Feeling like an outcast

When you have a mental illness, in addition to all of the depressed thoughts that drive you to isolate and feel unacceptable and unlovable, there are the very real repercussions of the stigma toward the mentally ill that separate you from "normal" society.  In my last blog, I mentioned how awkward it is to run in to someone I know who doesn't know what is going on in my life, and to then wrack my brain for a politically correct way to say I have mental illness, and where my life circumstances stand as a result.  In fact, I am pretty sure there is no PC way to say it, which is why I try to think of honest but incomplete answers that will silence any further inquiries.  It's something that makes people terribly uncomfortable, and/or produces a myriad of pat responses.  It's not something that usually takes a toll on your physical health, so it is hidden, mysterious, and scary.  Why did people for so long just lock away those with mental illness and let them die forgotten?  Maybe it was in part because medicine had no answers, but I think it was also because for the average person without mental illness, it is difficult to be around, accept, or be close to someone who is mentally and emotionally irregular.  It can be volatile, unpredictable, and painful.  It would be easier, like then, to just sweep it under the rug and not look at it, because it can sometimes be quite ugly.  People don't know what to say or how to respond, or what exactly it even means to be mentally ill.  One person recently asked me when I told them my diagnosis, "So, does that mean you have different personalities?"  

"It's just like if you have cancer or a broken leg," mental health professionals say, but they are either delusional, or flat out lying.  I imagine announcing that you have cancer is not an easy thing to do, but while people may still struggle with exactly the right response (you'll beat it, I'll pray for you, etc), they don't judge you.  If your leg is in a cast, chances are no one is going to think you were an idiot for not being cautious enough to prevent it (not to say that people who handle illness badly might not disappear in these cases).  With mental illness, it is different.  In my many mental hygiene arrests I have had so many well-meaning cops and emergency medical workers give me the same pep talks.  "You're young, and don't have a serious illness.  Nothing is worth trying to take your own life.  You just need to work on seeing the good things, and focusing on them."  It's the old "Pull Yourself-Up-By-Your-Bootstraps and Stop Feeling Sorry for Yourself" speech, and underneath it is the assumption that somehow, your mental illness is in your hands, and you could turn it around if you wanted to.  In the end, if you are responsible, then the so called "mental illness" is not an illness at all, but a bad choice you are making to stay in a negative mindset.  It's a lot easier to explain mental illness if it is people making bad decisions about how to think.

Even if it is not necessarily about placing blame, for a lot of people, who again may struggle to define exactly what it means to have a mental illness, they may instead automatically substitute the term with mental weakness. Strong people and the ones with character are the ones that make it through any adversity intact.  They are the ones whose courage, or faith, or determination we admire because they overcame difficult external circumstances.  With mental illness, whether or not it is caused or magnified by external factors in an individual's case, there is often present the idea that it was an inherent flaw that either caused the person with the illness to not recover from external difficulties, or to now fail to overcome internal turmoil.  And when people think you are seriously deficient in resilience or character, they don't seem inclined to be very forgiving or accepting.    

Even many of my friends and loved ones, with the best intentions, have given me the same feedback, although they are mostly gracious enough to acknowledge mental illness as a real diagnosis. When I am hospitalized for a suicide attempt, or for being suicidal, there is a head-shaking sense of when is she going to get tired of this?  When is she going to stop making "stupid" (and yes that is the word that is often used) choices?  When is she going to decide to look to God for healing and stop wallowing in her misery?  When is she going to forgive, or let go of the past, or whatever is holding her back and move on?  When will she toughen up and decide to get a life?  The misery that drove me there is not as of great a concern as how I handled it, and that I once again "failed."  The best intentioned people don't seem to know exactly where to draw the line between a genuine illness, and bad decisions, choosing to remain stuck in one place, etc.

