1-800-273-8255 (Mental Illness Is and Isn’t…)

I wrote this post back in 2017 about my depression and mental illness in general, and seeing as mental illness awareness week just ended yesterday, I thought I’d close it out by sharing this again. Recently I was also diagnosed with a mild form of bipolar, so I’ve updated this to include mood disorders in general.

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“Slowly over the years, the data will accumulate in your heart and mind, a computer program for total negativity will build into your system, making life feel more and more unbearable. But you won’t even notice it coming on, thinking that it is somehow normal, something about getting older, about turning eight or turning twelve or turning fifteen, and then one day you realize that your entire life is just awful, not worth living, a horror and a black dot on the white terrain of human existence. One morning you wake up afraid you are going to live.” Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel

The description of mental illness, specifically depression, that has always resonated the most with me is the one above. I read Wurtzel’s book when I was about 16 or so and nearly suicidal. I wasn’t entirely understanding my issues until reading this book and it was a relief to finally see someone put into words what I couldn’t really express. Depression is a lot of things, and thanks to the efforts for mental health awareness over the years, it is better understood. Yet there is still stigma; you see it caricatured on t.v, advice is often given from misinformed points of view, and the chemical aspect is still being debated over. Even the critical/public response Wurtzel and Prozac Nation garnered after publication is a prime example. Not that the book is perfect or even close to perfect, but people (mostly those who haven’t dealt with mental illness) completely missed the point by calling it whiny, self-absorbed, boring, obscene, and frustrating. Those critiques are exactly what depression/ mood disorders in general are.

Depression/mood disorders are:

• Crying. Crying into a pillow so no one can hear you. Crying in your high school bathroom stall during lunch period. You’re holding a magnifying glass up to your life and everything is blown out of proportion.
• Drowning in plain sight. Some of us fight until we can take a breath of air or until someone is observant enough to throw us a lifeline. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case for everyone and by no means is it their fault.
• Feeling that no one else is going through the same thing. Feeling the way you feel. Tearing at their insides. Struggling just like you.
• Isolating yourself from people that care about you. In fact the more someone shows a desire to help, the further you retreat from that person. Nothing can help you. no one can help you.
• Days where the thought of getting up and living overwhelms you. It’s calling in sick with the flu for work because it’d be hard to explain that actually, you’re just losing your mind. No sick days for that. But then it’s days where you can grocery shop and go to class and laugh with friends. Happy-sad-sad-sad-sad-happy-sad-sad.
• Feeling inadequate. Worthless. Guilty. A burden to the people who are trying to help. Maybe you have a good life, a solid upbringing and so you think I shouldn’t feel this way. Why can’t I snap out of it? I shouldn’t even exist.
• Constant nostalgia for places and people you haven’t even experienced, but you just know you want to be someone different, feel something different.

And the list goes on.

Depression/mood disorders are NOT:

• Being sad 24/7. unlike what some tv/movies have shown, it’s not painting your fingernails black and writing death poetry all of the time. Some people mask pain with an outward appearance of happiness. That doesn’t mean they don’t need help.
• The fault of the person affected. Let me repeat that. It is NOT THE FAULT of the PERSON AFFECTED. No one ever chooses this. We don’t think hey let’s act like self-absorbed, angry, assholes to everyone around us and on top of that, hate ourselves into nonexistence.
• “Well you have a job, good friends, loving family and you’re doing alright in school.” As well-meaning as that statement is, and I’ve heard it countless times, it is not very comforting. The pain you feel is too constant, and comes not from a surface wound, but from a deeper place, one that drains your motivation to care about those very things they list. The outside of a structure can look put together even as the foundation inside is crumbling.
• A weakness. Mental illness does not make you weak. Do not ever think that strength can only mean standing upright with confidence. It is also found in simply choosing to wake up in the morning
• Something that can be cured by a one size fits all solution. Some people need talk therapy, some need medication, some need both. but it’s okay to be medicated and it’s okay to see a therapist. unlike common advice I hear, no walk in the park or the perfect health diet can be a magic cure.
• Related to privilege. It can affect anyone, no matter their status or background. Even if one person may seem like they have fewer problems in life than you, he/she can hurt just as much. But treatment is related to privilege and that’s a whole other story.And I could go on and on.

