Brought to you by the Depression Is Real Coalition, The Down & Up Show is dedicated to the reality of depression. Each week our hosts will talk with some of the world's top experts on depression, as well as people who have been impacted by this illness. The reality of depression is that it is a debilitating and potentially deadly medical condition that affects more than 15 million Americans every year. The other reality of depression is that there is hope.

Down & Up Show #08: Depression and the Dangers of Self-Medication

IAN VO DOWN & UP INTRO

The Down & Up Show on Depression Is Real.org. A talk show dedicated entirely to the subject of depression, and the reality that there is hope for people dealing with this disease. Now, your host, Dr. Ellen Frank.

DR. ELLEN FRANK INTROS Lisa Morris, Personal Story of Bipolar

Welcome to the Down and Up Show on Depression is Real.org. This week's episode is Depression and the Dangers of Self-Medication. Sadly, many people cope with their depression through compulsive shopping, oversleeping or even more self-destructive behaviors, including alcohol or drug abuse.

In the end, though, these behaviors only make symptoms worse. Today we'll speak with Lisa Morris who will talk about how for years she masked and denied her depression by using alcohol and pain killers. Lisa can describe what it's like to live with Bipolar II (ph.) Disorder, before and after she sought treatment from doctors and the relief she felt once she got appropriate help.

DR. ELLEN FRANK / LISA MORRIS

ELLEN FRANK QUESTION:
Today Lisa has learned how to create balance in her life, making time for her husband, kids, work and fighting her depression. She is also the author of ÒIt's Norman to be AbnormalÓ, a vivid and honest memoir about her life experiences with Bipolar II Disorder.

We're so grateful to have Lisa with us here today to share her very personal story about depression. Now, Lisa, you've been diagnosed with Bipolar II Disorder, which is characterized by both depression and what we call hypomania, a milder form of mania. But you suffered more from depression.

When and how did you first feel likeÑthat something was wrong?

LISA MORRIS ANSWER:
I think I've always had some sense that something emotionally was not correct with me. But when it really hit home was after I started college and I had my (unint.) while I was in college. And I was just so on little roller coasters, but more so depressed. I couldn't get out of bed.

I didn't wanna study for my classes. I couldn't even take care of my kids. And I would start thinking, you know, how can I make myself feel better. Exercise wasn't working. I had the thoughts in my head but physically I couldn't do anything; emotionally I was a train wreck.

ELLEN FRANK QUESTION:
Hmmm! You've said that the stigma of mental illness in your family prevented you from getting and receiving medical help. What were your family's attitudes about mental health issues?

LISA MORRIS ANSWER:
I think with coming from Ute (ph.) Indian background with a traditional Hindu family, just the basis of having a mental illness, it's in your head. It doesn't exist. Mental illness is something that you can talk yourself out of. And most people that I've experienced in my culture that have had to deal with mental illness in the past will become alcoholics and up in an asylum, which would cause more devastating problems.

ELLEN FRANK QUESTION:
For a long time you tried to deal with your depression Òon your ownÓ. Can you describe some of the ways you tried to manager your depression by yourself?

LISA MORRIS ANSWER:
Yep. The ways I tried to were very negative ways and they involved (unint.) drinking occasionally. It wasn't, you know, a habitual thing to do. But more so pain killers, Percocet (ph.), Oxicotton (ph.). They would pick me up from my depressed mode and I would be able to get through the day or go to work cause I was an OR nurse.

And, you know, I'd work in the Operating Room, come home and take care of my family. But over time, as the months went on, it became more pills that I needed. I went from taking em by mouth to snorting them, different methods, you know.

And then the drinking came on top of that. So it just kept building and building with these negative ways that I, you know, managed my pain.

ELLEN FRANK QUESTION:
So how did you finally come to realize that this was only making things worse?

LISA MORRIS ANSWER:
I think I came to realize when I hit rock bottom. And the rock bottom that I hit was through the self-medication, I almost lost my husband and my children. I lost my job as an RN. I became an escort. I went through the whole shopping binges because I was always on thatÑI wanted to manic all the time.

And when I was low, I would just drink and drink and drink. And that low was just getting lower and lower. And when I had lost everything, including all my money, my vehicles, that's when I came back to my parents and I said, ÒI need to get helpÓ. And that was the only time that I had then went to the Emergency Room and said I need a psych evaluation.

Cause every other time I would go in there and lie just to get more pain killers or something. But this was the first time that I had went in there and said, ÒYou know what? I have totally BS'd you guys for years and I can't take pain pills. I need help mentallyÓ.

ELLEN FRANK QUESTION:
You've implied that your ways of handling your depression had a very negative impact on your marriage, but tell us a little bit more about that.

LISA MORRIS ANSWER:
Okay. First, to start off, me and my husband, we've been married 15 years. I got married to him at 16. I'm 31 now. And it was off and on with me drinking. He just wanted a family. He doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, he was never into the drug scene. And I wanted to be with my friends.

When I was low, I wanted to be home and isolated. When I was getting into the hypomania, I was overly sexually active with him, with other people, with spending. I made him go bankrupt. And these kind of things pushed him away. Over (unint.) he was pushed away.

Out somehow, you know, we'd try to find that ground to come back together. And it has not worked until recently when I've actually (unint.)É [TAPE GOES OUT & COMES BACK IN] Éthe illness that I have and accepted it and started treatment.

ELLEN FRANK QUESTION:
Say a little bit about the effects of your addiction to pain killers and drinking on your parenting and what happened at work.

