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// one day I would be sorry for chewing gum“.  I could hear my mother’s mantra “one day I would be sorry for chewing gum” while I sat with my Novocaine-numbed head as I sat in dentist’s chair.  Was today that day?

Or is it due to rejecting my own inner wisdom that landed me in the chair, perhaps. Chewed gum fanatically and totally addicted to Big Red until I was 30….when I had two root-canals done on both sides of my teeth. After that, I was very “aware” of my dental hygiene.

Until we moved to Florida, I had very good teeth and took great care of them! My inner wisdom was working back then. Well to some degree, anyway.

Okay, my Inner Wisdom was not 100% on all things. When I was able to get some psychological help, some WELL-NEEDED help. The last thing I ever thought of was my teeth when you’re concerned about your mind.

Inner Wisdom-less can be Avoided

I define Inner wisdom-less as knowing but not doing– having intuition, but ignoring it.  Insight with apathy of consequence.  I was told when I started taking my medications for my diagnosis of depression laced bipolar disorder, that the medication will have some unwanted side-effects.  One side effect was tooth decay possibly due to the dry-mouth. I was told by my doctor, at the time, to just have a good supply of throat lozenges.

Do you know what a throat lozenges really is? It’s candy! My inner wisdom knew this, but my inner wisdom-less won out. I would use throat lozenges and other hard candy to help with the dry mouth.

That brings me to today’s event… I had 2 teeth removed and one of them was my wisdom tooth.  My inner wisdom has lost a little of its bite!

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Facebook Friend Suggested It and Chato Stewart Drew It -

For this Sunday Silly, I asked my Facebook friends to give me 3 concepts for our Sunday silly cartoon based on the three following ideas:

1. How you feel right now: Dorothy suggested -  Sad ( *Seasonal affective disorder)

2. What bugs you right now: Tracy L of Emotional CPR suggested  “sick of waking up to 30 degree weather”

3. Your favorite cartoon character. Kelly C and Kathy B both suggest “Winnie The Pooh Characters”

Today’s Sunday Silly is a mix of suggestions but i think they all worked well together!

SAD Tigger: Do you have any Meds?Eeyore: <sad look on his face>
Caption: Tiggers do not bounce with seasonal affective disorder

  * here are a few Psych Central posts you should read about S.A.D

Mental Health Humor Cartoons

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Mental Health Humor Cartoon by Chato Stewart

Title: Mental Health History:  Why is it the more you need help…
Sign 1: Year 1 – 1 Diagnosis – 1 medication – but InsuredSign 2: Year 3 – 3 Diagnoses – 3 medications – COBRA Ins.Sign 3: Year 6 – 4 Diagnoses – 5 medications – Lost InsuranceSign 4: Year 10 – 6 Diagnoses – 12 medications – Broke!Caption: The less money YOU have

Our “mental health history” can be very simple or extremely complicated. Each person has different psychological and biological make-up that includes our background and life experiences that together make-up a full history. Diagnosing and the successful treatment of depression, bipolar disorder or the host of other “mental illnesses” sometimes is trial and error. For me, it was not hard to get into the ball-park for my diagnosis as bipolar.

The problem was nailing it down. See I started out as Bipolar Depressed, then to Rapid Cycling then to mix state then back to bipolar 2…Over the last 10 years, I’ve been labeled with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), bipolar II disorder — also known as manic depression,Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), Major depressive disorder (MDD, deliberate self-harm (DSH) includes self-injury (SI), and Binge eating disorder (BED).

It was even hinted to me that I could have Borderline personality disorder (BPD) and schizo-affective disorder. The problem is with EACH NEW Therapist, Doctor and Psychologist, I saw came with an updated diagnosis. Am I alone in this?? Nope!  Here is the experience of my Friend and Facebook pal, Kristi Goldsberry, CPSS, ITE Peer Support Specialist:

I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder at the age of 31 in the midst of a full blown manic episode for which I was hospitalized for a month. I had known for a while that something was wrong, and had made appointments with psychiatrists a couple of times after one of my “weird” episodes. But when I …

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