Mental & Emotional Health

Last week I spent some time interviewing a long-time friend of mine. Diana Lee and I have known one another for years. We met while planning our weddings and immediately bonded over wedding stress leading to greater pain in our lives (men, and physical pain, I’m sure!). Not only did Di design my header for Mental & Emotional Health (look up there, you see that beautiful thing?), she did it for my About Portland, OR as well.

Diana writes her own blog at Somebody Heal Me. Sometimes she writes about her struggle to find proper preventative medications for her chronic migraines, sometimes she shares the news, sometimes she makes us giggle with stories about her yoga-posing cat! I subscribe to the biopsychosocial model of healthcare (where everything is related and you can’t heal a piece without addressing the whole) I couldn’t just interview Di about her depression or her migraines, I had to merge them. What blossomed was an informative and candid piece of writing I’m proud to share with you all.

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Welcome back to my interview with Terra Atrill! Today we concentrate more on her specific illnesses and what she does to counteract some of the issues that they can create in her life!

**Are you currently taking any medications for your afflictions (OCD, ADD & cyclothymia)? If so, would you mind sharing which ones? If not, how do you cope when you have an episode?
I’m not currently on medication - I went off a cocktail of Lithium, Effexor, Seroquel & Clonazepam when I found out I was pregnant. Cyclothymia is a largely manageable condition - it’s about knowing what words for you and doesn’t and not pushing the envelope too far. Which reminds me of all of my marble entries! For example, monotony is BAD for me but also soothing to a point, so if there’s a horribly monotonous thing I need to do, I’ll break it into segments of time. I have learned to, for some amount of time, allow myself to just … do nothing or do everything, depending on what the mood entails. I usually feel guilty or selfish or some other form of negative emotion for “giving in” such as in cases of unwise spending, but usually it feeds the monster little bites so it’s not starving and willing to eat a whole village, if you know what I mean. I absolutely understand, I deal with that guilt with regards to taking care of myself vs. taking care of everyone else’s needs. I hate it but I love it. It makes me an incredibly compassionate person, but I also frequently get told that I’m too nice for my own good. I struggle with who to put first in a lot of situations. I am learning though!

**Tell me about an experience (best, worst, whatever) with medicating your illnesses.
This is not a good story. During my psychotic break, I was taking Celexa, Wellbutrin & Ativan. I ended up hallucinating & experiencing voices talking to me in addition to being extremely suicidal, which lead me to think that if I just WALKED aimlessly at 2am in the West End, my head would clear. Walking around, I was paranoid & angry, thinking that all of the men on the street were planning to attack & rape me, leading me to challenge one of the local homeless mental men to a fight (which I ran away from). I ended up in the local emergency room where they prescribed me more ativan. After an hour of pacing the small room I was confined to and thinking the staff was plotting to kidnap me, they quadrupled my normal dose of ativan and sent me home with extras … which I promptly broke up & snorted with some cocaine, leading me to sleep for the first time in three days. Wow, a bum fight and cocaine … your first sentence was right.

**You’ve mentioned before that you have OCD, what are you obessessive/compulsive about? Does this get in the way of your daily life sometimes?
I’m a constant organizer and cleaner. (Welcome at my house anytime!!) Which is hard, at best, with a willful toddler, a cat & hardwood floors in a smaller one-bedroom apartment. I find myself endlessly sweeping (up to 8 times a day) (wow, I’ve swept once since I moved 3 months ago!) and mopping (to the point of moving furniture) (I haven’t ever mopped my new place) at least three times weekly. This gets in the way of personal hygiene (that showering deal, again - especially since if I take a shower or bath I’m compelled to clean the bathroom afterwards, which I don’t have time to do, so I will tend to just skip it).

**You’ve also mentioned your ADD; how do you get stuff done, take care of your daughter, keep food cooking for her AND finish this interview if your brain is all over the place?
The ADD is only a factor when under stress - which lately I constantly am. I find using lists and requiring myself to complete a minimum number of things on the “to do” list even at the cost of sleeping, eating or showering to help. My daughter’s health and welfare come first, so in the instance of say cooking, if I’m having a rough time, I will choose to make things for her that, though are still healthy, expend a minimum of energy to get on the table (instead of pork chops, mashed potatoes & steamed veggies, I’ll make a peanut butter sandwich, cooked baby carrots (which are constantly stocked in my fridge), a yoghurt and a banana). It’s still balanced but required little to no preparation, therefore little to no concentration. That was a great example. Thank you!

