Mental Illness Tea

Dear Fellow Bloggers and Readers- I hope that you are as well as you can be. I’ve said before that I always thought my blog would be a space for spice and all things nice, that would radiate positive vibes/tips and suggestions for the mentally ill or those otherwise devoid of happiness. For a while I would avoid writing which usually helps me because I didn’t want to ink the bad things. They are enough already. It was because I knew no matter what you do, mental illness and promoting mental health ain’t no walk in the park. It’s more like an extreme support, where you best don a helmet/knee pads and any pre-protection you can strap on.

With that awesome outlook, and any amount of synthetic sunshine, for me the foreverness of the diagnosis/ongoing symptoms are significantly underwhelming and there’s nothing good to say about that. However, it’s important that we and me need to spill the mental illness tea. We need to vocalize what we experience. Only in ways that are good for everyone involved but there is a truth of mental illness which is not spoken about and perhaps areas when talking, that we could heal from. I think it would be good for people with mental illness and their families. We need a common vocublarly where no, I don’t enjoy it, sleeping the day away and crying incessantly aren’t my favourite go to hobbies.

Mental illness is humbling. It takes away things that were important to you. I can’t remember a lot. I’m clumsy and irrationally paranoid. I’m usually sedated but don’t sleep. I’m irritable with the people I love the most when I tend to and find it close to impossible to sit still. I find being with other people overwhelming and experience anxiety regualrly. There are some things that help, others not. But I know despite of that, we need to be spilling the tea on mental illness more regularly and in so doing possibly help one another cope more ably. Stay blessed.

Pictures of Mental Illness

I don’t know about you, but I have been taken aback by the current stream of pictures / graphic depictions of mental illness.  This has varied from a comic, a puzzle and pictures demonstrating what different mental illnesses are like.  I’ve even seen Winnie The Pooh characters been labelled as the various mental illnesses their character traits seems to suggest they have.   These er, attempts to capture the experience of mental illness, to photograph our experiences are simply *colourful word*  insulting.   For example one  picture of Bipolar was two paperclips lying on either side of black and white paper.   I assume that the black paper was depression and the white paper  mania / manic.  I could go off into a whole TIRADE on the use of black and white paper, the racial connotations etc – but actually what I want to say is that WHATEVER the creator intended – and I assume they were well intentioned – my response is please, please, another colourful word, STOP.

This may be the undiagnosed attempt’s to prettify what we experience or make it more acceptable, but to a person with mental illness – me – they are NOT.  There are NO comics, paper clips or photographs that could fully capture the experience of people with mental illness. The best way to understand is to ASK.  And be reminded that the very act of asking, is very much dependent on where the person is and really what they are and aren’t prepared to disclose. Do you want to hear I’m so depressed I’ve considered killing myself several times, in several forms today?  Do you want to confront someone covering their eyes and ears, hiding away because their anxiety has left them wanting to be alone and speechless?  Other possibilities are that you will meet someone who laughs a little too loudly, too often and (I do this often) blurts out exactly what they’re thinking.

Do you have a picture or a puzzle for that?  Do you have a comic with fuzzy balls labelled depression, psychosis and anxiety that will fully depict what I’m suggesting above?  ’cause from personal experience there is nothing fuzzy, comical or photographable about real, difficult mental illness.  Each day is different – and we don’t know what we’re in for.  You can plan, you can hope – but in my case, a lot of times my mood lets me down, excuse the pun.  And I also find that hope is a difficult thing to deal with.  I used to hope a lot before – but every disappointment which has happened more than I’d like to recall – has depleted my reservoir of hope.  I also cannot put myself up to hoping – it’s too emotionally draining, and again in my experience, disappointment more often than not leads to depression.  And depression is dangerous for me.

Depression is not a black and white picture of someone not getting out of bed.  It’s not a picture of one tear falling from your eye.  It is a gut wrenching, chest exploding spasm of emotion that physically demonstrates itself in endless floods of tears from all orifices you own, a feeling of your organs melting – and your mind slowly following suit.  It is a place where no-one else can reach you – and for this reason – you wish to end the loneliness. End the  darkness of that existence. Yes, there are other times where I am “happy”.  Not manic, but happy.  But again more often than not, this is interspersed with so much other emotion that it becomes a colourful blur of warm and cold feelings.

So for my – and may I suggest most other people with mental illness’s sake –  please don’t equate our experiences to paper clips, comical, photographable anything.   Just don’t.  Be part of those who support us as opposed to those who don’t.  I am 4M’s Bipolar Mom.

 

The Honour of Crying

Today I helped someone cry.  Maybe that is attributing too much to me, maybe the person just wanted to cry.  But I’d like to think that I helped her do that.  Helped her to be ok with her innermost emotions that were desperately trying to come out.  An emotional confession she needed to make.   Her story is not mine to tell.  But our shared experience is.  Our moment.  Moments that are usually not allowed.  Crying is a sign of weakness is it not?  The waterworks of a breaking heart or brain?  MY crying moments have previously been gushes of emotion, have felt endless and more often than not, have presented without restraint.  This has not been smiled on.  Everyone that has confronted me, tears streaming out of my eyes, nose and ears, yes ears, has responded by trying to silence me, stop me, lest my emotions leak out onto or infect those around me.

But today wasn’t that.  I had no need to silence her.  I had no need to stop her tears from falling.  Because in my experience that’s the worst thing you could possibly do.  Ask someone to silence their feelings, to stop their emotions and be ok simply because some unwritten code demands that we not feel.  I don’t understand that.  And in my experience as someone with Bipolar, its not a code that marries well with my condition.  Bipolar people – me – experience waves of emotion – some small shallow waves that simply touch the toes of our emotions, and others that sweep you off your feet.  I’m not suggesting that Bipolar people are unstable or already to burst into tears at the drop of a hat.  But I feel, and I feel deeply – and sometimes, my eyes, nose and ears (note repeat of the ears) is the best way to do that.

The moment I shared with her – we’re from such different backgrounds, experiences and realities and she really had no clue who I am. It was simply that special experience of one human being reaching out to the other – no stigma, no ism’s, no race, no culture – just the painful beauty of helping another person cry free from reprisal.  My heart beat a bit louder, my stomach turned a bit upside down, and my eyes teared a little too.  A pain shared, frees up a little bit of room in the heart and mind of the person allowing themselves to be released.  And she did it with me.  She chose me.  And if you knew her story – you’d know just how special that was.  I’d like to say that she chose me BECAUSE I am Bipolar (we stand out in a crowd, are very fashionable and well, are generally free to be, not).  But instead she chose me for me.  That friends, is a helluva special feeling and I hope really strongly that I gave her a little release.  Because she freed me too.  Freed me from believing you can’t cry.  Because there’s honour in tears.  There’s respect in tears.  A statement of where you are.  Thank you secret friend for freeing me.  And I hope that those who read this will choose to cry when they need to, smile at all opportunities – be themselves, and be free.  Be part of those who support us as opposed to those who don’t.  I am 4 M’s Bipolar Mom.