Hey y’all. I just wanted to point you to this video, and Dr. Tracey Marks’s Youtube channel. She has a lot of great videos about Bipolar Disorder, including this one that succinctly explains something I’ve been trying to articulate for years – the difference between classic and atypical Bipolar Disorder. Do check it out!
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with nor received compensation for this promotion in any way.
Today is the second anniversary of the last meaningful post I wrote about the struggle to find peace and happiness with Bipolar Disorder for a friend who was gone too soon. That event just happened to coincide with several other events at the time, which felt like getting my teeth kicked down my throat by Bipolar-depression.
Other friends went through some of their own hard times, lost a valuable friendship, website and social media presence came under attack by trolls, and work really picked up. I had a severe crisis of confidence and direction in what I was even doing with my mental health writing. Then, of course, you have the general state of the world and everything that’s going on with that.
You want to learn something interesting about creative endeavors? People always talk about how hard it is to deal with criticism, which I never really had much of a problem with. What I rarely hear anyone talk about is the damage of friendly advice and constructive criticism from people who like your work.
They approach as a friend, with a smile on their face, and they tell you, “I really love your work! It really did this for me, and I appreciate it. But I have to tell you, I think it would be much better if you did this instead…”
You can easily get pulled off course if your eyes aren’t fixed on your North Star. After all, they like your work, they’re giving you some constructive criticism, and you want to make your audience happy, right?
Well, no.
Because that audience member is not your audience. They are one person out of your audience. And then you sooner or later you start getting messages asking, “What happened with your writing? What happened with your work? It’s so different now…”
Because you took that advice and started to make something watered down that no longer felt like an authentic reflection of who you are or what you wanted to say. Feeling disconnected from your own art is a strange feeling. Looking at my own work and not seeing myself is troubling.
I apologize for not showing up to those of you that have been looking for me. I appreciate the considered messages and emails I received over the past couple of years. I’m still here, still kicking. I just kind of got lost for awhile there.
And I’m working on a new project now that I’ve put my eyes back on my own North Star. I hope to have more information on that to make public in the next couple of weeks.
I know the world is kind of a dumpster fire right now, so I hope this post finds you well. Personally, I really needed a reset. If you’re still subscribed or following along on social media, give me a yell. Let me know how you’re doing!
-Dennis
Author’s Note and Trigger Warning: The following post discusses Suicide and heavy subjects related to mental illness. Please make sure you’re in a comfortable mental space before continuing. This post was written with the assistance and approval of surviving family members. Names and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy and anonymity of those involved.
I met Brittney and her husband David in the spring of 2010. She was an assistant facilitator of a mood disorder support group that I decided to attend when I was just starting on my recovery path. I became friends with her and her husband, exchanging the periodic email and catching up every once awhile. A few months ago, I got a different kind of email from David, informing me that Brittney had completed suicide earlier this year. She was in her mid forties.
Brittney’s life wasn’t easy. She was born into an abusive family and eventually taken away by Children’s Services before she turned 10 years old. She never knew her father and her mother died of a heroin overdose before reaching her teens. Brittney was adopted and mostly raised by her grandparents who struggled to contain her rebellious, impulsive streak. Her grandmother describes her as too smart and sarcastic for her own good, even at a young age.
At about 19 years old, she was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and promptly rejected her diagnosis. She refused therapy, medication, or to acknowledge that it could be a possibility. It wasn’t until her late 20s that she finally acknowledged her diagnosis after a psychotic episode hospitalized her. By then, she was also self-medicating, struggling with a heroin addiction and alcoholism. Brittney went through rehab multiple times before she started to really embrace trying to understand herself, her mental illness, and how it had affected her life to that point.
It took a couple years but she eventually found a combination of medications that worked for her. She started attending therapy to sort through her emotional baggage. With her new-found stability, she rekindled her on again, off again relationship with her high school sweetheart David and went to college. She completed undergrad, and then went off to grad school where she earned a Master’s in Business Administration, a goal she never thought she would attain. Though she didn’t particularly love her job in middle management, she was generally happy with her life and proud of what she had accomplished.
About a year ago, she started getting interested in the multi-level marketing companies that her girlfriends were getting involved in, particularly essential oils. David related that she hated feeling enslaved to psych medications to be functional and normal. She spent a lot of time reading and relaying information about essential oils and the evils of Big Pharma, particularly the toxins that she was afraid of going into her body because of her psych medication.
