A Little Foreboding

If you come to a certain point with a regular associate, you gradually get more comfortable sharing personal information with them. At least, that’s been the case with me. I’ve reached this point with multiple people and have discovered a common thread: mostly everyone is okay with accepting that someone has a mental illness until the diagnosed person shows signs of mental illness. I know this because I have been diagnosed as mentally ill and have experienced this firsthand. The stigma with that statement is so, that your immediate view of me has changed--believe me, I know.

When someone starts showing symptoms related to their diagnosis of mental illness, people react by saying the symptomatic behavior needs to stop, because it is assumed the victim can control it. All you need is to go for a walk or a run to get rid of that excess energy; you should just calm down; you need a pick-me-up, so why don’t you take on a hobby? These suggestions, and others like them, have the same justified chaser: It’s worked for me. Or, to a lesser extent, I know someone that has (the same condition), and it’s worked for them.

There’s a glaring flaw in this supposed logic. Don’t you think that a person diagnosed with mental illness would have tried everything possible to “cure” themselves of it? It's not a crutch--even if someone tried to use it like a crutch, the crutch would be broken and ineffective--and no one that is truly mentally ill will show any affinity for their diagnosis (except narcissists.)

The great challenge with mental illness is that it doesn't always look like mental illness; what's a greater challenge is that it doesn't always feel like mental illness. You have to be told you have a mental illness by a licensed, reputable professional before you can receive any treatment for it--meaning, the person diagnosed has never supposed there is an issue before being told.

The people closest to this person might think that certain idiosyncrasies and other odd behaviors are just personality quirks. Then, this person keeps aging, but these “quirks” have now become deterrents, and those closest with this person have seen how this person’s life is being thrown off-track because of these behaviors. That’s when the so-called “cures” begin to surface. Just before, or just after, these discussions, there are always other trains of thought these same people ride: I used to be like that, but at least I got over it; I know exactly how you feel; You need to finally wake up; You’re becoming a problem for your family; You need to stop worrying so much about yourself; Why do you still live at home?; You take yourself too seriously; etc. So, what are we supposed to do if we, the diagnosed, are no different than everyone else? We’re to do exactly what the undiagnosed tell us to, aren’t we?
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Most of us have no choice but to eventually give in, and go with the flow. This works for a while, for some of us--maybe we even feel fulfilled with our job, hobby, or activity, because it’s something to take our mind off of things. Then, little things within these endeavors begin to become slight irritants. We end up taking a day off, just to regroup (no one understands why.) When we get back, things have only gotten worse, in our mind. The repetition begins to bog us down, so we start to lose the distraction, and our thoughts settle back into that former groove. Then we no longer want to go back to that activity, but we have to, because we’ve made a commitment and others have to pay for our absence. Feeling guilty, anxious, irritated, exhausted and forced into something that was supposed to help, we start to act in a way that seems “out of character.” There might be newer challenges, but the situation is always the same. This, for me, has been the greatest manifestation of my diagnosed mental illness(es): the circumstances may change, but the cycle always inevitably repeats, and I continue to damage my environment, both social and physical, with my words and actions.

Everyone with whom we are closest sees how our lives are being deterred, so they, again, give us the same resolutions as before. Depending on how many we’ve tried, though, we begin to feel more and more hopeless, feeling that there’s no solution and we’re doomed to either become stagnant, or destroy our lives, year after year. Our loved ones, somehow, still don’t understand. And, year after year, we can’t snap out of this cycle; medication definitely helps, but the function of medication for this problem is only to treat the illness, not cure it. We don’t notice this pattern of behavior every time, though, until the same reactions from people begin to come out, and we find ourselves in the same situations as before. This is the most terrifying aspect of mental illness: the fact that we can’t perceive there’s an issue--we feel that we’re acting normal, common to our peers. Then we see ourselves behave in a way that others have said isn’t normal, and our reality changes to where it’s like we’re watching our bodies do things and hearing our voices say things that we, finally, recognize as inappropriate to the situation. Yet, it seems we can’t stop, and the damage is being done in front of our own eyes. Our greatest fears have taken over and have now become reality.

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