Give Your WRAP to Your Shrink

We're in the middle of another 8 week WRAP session. Different volunteer facilitator, different set up, larger group, so I wanted to do it again. We keep getting good ones. Last night she gave us an assignment to come next time with the name of someone we plan to give our WRAP to. I really like that she did that. It's easy to conceptualize that WRAP is something that you do for yourself and yourself alone. But it isn't. WRAP is a working document that is meant to be shared. Especially the crisis / post - crisis plan part. Like mine has the name of the person designated to do my laundry. Generally these people should know these things...

Some people had these blank looks on their faces, so I piped in and said "I have a WRAP I did previously and the first thing I did after I wrote it was make a copy of it and give it to my therapist." I think I saw some wheels turning. Apparently this isn't as obvious of a thing to do as I thought it was.

I don't take notes during WRAP like most people do. I'm more of an auditory learner. Writing would be too distracting. Nor did I work on it in between or have I read any of the now 3 copies of the red book that I have (I may have given 1 to my shrink, can't remember). The way it worked out for me last time was that I was having a bad day, I think it was 6 weeks into the last WRAP session, I can't remember what was going on that day, but I do remember that I wanted to do anything to keep myself from going home and crawling into bed, so I sat outside the library at school (it was a nice day in April or May) and wrote it out in 1 sitting. Then I immediately went in the library and made a few copies, went to the student union and bought a big envelope, took it over to the school post office and mailed 2 copies, 1 for my shrink and 1 for my pdoc. While she would have copied it for free in her office, for whatever reason I wasn't going to see her for a week and a half or something (I wonder how close I did this to the spring action, can't remember) and I thought it was best for her to have read it in advance of our next appt, especially since it was so far away. Then I let both of them know to expect mail, as I unfortunately didn't have the option to scan / email it.

We had a really good session that week, talking about 'when things are breaking down,' 'early warning signs' stuff. Things that I thought she picked up on back when I started seeing her in 2007, but that apparently she missed. Like the fact that when I feel really bad I tend to dress up, put on make up. Because the last thing you want when you feel like crap is for people to ask you if you're OK. If you look good and people give you compliments you have the option of just saying "Thanks," or saying "Thanks. I feel like crap," depending on who it is. If you look like crap and say "I'm fine," they know you're lying. This isn't a conversation we would have had if I hadn't mailed my WRAP, and it was a conversation we needed to have.

Why wouldn't you share your WRAP with your shrink? One of the main components of WRAP is the concept of having 5 supporters. Why wouldn't your shrink be one of your supporters? They're not going to come over and do your laundry, but if your shrink can't help support you with the other stuff, you need a new shrink.

Balance

It's the April blog carnival and I wasn't planning on writing a piece for it until I read Emma's. This month's theme is BALANCE. Emma talks about her very visual disability (full time chair user) and trying to figure out when people are reacting to her disability/chair, and when it isn't a factor. I can really relate to Emma because our primary disability is the same. I worry about that all the time.

But I've been reading a lot about bipolar in the workplace, which is a totally different ballgame then CP. I should hopefully have a summer internship and this is something that's causing a gigantic problem in my head. I've spent my entire life with a visual/physical disability and the last quarter as a powerchair user. However, although I've spent 40% of my life with a psychiatric disability, I've only known about it for one tenth of my life—2.5 years. A very short time.

When you have a physical disability, in my opinion, it is easiest, the least stressful, to learn to be transparent. Your disability is transparent, I mean how do you hide a 240ish pound wheelchair? Behind a tree? So you might as well be transparent as well. Ask me if I can have sex, I'll answer you as best I can. It was like a huge weight was lifted off of me when I finally got to this point. But I had 20+ years.

On the flipside, bipolar is not a transparent disability at all. So does one need to learn to be transparent with this disability as well? The answer is not as obvious, and it's hurting my head. Conventional wisdom says not to, but being that I've been dealing with my physical disability 10X as long, keeping quiet just doesn't seem to compute. In a comment to a post on the subject, this guy said that he doesn't know which of his co-workers have diabetes or fertility problems, and I went, “well gee, that makes sense.” So you'd think I'd have my answer.

I could go into my internship and look at my supervisor and say, “I've got this thing with my eyes [that's invisible, but CP related] and I can't do this. I'm just, I'm having a lot of trouble with it,” and hopefully I'll have an understanding supervisor and we can come up with something that will work. Hopefully I won't have a supervisor who thinks can't = won't (that happens a lot). But I can't go to my supervisor and say, “I'm having nightmares about you because I'm bipolar and delusional.” As odd as this may sound, I want to, but I know it's inappropriate, probably some kind of boundary issue. Especially because I'll be laughing when I say it.

I want to because I'm finding that the more I say these things out loud (blogging / emailing / texting supporters, not the same) the more I realize how ridiculous I sound. I want to because I want to be transparent with both of my disabilities, because I would tell my coworkers if I had diabetes. But if I do, I'll probably alienate the entire office. I don't mind being labeled the crazy lady, but who wants to be labeled the crazy lady? I sure don't.

What could happen if I tell my supervisor something less crazy? What if I tell her I'm adjusting my meds or that my work history hasn't been stellar because it depends so much on what kind of episode I'm in or in between? My default setting isn't working anymore and it's a painfully hard adjustment. Probably as hard as it was to learn how to live with CP, which was hard for a long time. But I don't have 20 years, I have ONE MONTH. I worry that I won't find the balance of how to deal with my psychiatric disability in time, or at all, and that things will go as disastrous as they have in the past (that was for different reasons). I want to deal with both of my disabilities in the exact same way, but I can't. I have to find a balance.