As many of you who follow me on twitter may know, I’m someone who is riddled with mental illnesses. Unfortunately, this year my mental health has taken a turn for the worse and I’ve been mentally disabled for the greater of the year. I’ve noticed that being open about this has helped other friends online talk about their struggles. Having mental illnesses or “bad” mental health are things we as a society should not be ashamed of. I wish these conversations were more normalized; similar to the way physical sicknesses are.

For this post, I wanted to talk about my diagnoses and how they are being treated in hopes of helping others. Please be advised that I have been professionally diagnosed and every treatment I am receiving has been from either my psychiatrist or therapist. Please also be advised that treatment varies among patients so my treatments may not work for everyone. Please consult your doctor. If you are feeling like you have any type of mental illness, please do not self diagnose or self-treat. I hope to encourage others to seek professional help. However, if you have any similar diagnosis or have questions about anything I write here, please feel free to reach out to me as I don’t mind sharing my experiences in the hopes of helping others.

PTSD

I wont get into all of my traumas here because that is very personal information, but I’ve lived through some very traumatic experiences (personally and with my family) that have shaped the way I think and react to every day situations. PTSD is probably one of the things that affect my life the absolute most, even on the smallest scale. A lot of the beliefs I hold about myself and the outside world are rooted in past traumas.

Treatment: I am treated for my PTSD through therapy. I have a therapist that I see twice a week. I’ve only been going to therapy for 8 months so we are taking things slow, but one of the main long-term goals is to really dive into these traumas and learn how to live with them as opposed to them taking over my life. EMDR therapy has also been recommended but I’m not sure I’m ready for that just yet.

Generalized Anxiety (GAD) & Social Anxiety + Panic Disorder + Self Harm

Anxiety is a really tough one for me. I’m always nervous. I can’t think of one moment in my life where I haven’t been nervous or anxious to some degree. It’s very hard for me to go out and socialize with people because of my anxiety. I do not leave my house or go anywhere alone. I have trouble keeping relationships (also related to ADHD) because I’m too afraid to get close to or even contact people.

Alongside my anxiety comes my panic disorder. Panic is the next level of anxiety; when an anxiety attack or anxiety in general gets too strong, your body physically can go into a panic mode. All humans have anxiety and some level of panic; it’s the bodies way of managing fight, flight, or freeze responses. However, when there is constant anxiety or if a person is far more anxious than a particular situation warrants, it becomes a disorder. Panic attacks are something that I’ve struggled with since I was around 12 years old. Some attacks are worse than others, and some even trigger my asthma attacks which can be really scary.

My panic attacks have also been paired with vocal hallucinations and suicide attempts / suicidal ideation as well as my self harm episodes. I’ve been self harming since around 12 as well and it’s something I still struggle with into adulthood.

Treatment: For my anxiety and panic disorders, I receive therapy as well as medications. As far as therapy, my therapist gives me really great tips on things I can do to manage my anxiety.

For medicines, I am taking Paxil (Paroxetine) and Atarax (Hydroxyzine) to manage these disorders. I take Paxil once every morning. Paxil affects the serotonin levels in my brain to help relieve anxiety. This medicine helps with the feeling of constantly being anxious. While it doesn’t take those feelings away completely, I do notice the difference when I’m not on it.

I take Atarax three times a day as a preventative solution to panic attacks. I can also take it as needed if I am having a panic attack. This medicine is fast acting; the feeling is very similar to taking a Benadryl. I must say it keeps me very groggy and loopy throughout the day, but it does allow me to feel more calm. It also helps in stopping a panic attack if I feel one coming on or if I’m already in the middle of one.

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Bi-Polar Disorder

My bi-polar disorder is one of my illnesses that has been the hardest to accept because of all the social stigmas surrounding it. I grew up mistakenly thinking that all bi-polar people were aggressive and dysfunctional. That is not the case at all. Bi-polar disorder is a mood disorder in which someone experiences very high highs and very low lows, to put it simply. Of course, everyone has highs and lows, but someone with bi-polar disorder experiences this at extremes. Everyone is affected differently. My mood swings were often paired with suicide attempts or suicidal ideation.

Treatment: I am taking Risperdal (Risperidone) once a day. It is an anti-psychotic that has helped make my mood swings much smaller in scale. Before it, my mood swings were grand in scale and could last for days or even weeks. Weeks of mania and weeks of major depression. They’ve changed on scale as I have more frequent but smaller and more manageable swings. I also take Lithium once a day to not only help with the mood swings but to help get rid of the vocal hallucinations associate with my psychotic condition. Lithium also helps manage the suicidal ideation I mentioned earlier.

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Depression (MDD)

Due to the traumas I’ve mentioned above, I’ve been depressed for most of my life. Paired with bi-polar disorder, depression can become unbearable and life threatening.

Treatment: All of the medications listed above help with MDD.

Gender Dysphoria

As you may know, gender dysphoria is the diagnosis which causes someone to be trans. My gender dysphoria has shown itself in many ways. As a non-binary person, gender dysphoria is something that is difficult to explain and understand. I get dysphoric on both ends of the gender spectrum but more heavily so on the woman because I am a masculine individual; hence being transmasculine. Keep in mind that masculine does not equal man and feminine does not equal woman.

My brain does not process gender in the same way someone who is binary does. I remember being a small child and not understanding that there were differences between men and women; socially and physically. Some may think that’s just because I was a child… but as I grew older the feelings of not belonging to one gender persisted and manifested into crippling dysphoria towards all of my feminine sex characteristics and being seen as female in general.

Treatment: I am currently undergoing Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) (Testosterone) and I am starting gender therapy very soon. I have also socially transitioned.

ADHD

ADHD is something that I’m working on getting treated. I’ve been showing the signs of ADHD since I was around 7 years old, but because of my other disorders, it was masked and hidden. Growing up, I used to get in trouble because of a lot of my symptoms. I’d like to include what my fiancé wrote out for my psychiatrist to best explain my symptoms:

As someone who lives with Cadence, they seem to show clear symptoms of ADHD in daily life.

• Interrupting: They interrupt conversations frequently over irrelevant things that don’t correlate to the subject.
• Noise: It seems like they are always making some sort of noise. (singing, humming, clicking)
• Forgetfulness: They forget what they are talking about mid-conversation or what they did 5 minutes ago which causes problems when they’re left without supervision.
• Waiting: They have a hard time waiting for things to happen (i.e. waiting for their turn to speak or waiting for public transport).
• Social Cues: Cadence has trouble picking up on basic social cues like sarcasm, tone of voice, mirroring or body language.

Treatment: I’ve only went for an official diagnosis about a month ago, but my psychiatrist told me that once I get my mood disorder stabilized, we will try Adderall to see if it helps.