Brittney clashed with her family over her desire to quit her medication, all the while being encouraged to quit her meds and detox by the natural living and “Wellness Advocates” she had surrounded herself with. She eventually accused her family of being abusive and controlling, not wanting her “to be happy and live her best life.” Her words, according to her grandmother.
As far as David can tell, that’s about the same time she quit all of her medication and refused to see her doctor or therapist anymore. She insisted they were bought and paid for by Big Pharma.
David relates that she went from relatively stable to paranoid, chaotic, and violent within just a few weeks. She quit her job, maxed out her credit cards, and spent their savings on joining and buying thousands of dollars of product from two different multi-level marketing companies.
She was hospitalized not long after, where she would be in-patient for several weeks. Eventually, she was deemed stable enough to be discharged and went home to her family.
Brittney completed suicide not even a week later. She was found by her eight year old daughter.
Ladies and gentlemen – every single day you are influenced, lied to, and manipulated by advertisers and people pushing an agenda. The various entities that embody a “wellness industry” that sits outside of regulation and certification is no different. It is absolutely true that essential oils can have reasonable uses for a number of minor maladies or problems. However, it is also absolutely true that companies and advertisers use words as weapons to manipulate those who don’t know any better into thinking their products will deliver some holy grail results that the medical industry just can’t or won’t.
Detoxification is a widely exploited myth. Your body naturally detoxifies itself on a 24/7 basis. And for those of us that are taking serious psych meds, we are generally getting regular bloodwork and testing done to ensure that they are not shutting down organs or reaching toxic levels.
Detox is wielded as an ambiguous buzzword that does not have a concrete, consistent definition from “wellness company” to “wellness company.” In the actual practice of medicine, a medical detox is weaning someone off of a controlled substance like alcohol or heroin, where withdrawal can harm or kill the person.
“But I’ve detoxed before and it really made me feel so much better! I really believe in it!” Great. Believe whatever you want to believe, but you still never tell anyone else to quit taking their medication. That’s not for you to do.
“But Big Pharma is evil! They only care about money!” This is a more difficult and nuanced perspective. I’ve met way too many professionals that do not understand the fear and mistrust that exists on the consumer side – fear and mistrust that drives decisions like Brittney’s. I don’t implicitly trust the mental health industry either. Like anything involving humanity, there’s going to be some shadiness to it somewhere. That’s just how it is, but that’s no reason to throw it all away either. If you throw away everything shady that humanity touches, there would be nothing left.
“Why don’t people trust science? Why don’t people trust doctors?” Because those industries do a piss-poor job of conveying the complexity and difficulty of it all, though I’m not confident that people would actually listen if they did focus more on public relations.
Hell, look at the prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes, which could be curbed if we just stopped shoveling garbage and sugar into our mouths on a constant basis, but we don’t even bother to do that for the most part. And no judgment, I’m just as guilty of eating a garbage diet for most of my life.
Be that as it may, you still have advertisers and executives pushing their agendas to sell more drugs and increase their profits. And we shouldn’t forget the illustrious insurance companies who don’t even seem to view us as people at times.
“But you should trust your doctor!” Yeah, we should. We should be able to trust our doctors. Doctors that told us tobacco wasn’t harmful, that handed out opioids and psych meds like candy. And of course, the humane and compassionate way the mentally ill have been treated throughout the years. I’d like to be able to trust my doctor wholly and completely, but I don’t, because they are fallible human beings.
Do you know who I trust even less than that? People who offer something for nothing.
“Essential oils can help lift your moods and may help with anxiety and depression! No side effects!” The problem with that statement is that it is disingenuous. Different people read words like mood disorder, anxiety, and depression in different ways. And mentally ill people tend to forget that words like bipolar, anxiety, and depression have other definitions that do not have to be referring to an actual diagnosed disorder. Anxiety can mean general fear and discomfort. Depression can mean general negativity and being down. They don’t necessarily mean mental illness – but that’s not how mentally ill people hear those words.
And the dishonest essential oil companies, the one peddling their wares as cure-alls with minimal side effects, exploit that perception by writing their marketing and recruiting materials in such a way that allows you to come to that conclusion on your own without needing to assert it, standing in a nebulous gray area that’s going to take new legislation to fix. But even then, it’ll barely matter. They’ll do the same thing they did when pyramid schemes were made illegal. They’ll hire a team of lawyers to interpret the new legislation, restructure, and rewrite their materials to skirt the law and take advantage of the unaware.
