One Year Later-- A Sonnet

[Pilonea]

How much difference a year can make,
If only a few moments of callow indiscretion I could take,
Away from a passel of newly forged mistakes;

From the cobwebs of my mind I rake,
The passing and whispering comments that resonate,
My past and that of my longed for mate's,
Whom without a care or folly forged my fate,
With but a pernicious word of hate,
Forever sealed my understanding of love to a blackened crate;

So the ruminations of my mind do grate
On the rocky concept of harmony it can't situate
For the derision of love it shall forever state
Beneath the weight,
Of the anvil of contempt it shall continue to partake.


A sonnet of doggerel is often an apposite and succinct method of conveying hard to describe emotions. Please excuse my contrived ten minutes of poetic apotheosis, but sometimes it is tempting and I just cannot refuse.

It is I, Pilonea, here to grace the presence of this excellently conceived and rather handy board, for those of no other avenues of expression. For my first post to this board dealing with my life that I made one year ago, click this URL: http://www.psychlinks.ca/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1492

Yeah, I have graduated from being twenty-six years of age to the ripe old age of twenty-seven. Not much has changed, only the names of those with whom I work, converse and of my ISP.

I have went from being unemployed last year at this time, to having moved to another state, been evicted from my household before I could begin a rather high paying sales job (I was selected amongst hundreds of candidates), and then returning to the laps of poverty where I currently reside -- again unemployed. Yes, I have been employed since I returned from the other state, but only in a minimum wage environment of capitalistic inebriation; you know, where the little guy gets squashed under the heel of the big capitalist in a three-piece tuxedo.

I have no relationship with the female species, at least not currently, nor in the past year. My moods fluctuate to a rather depressed state (though usually mixed with irritation, garrulousness, and some energy -- shrinks call it a "mixed state"), and I get little done in a lot of time.

My sleep patterns are all over the place, ranging from the 2nd shift one week to graveyard the next, then back to the dreaded 1st shift.

I am on 20 mg of Prozac per day, when I can remember to take it, and have not seen my Doc in months (I missed my last appointment). I feel as though I have outgrown psychiatry and the rudimentary bits of psychotherapy I have experienced. It is time to turn the wheels onto new avenues of knowledge and healing; psychology cannot heal what it cannot understand nor diagnose. Individuals are so wide-ranging in environmental backgrounds, neurotransmitter synaptic functioning and a whole host of other areas I am not able to fully understand, that any one diagnosis pulled from the shiny wrappings of the DSM manual seem quaint and hardly worthy of further consideration.

Ahh, I suppose I shall continue on my path of capricious work patterns, minimum wage jobs and loneliness. I don't remember signing my John Hancock to this script when I was moved from the maternity ward after birth.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I feel as though I have outgrown psychiatry and the rudimentary bits of psychotherapy I have experienced. It is time to turn the wheels onto new avenues of knowledge and healing; psychology cannot heal what it cannot understand nor diagnose. Individuals are so wide-ranging in environmental backgrounds, neurotransmitter synaptic functioning and a whole host of other areas I am not able to fully understand, that any one diagnosis pulled from the shiny wrappings of the DSM manual seem quaint and hardly worthy of further consideration.

What is it about you that you feel psychology cannot understand?

 

[Pilonea]

What is it about you that you feel psychology cannot understand?

Oh my disdain for human interaction beyond the most necessary and beyond my closest friends, which number about three. I do not rank even my own family very highly on my "to do list" this Holliday season. Furthermore, if my diagnosis of Bipolar disorder is correct, I find my "type" or "Axis" as you folk call it to be a rather odd one not easily researchable in the online data. (What exactly does "Axis" mean in psychspeak anyway?)

I can often fluctuate from euphoria to a feeling of depression within a matter of hours, and often minutes. I often feel both at once. I also feel as if I may have some minor symptoms of paranoid personality disorder since I often obsess over events in my past which were embarrassing and feel as if people still discuss these issues privately and are wanting to humiliate me once again. I am also paranoid in other more regular situations. My heart often races and I am typically a very anxious person. I also feel as if I may suffer from OCD because of certain "quirks" that I cannot control. Then in more normal frames of mind, which have been rare as of late, I scoff at my paranoia and realize everything might be OK. More later..

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Other than when required, I don't usually bother with a formal DSM diagnosis - in therapy, I prefer to focus on problems, issues, and symptoms. I think you'll find that most psychologists work this way.

As for online information about bipolar disorder, in fact there is a great deal available: see Bipolar Disorder resources.