LISA MORRIS ANSWER:
Oh, (unint.). Okay. Well, you know, you start off just mildly taking a pill here and there. You're just so happy. Well, over six months to nine months it became to the point where I was snorting maybe seven to eight 20 milligram Oxicottons before I'd go into a surgery and I did transplant surgery.

And here I am, you know, standing there in the OR, I couldn't function. I couldn't remember patient's names, I couldn't remember medications. I never wanted to be around my children. I didn't want to be a mom. All I cared about was me and how I could feel good and not have to be sad or worry about my problems.

Instead of going and getting help and doing the positive things, I justÑI was very selfish and I looked for a quick way out.

ELLEN FRANK QUESTION:
And what about the effects on your profession as a nurse?

LISA MORRIS ANSWER:
Now I can look back on it and say I would have done certain things differently, but while going through that without any type of treatment, I justified everything I did. I thought it was okay to do pain killers and drink and go to the hospital. So itÉ

To be honest with you, to the level of symptoms that I had, I don't think the nursing field wasÑit had any place for me in the clinical setting. And I still don't think that because I don't think I'm 100% out of the woods as of yet.

So I'd rather do more paperwork, administrative work and leave the meds and, you know, more invasive things to someone who's more stable. Not that I'll never be at that point, but you haveÑit's an individual thing. And the symptoms right now will not permit me to do that.

ELLEN FRANK QUESTION:
How did your treatment begin to change things for you?

LISA MORRIS ANSWER:
Okay, I was in the hospital for probably two weeks and that was the hardest. But once the medication started kicking in and after I got through the whole withdrawal, I got a mode of clarity. I got a moment to see everything I've been missing in life, the things that are worth living for.

And everyday is a struggle cause it's not, you know, a pill and it's a quick fix. The medication's only one part of it. You have so many other things you need to put into play. And my treatment involvesÉ I have to make it a part of my life, my daily life. So everything I do basically in my life, with my career now, revolves around my treatment.

ELLEN FRANK QUESTION:
You've written a book about your experiences with battling not only mental illness but the stigma that surrounds mental illness. Talk a little bit about some of the stigma that you talk about in your book and with the stigma that you encountered.

LISA MORRIS ANSWER:
Personally, I think the biggest thing, no one wants to believe you. No one wants to trust you. They label you. Labeling is so easy and so common. You hear the name bipolar or depressed, automatically people think that you're incapable of making decisions, what's right from wrong.

People don't trust you. You know, they think that you're gonna hurt them. They think you're gonna become violent, which in the past I did and it's in my book as well, you know, after using the drugs and the alcohol. But the stigma goes around. They think that maybe you don't have an education, that you've been doing this for years, that you intentionally wanna be this way.

And I don't think anyone wakes up and says, you know, ÒI wanna be a drug addict. I wanna have a dual diagnosisÓ. But going out, this is how people perceive you. And you lose your friends because they think you're not good enough to go to an art museum or just sit and enjoy dinner at night.

You get isolated a lot because you have nothing in common with a lot of people.

ELLEN FRANK QUESTION:
Sounds like all of this kind of snuck up on you very gradually.

LISA MORRIS ANSWER:
Uh huh. I think it snuck up on me later on in my teens, but it was always there because I was always (unint.). Getting married at 16, (unint.), you know, something's not right cause I wasn't pregnant. I actually left the country and went to a different county to where we could get married so no parents would have to sign.

So, I mean, I thought where there's a will there's a way, but I wanted what I wanted when I wanted it and I had everything under control. I can lay around when I want, I can get up, I could shop when I want. But when you have added responsibility, life responsibilities that pile on top of that, these symptoms become more prominent and it affects you all the way around.

ELLEN FRANK QUESTION:
Actually, I was referring more to the drug addictionÉ

Ésneaking up on you.

LISA MORRIS ANSWER:
Oh, yes, that definitely did because, you know, with being a young female you wanna go to happy hour and things like that. You think you can handle it, and I did for many years. My father was an alcoholic so I knew I had a tendency to become one. But the alcohol was the least of my problems.

When I got with the pain killers or the Percocets, I thought, ÒAhhh, this feels so good, but I'll only do it til, you know, the end of semester. I'll only do it until I get out of workÓ. It was always "only until", and before I knew it, here I am. I'm like, oh, God, if the pills aren't working, I can't get them, I'm running to the alcohol.

So one thing led to the next and it went to the party (unint.) drugs. And that was all within a matter of a year and a half, two years. And it really caused havoc.

ELLEN FRANK QUESTION:
Lisa, what one method would you share with someone listening today who may be trying to numb the pain of depression through self-medication?

LISA MORRIS ANSWER:
I would say the biggest thing is everybody always says there's help out there. And, yes, there is help out there, but the thing that I wanted someone to tell me was that you're not alone. You know, you might think it, that you're alone, but you're not.

And by using self-medication, for that moment you're gonna feel well but when that's gone, you're gonna have additional problems on top of that that you're gonna have to deal with. And it's only a matter of time before the self-medicating runs out and you're gonna hit rock bottom and you're not gonna feel good with self-medicating anymore. You're gonna be in a hole.

ELLEN FRANK CLOSE:
Lisa, thank you so much for speaking with us today. Attempting to treat depression with self-medication is inevitably destructive. The important step is to seek appropriate help. So remember, you don't have to hide your depression. There is help and hope.

For the Depression is Real Coalition, I'm Ellen Frank. Join us next time for another segment of the Up and Down Show from Depression is Real.org.

IAN VO CLOSE

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