“But essential oils really helped me!” Great. You still do not tell other people to quit taking their psych meds. That’s not for you to do.
And if you do want to incorporate some natural methods into your mental health management, you need to discuss it with your prescribing doctor. Double-checking with your pharmacist to make sure there won’t be any conflicts is also a good idea. “Natural” and “pure” are common advertising buzzwords that sound good but essentially mean nothing. Cyanide is natural and pure.
A pharmacist is the person who will be most knowledgeable on those interactions. Their knowledge is much deeper than counting pills and putting them in a bottle for you.
And finally, if you are a person who either sells or is interested in selling “wellness products”, essential oils, or other “natural remedies” – this isn’t a fucking game. People suffer and die.
People like Brittney, who spent over a decade well and sober, who died alone by her own hand. People like her daughter, who goes to therapy every week to deal with the PTSD from finding her mother. People like her other children, who now get to grow up without their mother. People like her husband, who is now raising their kids alone and misses her every day. People like her grandmother, who have been with her from the beginning, who struggled and sacrificed to try and help her when she wasn’t ready to help herself. People like her friends who will mourn her. And the people that she touched and helped on their own paths who will mourn her.
And for what? Not thinking past a few lousy dollars because some dick in a suit with a bright smile sells people on the idea that they are improving health, offering hope and wellness in lieu of the big bad Big Pharma and “evil” medical industry.
Essential oils may be able to temporarily improve your mood, but they are no substitute for psych medication. They will not control or cure any mood disorder or mental illness. They cannot and should not be used to treat any mental illness or mood disorder, despite what their marketing materials insinuate and “Wellness Advocates” may claim. Always take your medication as directed. If you want to quit or change it, talk to your prescribing professional first.
And always remember, if you have Bipolar Disorder and you are doing well on medication, it’s because of the medication! Don’t stop taking it. Bipolar Disorder is for life. The reality that we need to accept is that medication is the difference between life and death for a lot of us. That’s just the way it is and the reality we have to accept.
Rest in peace, Brittney.
You can also find me on Facebook or Twitter.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/YourBipolarFriend
Twitter: www.twitter.com/BipolarFriend22
Is there hope?
It’s a question that’s come up numerous times since I started on this journey, although the question is rarely that literal. I find it’s what many people who are lost, suffering, or confused are looking for. They’re looking for some tangible anchor to tether onto, some sign that whatever they are going through will end, and that they will come out better on the other side of whatever challenge they are facing.
I have a difficult, strained relationship with hope. You see, I never really experienced the emotional load that comes with hope until I was 29 years old, sitting in a Licensed Clinical Social Worker’s office, being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. I experienced hope because this person could see something in me that I could not. Diagnosis gave a name to what had been plaguing me since I was a teenager. I remember thinking maybe this is the reason I couldn’t hold job consistently, kept blowing up relationships, kept having such strange thoughts and feelings. If my problem had a name, then I could understand it and find a way to overcome it.
I distinctly remember the feeling because it was so foreign. I had never felt hope before. I had never really experienced the shift in mentality and warmth that hope provided. But you know what I had experienced by then?
Hopelessness. So much hopelessness. I never looked forward to my future. I always assumed I would end up killing myself by 30 at the latest. I had lost two people I cared about, one to homicide and one to overdose, and witnessed the fallout from a relatively close point of view. I had experienced living in poverty. There’s a thing about poverty that I feel like is never communicated well in the depictions I see of it – the weight of hopelessness.
I distinctly remember how heavy everything felt, like each and every person that understood how screwed they were were like Atlas, bearing the weight of the sky on their shoulders. I’ve never been able to see or feel that heaviness in media depictions of poverty, whether it’s on your nightly news or some fictional story.
And I think it’s those experiences, combined with my own Major Depression and Bipolar Disorder, that makes me hate false, superficial hope so intensely.
“Hate, Dennis? That’s a strong word. Are you sure you mean hate?”
Fuck yes! It took me years to unwind the visceral, gut reaction of anger that resulted from bromides like, “It’ll get better!”, “You just have to have faith!”, and “People care about you!” Because none of those things that I perceived to be superficial bullshit ever made me feel as though as it were true. None of those things really eased the crushing weight I felt on my own shoulders. It all sounded like so much pandering nonsense.