Maybe I am projecting some of that judgment in my own shame and embarrassment, but I know that is not entirely the case. For instance, several people told me I really just need to get back to work and I will be OK.  I have worked since I was fifteen, and already feel ashamed to be out of a job, but when I tried to return, it was only three months before I was hospitalized twice and had to go out on health leave.  If my body is intact, there is the sense that it must be laziness preventing me, and in America's strong work ethic, of course returning to work will aid in my recovery-again, so long as I can physically work, that is the right thing to do.  So in additional to being an anomaly, the mentally ill often become for a period of time (or some permanently) a "burden on society."  Believe me, there is a huge sense of loss for those of us who can't work, and a strong desire for the most part on the part of those individuals to be productive again.

I want to say that in some ways I agree with people about mental health being in the hands of the person with the diagnosis.  Not that being mentally ill is just a change of mindset, or something you can switch on and off, but that I am responsible for doing what I can to try and improve and not to just accept this as a way of life.  Your leg will never set correctly if it is not put in a cast, and your cancer will not go into remission on its own if left untreated.  There is some personal responsibility for most people with mental illness, although I will say in being in and out of the hospital, I have seen people so severely affected that I truly do not think they can control their thoughts or actions anymore.  By personal responsibility, I don't mean accepting that you must have done something, or must be continuing to do something, wrong.  I don't even mean that if you try hard enough you can kick this thing.  I refer to being willing to take medicine, and to get treatment, and to work as hard as you are able, and keep your mind as open as you are able, to recovery (for me this also has spiritual implications and recovery that is needed as well).  Recovery may never mean being symptom-free, but I hope and pray that someday I will drive over a bridge without wondering if it is high enough to jump off.  That I will wake up less days with despair and hopelessness.  That I won't feel so much pain inside that everything goes black and ugly, and I am driven to give up on life.

However, this blog isn't really about recovery, or what I hope or think that will look like, or the future I hope I can have.  I am just tired of seeing other people in treatment with me feel like and be treated as societal outcasts, and of feeling like a "less than" myself because of the stigma carried with mental illness, whatever form that illness might take, and because I am not working right now and am in treatment instead.  I am sad that in addition to dealing with our symptoms, we have to think about the way other people treat us as a result.  I admit terms like paranoid schizophrenic and bipolar scared me too before I spent a lot of time in hospitals with people who carry these diagnosis, but I found they are regular people who may not be able to function in the same way most of society does, just like at this time I cannot.  After suffering symptoms for years and managing to keep them at bay, when you can't manage anymore, it feels you are suddenly standing naked and all that is showing is fat, stretch marks, and scars.  I am the same person that loves animals and worked in a vet clinic for three years during high school.  I am the same person who fell in love with and married my high school sweetheart, even if that did not work out.  I am the same person who went to college, who likes to laugh, and walk outdoors, etc.  I am a dynamic whole, and if you choose to see me as a walking diagnosis, don't believe my illness is real but is "just in my head," or are put off or frightened because I don't have all my crap together, then that is your decision. I am tired of owning it as a reflection of my own flaws.  I am tired of blaming myself and feeling guilty for being mentally ill because other people seem to hold me at fault.  I'm going to do everything I can to improve, but that's because living with acute symptoms every day is a truly miserable thing, and I believe God has more for my life than this.  However, I am not going to hold myself responsible and beat myself up for having this hurdle to deal with.  I know that if I could have pulled myself up by the bootstraps, I already would have, because I have hopes and dreams, and things that I want to do in the here and now that would be a lot more fulfilling than therapy and inpatient hospital stays. 

Just Say No to Bridges

"Get down now!  Get on the ground!  Do not resist me!"

I am at the top of a bridge, high over the Genesee River, my leg caught in a railing, with a police officer dragging at me and screaming at me to get on the ground.  I want to tell him I cannot because my leg is caught, but my voice doesn't seem to be working, and the harder he pulls the more it hurts.  Plus, I am now hanging awkwardly upside down, and despite the unbearable pain in my leg I think, I hope my pants don't get dragged off.  Eventually, when I feel certain my leg will break, I manage to squeak out that I really would love to comply but cannot.  By then more cops have arrived, and they ease me loose, where I am then handcuffed and led to the back of a police car with several giant bruises.

