I now know from personal experience what it feels like to be crazy. Crazy also known as insane, delirious mad and/or deranged. I mean crazy in the mental health medical sense. Mental health professionals don't call it crazy but colloquially. I find the challenge when experiencing that state of mine wasn't knowing I was crazy. It was difficult to get people around me understand that I was suffering from deranged thoughts. The struggle to be believed by my doctors, my family, my friends is constant and ongoing.
Ever since I was a child no one really believed anything was going on with me mentally. I got diagnosed with a few learning disabilities and ADHD before third grade. Normally children get taken to see if they have a disability because they're not performing adequately. That was not the case. Early on I learned to cope with my disabilities that have really long names. I wasn't underachieving. I wasn't achieving at the bare minimum. I wasn't even achieving at an average level. I was overachieving. My mother noticed I was doing things differently than the other children. The teachers explained that I was better and that is why I was doing things differently. My mom didn't listen. The doctors did not want to write a referral because to them nothing was wrong. However, my mother got the referral. Then the psychiatrist didn't want to test me because my standardized test scores didn't show anything wrong. My test scores showed that I was already doing way better than everybody else. My mother insisted that I was doing something different. That I was different, that I learned differently. They tested me and found out that I did have a few disabilities. The school didn't want to give me my disability benefits because I was already outpacing all of my classmates. Only one person, my mother, noticed that there was something wrong. Even with proof nobody believed that there was something different about me. This theme continues throughout my life.
When I went to the doctor, before I got diagnosed with depression, because I thought something was wrong, nobody believed me. I told them something was wrong and they checked and couldn't find anything. I insisted something was wrong and they did every medical test in the book and came up with nothing. They told me I was fine. I knew I wasn't fine. I kept asking and coming back every week, sometimes twice a week for a month. At the end of the month my general practitioner told me it could be depression but she doubts it. I would have to go see a psychiatrist to make sure. Begrudgingly she wrote me a referral. I took that referral to three different psychologists, finally the third one said you can see a therapist here if you really think something is wrong. I saw the therapist once a week for two months. At the end of the two months she looked at me and said you are depressed. You don't look depressed or sound depressed but your symptoms all point to it. I asked her after two months of seeing her once a week how could she have a diagnosis but not believe in the diagnosis. She said I talk to her every week, was on time, well-groomed, emotionally typical, and altogether pleasant. Even though I have the symptoms it just seems highly unlikely but I should get it treated and if I get better then that's what it is.
I took my diagnosis to the school doctor when I went back to school and they refused to treat me. I had to get my general practitioner, my psychiatrist from home, and my therapist all to verify I had depression. They must not have sounded convincing because after that I still I had to do a psychological evaluation that took up half the day. After that the psychologist said well according to your doctor's back home and our evaluation you are depressed, but I've seen you three times now and I just don't believe it. He started treating me I didn't get better. I got worse and that was my last year at the University.
I came home I went to a new doctor and therapist. Took three months for them to believe me. Took about a year to get the right medications to work. Took a year-and-a-half for them to realize that it wasn't just depression. That it was seasonal affectiveness disorder, insomnia, and anxiety. When everything is finally getting better it got worse again. I knew it was because I quickly build up tolerances to medications. I don't know why, I don't know how, just know I do. Again my mental health team didn't believe me. Neither did my current general practitioner. My pediatric general practitioner worked at the same practice though. I was able to get my pediatric doctor to talk to my current doctor and confirm since you had known me for 18 years. They started rotating my medications and a little I got better.
After two years of being home my family I wondered what was wrong with me. I told them that I came back because I was sick. In two years didn't see me get me worse. I guess they thought I was better. When I told my parents what was wrong they didn't believe me. I didn't have any fight left in me at the moment to convince them. I told them that they could talk to my medical team on their own time. My doctors were able to convince my mother. My dad doesn't quite understand but he's trying.
That brings me to today. I went to my psychiatrist because something was wrong. I talked to her and told her everything that had been going on. To which she responded this is a-typical for you. However, it's not uncharacteristic of diagnosis which you have. I sat there for a minute or two. Then finally I said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I came in here try to convince you I am losing touch with reality. I don't know how one is to logically argue that they are delusional. It is also not lost on me that typical delusional person is illogical. But I did what any insane person would do, that is do something illogical. My entire life no one has believed my mental status. I've had to fight tooth and nail to get people to believe me. But I came in here expecting that if I told you something is very wrong you would believe me. All I'm saying is I said the sky is green and you said no, that color is blue and we can both be right. Maybe this is typical of my diagnosis, but this is a-typical of me including my diagnosis. She believed me.
I don't know how to explain what it is like being delusional. I don't know how to explain the feeling everything is slightly off. Most of my brain was going about the day like its business as usual. But it wasn't a normal day and everything was off. My brain couldn't do what it normally did every day, even with all of my previous diagnosis. It's disconcerting to say the least to think everything is fine but know it's not. It was just a nagging part of me saying everything is wrong. Little voice in my head screaming at the top of its lungs say the sky is green! The sky shouldn't be green! Then to have your brain and everyone around you tell you, no silly the sky is blue that color is blue. Then you feel crazy because for a second you thought you were crazy and everyone is telling you you're fine. You're okay the next second. But then you feel crazy again because you know something is wrong and nobody else can see it, nobody else knows, nobody else believes. Which is exactly what it's like to have a delusion (the irony is also not lost on me be delusional about having delusions). It is so weird to know you're delusional and nobody else can tell. It is even weirder knowing you're delusional and having to convince other people you're delusional. That moment when I was sitting in the doctor's office wondering how I was going to get her to believe me the strangest moment of the day. Because the little voice could have just decided it was going to sit there and metaphorically watch the world burn around me. I like to think of it as the little voice is trapped in a car and a lunatic at the wheel. The little voice had to decide it was going to go along for the ride or if it was going to try to get into the driver's seat.
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