But, after entering the advocacy or activist space, whatever you want to call it, I came to realize that this perspective was off and I was judging the people who made these statements far too harshly. You see, when I really started taking my blogging and work seriously, I quietly promised myself that I would not rely on superficial or false hope. I would make every effort to find sources of real, tangible, actionable hope to offer.
I was nowhere near close to understanding how fucking difficult that would turn out to be. Not only do you have the anger, fear, and alienation of many mentally ill people towards the mental health industry and society to contend with, a lot of it filled with misinformation and manipulation, there’s also the near infinite number of perspectives in people who are receptive, some fueled by mental illness, others fueled by what people believe and how they’ve experienced their lives. Each and every person is their own individual jigsaw puzzle composed of a billion small pieces, all of them sky blue with no corners to start from. (Yeah, that’s right. I used a jigsaw puzzle analogy. …do people still do jigsaw puzzles? Hm. Anyway…)
I do not believe that hope is as strong or powerful as it is portrayed to be. My perspective on this shifted drastically after getting to know other activists with different perspectives and forming not quite personal, not quite professional friendships with mental health professionals and social workers involved in things like outreach.
I think hope is more like a match – you can strike it (inspiration) and it will create a light (hope), but the factors that contribute to hopelessness will, sooner or later, swallow the flame if it is not used to ignite a greater fuel source (a course of action that provides confidence through tangible progress).
I came to realize that a lot of people who are offering those words that made me feel so alienated weren’t doing it because they didn’t understand, it was because they do understand. They understand how difficult it is to not only strike the match, but get the actual fuel burning. From the start, in every conversation I’ve had with people, every support activity I’ve participated in, I look constantly for the tethers that the people I’m talking with can hold onto that will set their fuel ablaze.
But, sometimes, I just can’t see it. Sometimes all I can see is that person is going to need to have patience while things play out or come together. That is a difficult message to deliver to someone in a way that won’t send them crashing into the abyss or destabilizing.
Hope, like inspiration, is not something that will carry a person for a long time. And the process of confronting one’s problems and working to overcome them is not a fast process. It can take years. Personally, I feel like I’m more on a lifelong journey than anything else. Because every time I feel like I fix one thing and learn as much as I can about that, I see something else I can improve that will help bolster my overall wellness and well-being. I don’t know if it’s a process that will ever end for me. Maybe it will? I don’t know.
I’m writing this blog post because after a few recent series of conversations with different people, they all asked the exact same question – is there hope? And that’s a question that I can’t always answer. I have to say that in most situations I’ve been able to find reasonable, tangible anchors for people to hold onto. But sometimes I can’t. Sometimes it’s because I don’t know enough about the person to identify something tangible, other times it’s because I know the person is just trying to manipulate me by providing a fatalistic perspective that they are painting as hopeless to garner sympathy, and other times it’s because there is no other answer than needing to have patience while a situation runs its course.
Furthermore, the perspectives that a lot of people have about hope are just not rooted in reality, as mine weren’t at the start of my own journey. The perception, that came from somewhere and is often repeated, is that we mentally ill people can recover and live a life just like anybody else! Well, that’s sort of true. There are some people who reach that level of recovery. On the other hand, there are a lot more people that don’t – and it’s not that they don’t recover.
What I find to be more common is that through a lot of personal work, therapy, and meds, many recovered mentally ill people get their symptoms under control which allows them to conduct their life – but they still have to make allowances for dealing with their mental illnesses or traumas. We don’t necessarily live our lives like people who do not have this additional weight to carry, and that’s okay. It doesn’t mean that your life can’t be good, productive, or happy. It’s just different. It’s not what is advertised.
I don’t think I necessarily make a good example for mental health recovery because of another super common question I get – are you a happy person? That’s also a difficult question. And it’s difficult because “happy” is an emotion, and emotions come and go. My default state is not happy, so technically, no, I’m not really a happy person.
I’m more of a melancholy person who is able to experience happiness, which is a drastic improvement from the morbidly depressed and unstable person I was for a long time. I tend to think of myself as more of a peaceful person, that is, being largely at peace with who I am and my life thus far. I don’t think anyone would look at me and think, “That is a happy person.” I’m usually mired in my own thoughts and have whatever the male equivalent of resting bitch face is. Resting dick face? Mmm, no.
