makes me vomit.

Eventually, I found a place that would recognize the legitimacy of my prescription, but not without excessive, unnecessary effort on my part. I had to call my psychiatrist, hand the clerk my cellphone, wait for ten or so minutes until they settled the issue, then finally have the man ask me “you could get the same effects from cheaper stuff, you know?” No, I did not know, and I did not care to find out. I was there to purchase some anti-depressants and sleeping pills. I wasn’t looking for whatever “effects” he had in mind. My point is, I despise having to face being treated like a drug-addict whenever I trade-in my prescription. The heaviest vice I have are cigarettes and alcohol, nothing more—not recommended, but certainly nothing to cause a fuss over.

Such is the blockade facing the mentally-ill, specifically in Indonesia. People will treat you as if you are a freak of nature, as if—as they see it—your soul is damaged or any other rationalization they have in mind. Your pathology is unrecognized, and is perceived as merely another anomaly in this already strange world. Nothing serious about it, something that shouldn’t be a problem had we been born or conditioned to be stronger. Or been birthed as someone “normal.”

How would the psychologically-ill respond in return? Lash out? Argue that what they are going through should be taken seriously, and not as a joke or an oddity? No, we stay silent. We hide behind facades of “I’m just feeling a bit down today,” “I feel nervous in crowds,” or my personal favorite, “I had a bad day, that’s all.” Why say these meaningless utterances when we know full-well that we need whatever help we can get? Because of the stigmas attached to our kind, as I’ve illustrated above. We try our best to blend in, to hide the unseen scars we bear on our bodies, all for the sake of being perceived as “normal.” So that we are not judged for the traits we have never chosen to have. Normality is the invisible mask many of us wear, drape ourselves in, to hide from those who cannot comprehend the conditions we find ourselves experiencing.

I apologize if I sound agitated in this post. I do have a personal stake in changing the perceptions of the lucky, but I wrote this as a defense; as a shield propped up for those who will have to play the same games I’m currently participating in. If readers did not take psychological-disorders seriously beforehand, I beg of you all to start turning your eyes to the right direction.

It has never been easy to be plagued by unknowable voices and urges in our minds. But it becomes impossible when the people closest to you, the strangers you wouldn’t normally interact with, the people supposed to help you, are all casting false judgments on your character. We are not weak. We are not some wrongness of nature. We are the unfortunate ones, nothing more and nothing less. The only difference we have with those who suffer from physiological illnesses, is that ours are blurred, demanding a stretch of the psyche to know them as parts of reality. Not mere fabrications of a spoiled mind.

I would love to be able to say that I no longer wear a mask of normality, yet I would find myself lying. I pretend to be just like everyone else, that I don’t contemplate hangings or poisonings every hour or so. But where I find myself in, cannot yet accept such truths. It is either too unpleasant, or incomprehensible to them that they would rather have the comfortable lies. Thus for now, here I am, speaking and acting like the average Joe when I know that I’m anything but. Like someone with rabies trying to hide the foams in his mouth.

For now, if you find yourself in a situation similar to mine’s, perhaps it would be best to adopt a similar stance: that of pretending to be normal. Change the misaligned wisdoms of those you can, but do not risk yourself if you cannot bear the repercussions. That being said, if help is available, grab it as quickly as possible. Do not convince yourself that you do not need any support, as you’d be making the same mistake that I did. One that resulted in a failed suicide attempt and a burning pile of wreckage on the side of the highway.