**You can cure all but one of your afflictions, which one do you live the rest of your life with and why?
I’m most comfortable with my OCD. I don’t see it as a hindrance for the most part, it really just leads to a tidier lifestyle.

**When you’ve had a particularly bad day, how do you safely express those frustrations & feelings? What about a particularly great day?
I blog, walk, crochet, or sometimes just veg out with a movie. I have a few close, good friends who I can call, MSN (you have MSN? Let’s use that rather than Google chat next time!) email & I find that since I’m such an open person, catharsis tends to beget relaxation. With regards to the particularly great day, it’s the same as the tough day. I reward myself with a walk, take Zoe for an extra-special treat or adventure, talk to those friends about how great everything is going, write, generally try to focus on how wonderful things can be and be thankful it was a good day. I love that you treat Zoe to something extra-special when you’ve been feeling great.

**What would be your advice to someone who feels like they’re struggling with OCD, ADD or cyclothymia?
As a rule, I’m a self-educator. I think reading before being diagnosed is a double-edged sword since a lot of people will look for symptoms after reading about a condition. Alternatively, if you can remain remote & unbiased, in my experience, it helps doctors when you go in with an educated opinion - at the least to be able to answer their questions effectively.

**Where do you realistically see yourself in five years? Zoe will be 6, in school full-time and you’ll be doing what?
My personal goals for the future include:
*writing for a few more websites
*seeking publishing for a book based on things single parents do right
*a memoir-style fictional book
*building my administration business to the point of hiring people to do work & mainly managing that
*going back to school to finish my undergraduate degree when Zoe goes to kindergarten
*and starting graduate school when she is heading into second grade
*being able to be entirely financial independent: of child & spousal support, government funding, etc. as well as having healthy, manageable debts and a credit card without anyone’s help
*becoming more self-accepting and like “I can do this” whatever this is without total personal implosion. I would like to figure out how to take time for myself without feeling selfish, as though I’m taking something from Zoe

I’d like to take a moment to thank Terra for her time and her thorough answers to my mundane questions. I’d also like to wish her HEAPS and piles of luck and motivation in getting her list of goals accomplished in the next fives years. I hope I’m able to check back then and we can cross everything off the list! I enjoyed getting to know you better and believe that we have started forming a friendship that will last. Back to the discussion we had about similar people being magnetized towards one another!

*shouts* THANK YOU TERRA!!!

Mental & Emotional Health, Eating Disorder Talk, Terra Atrill, OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, ADD, ADHD, adult ADD, attention deficit disorder, cooking, parenting a toddler, blogging, talking, self-educating, doctor diagnoses, personal goals, in the future, writing, single parenting, memoirs, administration business, back to school, undergraduate school, graduate school, financial independence, success, Lithium, Effexor, Seroquel, Clonazepam, Celexa, WellButrin, Ativan, bum fights, homeless, cocaine, medication stories

Last week I had the great opportunity to talk to Terra, of Eating Disorder Talk and I felt like we instantly bonded. After a late evening of LOLing together (it’s a new word, get used to it), I realized that she’d be a perfect person to be my first featured interview of Mental & Emotional Health fame! (Because I’m sure it’ll be my interview that makes Terra famous. *nods like she really believes herself*

I came up with some questions, some random, some not so random that I posed to Terra and off we went! (My own notes mid-conversation are in italics!)

**If you had 24-hours to do with absolutely as you please, resources (financial/babysitting/etc) not being an object, what would you do?
I would do as any mom and take a long bubble bath … after having a few rounds of spontaenous daytime sex … maybe with a 20-year-old? Oh how this made me laugh! I’d shop at a leisurely pace, do some yoga on the beach two blocks from my house, cook and eat an insanely spicy meal (want to invite me over then?), drink to excess (but not too much so), go out to the movies (maybe even alone!), clean my house from top to bottom, and organize my filing system and photo albums. Then maybe I’ll look for a 30-year-old. hehehe

Already Terra had me laughing, and so I had to continue!

**What is your all-time favorite song? And don’t give me any of that “I-can’t-pick-just-one” bull, pick one!
ALL TIME FAVOURITE: (damned Canadians spelling their words with “u”’s!) At Last - Etta James (though I also adore covers done by Christina Aguilera & Cyndi Lauper. Gloomy Sunday (originally done by Seress in 1933 - geeze, this song has an interesting background, Terra) covered by Sarah McLachlan. (I am going to have to find a copy of this song and listen to it. I’m totally intrigued by the background!)