This is not a chapter in my criminal history, but a different sort of history, and one I never foresaw.  When I run into people I know, and they ask, "So, what are you up to?" my brain goes into panic mode.  I am not good at giving generalities, and if pressed for any more details, I crack like an egg and spill the goods.  However, I do try to mop up the mess a bit, because the hard truth might go something like this;

"Funny you should ask!  I first overdosed over the weekend in February 2011, but that was no big deal.  I had to drink some nasty charcoal, they sent me home, and I went back to work Monday.  Then in October, I was feeling keen on hanging myself, and called Lifeline.  The overly enthusiastic local cops arrived in a half dozen pack threatening to kick my door in, and I was whisked off to the hospital in an ambulance and admitted.  Since then, it has been almost non-stop overdoses, trips to the top of bridges, mental hygiene arrests, and hospital stays.  I can't pay the bills, or keep a job, and my marriage ended partly due to my mental illness.  Oh, and I live with Mom and Dad now."

There is an identifier I never imagined using for myself.  Mentally ill.  Icky and yucky.  The title has all kinds of negative connotations, and scares a lot of people.  Frankly, it frightens me.  When I was pounding away at my college papers, this was not part of the future plan.  I didn't take exams about how to survive weeks in the psyche ward, or maybe more importantly, how to survive real life after being discharged.  They did not lecture on how to navigate confusing diagnosis with fancy names, like Major Depressive Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder, or the plethora of pills the doctors hand out with these diagnosis.  I never had Plan B For Financial, Mental, Emotional, and Marital Ruin.  There are a lot of things that have brought me here that I won't get into, but after one hospitalization for depression and being suicidal at the age of 16, I thought of that as something in the past that I could leave behind me if I worked hard enough at school, my jobs, and my marriage.

"Just go jump off a bridge," we used to say as kids.  When did that become a joke?  When you are standing at the top of a bridge staring far below and weighing your options, it doesn't seem terrible funny.  Maybe there is some subtle strain of humor I missed out on-

"So, Bobby jumped off a bridge last week."

"Bobby from accounting?"

"The one and only.  They still didn't find the bastard's body!" and everyone shakes their heads and chuckles.

Most people won't understand what drives someone to that extreme, or feel that it is a position they can easily relate to.  They will never be admitted to a psyche ward in their life, and will maybe never even know someone who has, or at least someone who admits to it.  I can't say exactly what my number of hospitalizations is, because I lost count back around 12.  I am not bragging to sound like the craziest fool out there, but because after just getting discharged a few days ago, and being determined to close the pages on this chapter of my life, I am wondering what comes next, how someone like me, with my tract record, best keeps from failing again.

I never intended to be a "someone like me."  Someone like mes are mentally insane, serial killers, arsonists, people with terrible diseases, etc. (On a side note, I don't really believe in someone like mes anymore, because I believe people fundamentally all have issues and are flawed in some way).  I spent all of my life trying very hard to be a "someone like everyone else" to blend in and stay invisible, because I was so insecure, afraid, and ashamed.  Now instead of blending in (which clearly I am not very successful at any more) or hiding, I want to discover who I am, and not be driven to the top of any more bridges along the way.  I appreciate the services of the law enforcement officers, paramedics, nurses, doctors, and techs who have kept me safe while I was too distraught to even want to live, but I don't want to go back to those dark places.

I usually leave the hospital with a lot of oomph, determination, and hopeful optimism.  All the hospital staff cheers you on and claps you on the back as they gently herd you out of the locked doors and into the surprisingly bright and noisy world outside.  All of the people who have not fled in terror out of your life or burned out like candles against a bonfire also join in that "we believe in you!" spirit (although it gets more lackluster around time ten).  After lack of success a couple of dozen times, while I recognize this as a journey, and one I need God to gain the victory over, I also see that in part, to kick this thing's butt,  I need to learn to say no to pills, say no to razors, say no to homemade gallows, and of course, bridges.

So nothing against you bridges; in theory you are still beautiful and I may one day again enjoy you safely, but for now I am saying No to Bridges.