I am a person who is living with Bipolar Disorder sprinkled with a good dab of crippling anxiety here and there. This is not a badge I wear, it is just a fact, and I try to be as honest and vocal about it as seems appropriate because most people think that I am pretty "normal", and I want the stigma to go away. That's where we get into trouble though. You see, I wear the normal mask well. I've done it most of my life, and I have good coping skills (with a healthy dose of pills), that keep me in the mainstream. So people do not filter themselves around me. People who know me know my story, but it is not how I introduce myself to new folks. So I hear a lot of ignorant stuff.
I have two lives that I have lived. The first is pre-diagnosis, the second is post-diagnosis. So in theory I am five years old in this second existence. And being in a group of THEM is interesting. I get ouchy about these words, attitudes, and general misunderstanding not for myself, but for my fellow mental health sufferers who do not have support systems in place, are homeless, are embarrassed, feel worthless, and do not know that it is okay for us to advocate for ourselves. There are millions of people with mental health issues who are not managing as well as I am. Perhaps my education in Psychology has helped me, perhaps I am more resilient, I do not know, and I guess that it is not all that important. So I sometimes feel compelled to speak for the ones without a voice. And so here is what all you "normal" folks should know.
- Referring to someone as nuts or crazy or schizophrenic or bipolar is really not okay. I mean you could call me Bipolar I guess because that is part of who I am. But your boss having a mood swing does not make her bipolar. Stop it.
- If you are going to throw out a diagnosis for someone because of their behavior and because your degree in physics clearly makes you that type of expert, at least have a basic understanding of the diagnosis. Schizophrenia does not really mean what you think it means. Do some research.
- You do not want anyone to use the word gay or retard or any of the words that we use to disparage another on racial identity, but crazy? Go for it.
- Remember that mental illness is largely a silent disease. Most people do not go around advertising it, so watch what you say to anyone in this regard. You know not to tell a racist joke in certain circles because a person's skin color is usually pretty obvious. Mental illness is trickier than that. And the truth is, your boss may really be bipolar, and when she hears that you were joking about it, it could get uncomfortable.
- Know that there are 10 million people in this country struggling with what the National Institute of Mental Health calls "serious mental illness". I would argue that most MI is pretty serious, but I will not get into an argument of semantics here. In any case, this designation means that the mental illness causes a severe impairment in the ability to "do life" the way that others expect us to get it done.
- The above statistic refers to those cases that are known. My experience would lead me to believe that is a lower number than the realily. Probably because so many people are scared to get help or seek treatment because it really does change the way the world looks at us.
Oh hell, I could go on and on, but I want to make sure that you finish reading this and you get the gist. In January of 2009, my entire world turned on its ear. I had a job that I rocked at most of the time, I had a one year old baby boy, I had a great relationship. And then it all changed in the matter of a 24 hour period. Everyone wants to know when I first suspected that I was crazy...can I steal the LGBTQ answer that I was born this way? Because here is the thing. If mental illness was due to life experiences like abuse or drug use, or any of the other ways the uninformed seem to think that mental illness happens, then I would not have one. Now we could argue all day about genetics and why am I sick and my brother is not, but no one really knows. I like to think of it as a time bomb. Like it was always there...I was always a little nervous, I always worried more than most kids. But when I track my symptoms, I generally think of my college years. I went to an academically rigorous institution. It was really stressful. Sometimes I think that I had the stuff needed in my brain to make it happen, and stress was the lighter of the fuse.
I did lots of self medicating over the years to deal with all of the stuff my brain was doing to me. And I learned to wear the mask. I worked in the field for crying out loud...allowing myself to admit a problem would have been calamitous both internally and externally. Because the truth is that admitting to yourself or to others openly that you have a mental health issue makes a difference. People lose jobs, lose respect, are questioned about their parenting ability, and so on. I am not trying to argue that MI is in some way comparable or as bad as being in some other marginalized group. But it still totally sucks. And it sucks a lot worse for people who are not hooked up with quality treatment.
Mental illness often looks like drug addiction, or homelessness, wrecklessness and a host of other behaviors that make our friends and family mad. We get told all sorts of ridiculous stuff about exercising more, thinking happy thoughts, pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps etc. Yeah that's helpful. I get that people do not know the "right" thing to say when I mention my illness. So just judiciously keep your mouth shut, hug me, love me, offer to babysit my kid for a few hours. But do not tell me oh yeah, my great uncle on my mother's side committed suicide. That's horrible for you, but has nothing to do with my experience.
I am asking you to do your part to change the culture so that it becomes okay for mentally ill folks to ask for help. Educate yourself some so that you might be able to recognize when a friend or family member are screaming silently for help. According to the website here there is a death by suicide somewhere on the globe every 40 seconds. Almost 2% of deaths internationally are suicides. That's some sobering shit. My guess is that there are many reading this who know someone no matter how distantly who has committed suicide. And the terrible thing is that it is 100% preventable.
It is a systematic problem that is not going to be solved quickly, I get that. But when we consciously change our language, we begin to think about individuals and when we think about individuals we think about their problems. When we think about their problems, some of us feel compelled to do something about it. That's all I am going for here. Educate yourself. Choose reliable websites. I find that .org and .edu are good places to start. I cannot be explained on Wikipedia. Don't look there.
When we use "crazy" words to describe behaviors that we find annoying, offensive or out there, the message is sent that mental illness is still not okay. It is a weakness, it is the fault of the ill, we chose this for ourselves. Our brains are attacking us on a minute by minute basis. It is exhausting. Be gentle, be understanding, it's not like we want to be out of the ordinary, it just is.
Some Helpful Links:
Good articles and online support group for the mentally ill and their caregivers
Some Helpful Links:
Good articles and online support group for the mentally ill and their caregivers