Mental illness is a scary thing for both the person living with it and the people in his/her life. Family and friends can only see a loved one’s behavior from the outside, they are not privy to the tangled mess of thoughts and feelings inside him/her. There is the guilt at not noticing or understanding until so much damage has already been done. As Michael Cunningham writes in his book The Hours, “we thought her sorrows were just ordinary sorrows; we had no idea.”

Reaching out to someone who is struggling is hard and often times the attempts seem futile. Keep being there. Don’t smother them with advice or questions, and don’t judge. Do not try to tell them how to feel or jump to conclusions about things. Just be there. Keep including them in your life and checking in on them. The irony of mental illness is how isolated you become and yet the idea of being lonely is an overwhelming fear. I saw a status on a Facebook page about books, mainly fiction, that are good reading for someone they know who is suffering from mental illness, and it made me want to post a similar list on here. These books listed are some of my favorites, they have helped me in significant ways and can also help others with mental illness or those who know someone struggling.

• Perks Of Being a Wallflower– life is worth living and you are worth loving.
• The Hours– “you can’t find peace by avoiding life.” how do we cope with pain and even more so, how do we cope with living?
• Prozac Nation- detailed perspective on depression/bipolar disorder, clarifies mental illness. (memoir)
• Harry Potter Series– you can be brave, you can face dark times and you are never truly alone.
• Girl, Interrupted– a first person perspective on borderline personality disorder. (memoir)
• Challenger Deep– mental illness doesn’t completely go away with treatment. Also, even at your lowest point,  you can still choose life.
• It’s Kind of a Funny Story– it’s okay to reach out for help. Also, your experiences can be stories to tell, whether they are sad or happy or even funny. good moments can come from bad situations.

It has taken me a long time to become more open about anything going on inside me; I’ve always avoided talking about my feelings and worried that I’d sound whiny or undeserving. But I’ve realized talking is important and experiences can be powerful to share with others looking for help. This past spring, as I wrote in a post over the summer, I messed up badly, causing me to unravel and give in to emotions that had been under control since I started getting help back in high school.  But it is now Fall and I’m still struggling, not so much with the actual event but with the aftermath. It has been extremely hard to re adjust and other things have come up since then as well.

This is the reason for the long absence of my posts on here and it’s the reason I’m writing this now. I don’t feel okay and I don’t know when I’ll feel okay and maybe I’ll eventually get too tired to continue to try, but I do know that writing this brings me some sort of comfort. I’ve always written with the purpose of using my voice authentically and honestly to connect with others on a deeper level. To whoever reads this and is struggling, keep going. I can’t promise things will ever get 100% better and I can’t say I’m writing all of this in a super healthy frame of mind myself, but I have gotten through it before so it’s not impossible. Never think it is impossible. Much love to everyone.

*A few resources for depression/mental health in general*

National Suicide Prevention Hotline:  1-800-273-8255

Yoga With Adrian: great yoga person on YouTube who focuses a lot on mental health.

College campus counseling services

National Institute of Mental Health website: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help/index.shtml

Two great mindfulness apps: Omvana and Stop, Breathe and Think

GLBTQ National Help Center: http://www.glbtnationalhelpcenter.org/ (includes information on stuff from support to education to community organizing. according to reviews, one of its best resources is its online volunteer-run chat room, which is confidential and secure.)

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I am in a little bit of a better place than I was when originally writing this, however things also got incredibly worse before they started to calm down. While I’m nowhere near where I want to be, I am coming to terms with the idea of baby steps. The most important thing to always remember is that it’s okay to slow down, even to a crawl if you need to.