**Tell me a little more about yourself; what you do for a living, what do you like to do in your spare time, boxers or briefs, that sort of stuff!
I am a stay-at-home mom who is struggling to write for three websites (Eating Disorder Talk, From Manic To Mommy & Single Parenting on a Low Income ), maintain a neat & clean home, raise my 13-month-old (virtually alone), work from home as an admin-assistant/bookkeeper, keep my eating disorder in check, shower regularly (who has the time?) and maintain a healthy sex life (this is normally the inspiration for showering). LOL When I have spare time, or if I’m avoiding responsibilities as I do when I’m MAXED out on overwhelmtion (I love that word!) , I write, crochet, organize, make lists, read, sing to female artists (likely, badly), and clean. Sometimes I even bathe when there’s no reason to, “just cuz I can.” Oh, and I prefer old-old school, plaid, cotton boxers. None of that boxer brief crap for me - only two men look good in those: Mark Wahlberg & Ashton Kutcher. I absolutely agree with that. Also, I’m a natural red-head and my eyes change colour with moods (as do my daughter’s my mom’s & all three of my sisters’ - I call them witchy eyes). Neat!

**Now onto “afflictions” (I really doing like calling them illnesses, so bear with the word for a bit) what do you currently live with?
I currently have mild cases of cyclothymia, attention deficit disorder, & obsessive-compulsive disorder. They are heightened by stress but often managed via behaviour during stressed moments. This is where, if I had been interview Terra in person, I would have just stared at her … completely confused. Run that by me one more time? On some level, they take care of each other in that my ADD causes me to lose focus on 12 tasks simultaneously and my OCD leads me to order & clean things (and count, but anyways) and the cyclothymia leads me to cycle between exhaustion (which makes sense for my lifestyle) and hypomania … meaning:

When I get stressed, I go through a hypomanic phase and clean a little bit of everything!

I will get distracted from that main cleaning task; say I’ll be doing dishes, but decide mid-way to throw the towel into the laundry, I’ll then sort the laundry to be washed after Zoe goes to bed. I’ll move the sorted laundry in baskets to the living room so it’s close by when the time is right, but in the living room I see something on the floor so I’ll sweep. I’ll pick up the laundry baskets, set them on the furniture until the floor is swept and notice something on the sheets (on the bed that serves as my living room furniture) so I’ll change the sheets ultimately causing me to resort the laundry. (I’m out of breath reading this and thinking about doing all those things in a span on ten minutes. I also have a very funny picture of you running around like a loon doing all this stuff!)

Point: I got some of the dishes washed, laundry sorted and maybe even done, floors cleaned up - and later I’ll go back to mop it, probably finishing the dishes and sweeping again.

All of this feeds the OCD which relaxes me, therefore making the ADD symptoms virtually nil. Most of the time.

**What have you lived with (but overcome?) in the past? Have they all been doctor diagnosed afflictions?
I was chronically depressed from the age of 11. This was exacerbated by the use of opiates. When I quit opiates, I got more depressed, feebly attempted suicide a few times (though my first attempt was prior to age 11). At 16, I was diagnosed as borderline schizophrenic, and at 19, major depression. I was first diagnosed as anorexic at age 12. At 23/24, I went through a psychotic break (also owing to drug use and severe fasting). I was diagnosed as full-spectrum personality disorder - meaning I kinda want to fit into a whole bunch of categories and the doctors couldn’t just PICK ONE. That was eventually downgraded to my current diagnosis.

If you’d like to learn more about Terra, come back tomorrow for the rest of our interview!

mental & emotional health, personal interviews, Eating Disorder Talk, Terra Atrill, dream day, favorite song, Etta James, Christina Aguilera, Cyndi Lauper, Sarah McLachlan, From Manic to Mommy, Hub Pages, mothering a toddler, writing, crocheting, organizing, list making, reading, singing, cleaning, Mark Wahlberg, Ashton Kutcher, cyclothymia, bi-polar disorder, attention deficit disorder, ADD, ADHD, adult ADD, obessesive-compulsive disorder, OCD, chronic depression, opiate use, suicide, attempted suicide, borderline schizophrenia, major depression, anorexia, anoretic, personality disorder