I would also consider myself an optimist though – because I do have hope for a lot of you and your loved ones – even if I can’t see it myself and still don’t feel right saying the words that contributed to making me feel so isolated and alone for such a long time, even if I have to sometimes say, “I don’t know.” If I didn’t, I would have gave this up a long time ago.
And, an additional note to the other content creators who read my work or who have some interest in trying to spur people to action – it works much better if you tie your message to a tangible action. The most common one I use is, “Have you talked to your doctor/counselor about this? That’s really something you need to explore with a certified professional.” It provides a safe course of action and a tangible anchor for people to tether to. I find a lot of people sit on the fence on whether they should or shouldn’t and often do need an affirmation that it’s the right course of action. Of course, that gets more complicated if the person has had bad experiences with the mental health industry, but that’s kind of outside of the scope of this post.
Ladies and gentlemen. A couple of months ago, I posted a general update sort of announcing that I am still here and around. In it, I pointed out how aimless I felt, how disconnected I felt from my original goals and intentions with why I launched my website. In that post, I shared several random, indirect, unclear thoughts about my effort and direction. Aimless is a word I used.
That wasn’t quite the correct word. I think overwhelmed is a better word. Why overwhelmed? Well, I spent a significant chunk of my life quite aimlessly drifting through Bipolar-depression on a regular basis. There was never really anything I could see for myself in my future. As I’ve traversed on my journey, I came to realize I had a lot of ground to cover before I could see what was ahead of me.
This journey for me started a long time ago. It started in a suicide attempt when I was 15 years old, and the absolutely feeling of isolation and loneliness in that moment. It continued as I gained more experiences, stumbled along dark paths, and eventually found myself sitting opposite a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, spilling my darkest, most frightening moments to make sense of them. And like so many other people, I turned to the internet for more information and quickly realized what a toxic shithole it is for finding quality, actionable information for recovery.
I never believed those superficial messages of hope and “everything will be alright” that so many people pump out. My life experience, Bipolar Disorder, and my depression wouldn’t allow for that – as it doesn’t for many other people who share that perspective. My website and blog initially started as a loose idea to simply give people a place to start building their own knowledge. It quite rapidly evolved as people started asking questions, and I started hunting for factual, truthful answers to get them pointed in the right direction of where they could find the help or information that they needed.
I found that the skills I was developing as I was learning marketing also began to translate well into convincing people to talk to mental health professionals, or helping friends and loved ones of mentally ill people gain a bit more perspective. I found that my lived experience carried a lot of weight with people, and that I had to make sure I never overstepped my boundaries and stayed in my lane. But, then I couldn’t figure out what my lane is. Whose lane is it to try to get someone to realize they need professional help? Whose lane is it to try to get other people to realize just how serious and severe Bipolar Disorder is? Whose lane is it to try to help people navigate the massive gray area that separates the undiagnosed from the well and recovered?
A long time supporter and friend has asked me over and over to really clarify what it is that I do. And try as I might, I have never been able to concisely nail it down because it seems like everyone needs something a little different. Some people just need a friendly face and some understanding, others need to be heard, others are overwhelmed and need pointed in a direction where they can get quality help, others needed to be talked into contacting a crisis service or to consider going inpatient, and others just needed a fragment of hope that they could overcome their problems. Some people need picked up gently, while others need walls broken down with a wrecking ball.
At the core of it all, I think that the only way I can really describe it is that I’ve simply tried to be the friend that a lot of people don’t have. We mentally ill turn to our families and friends, but they usually don’t understand us. Our friends and family turn to their family and friends, and they usually don’t understand either. They view us as too bothersome or not worth the effort because they don’t have the kind of emotional investment in the situation as the people who love us do.
There is a lot of loneliness and isolation, even when you’re surrounded by people. And it doesn’t matter if you’re mentally ill, a supporter, or a loved one; because we’re all severely impacted, though in different ways. And that is a theme I have seen over and over and over and over again.
The goal I am setting my sights on is creating and developing a solution to that issue. You see, if you spend much time going through the plethora of information and groups that exist on the internet, you’ll note that a hell of a lot of them are not healthy places to be. A lot of the information and services out there focus on the extremes because those are what’s most destructive. And because funding is always tight in mental health services, it gravitates towards the lowest common denominator to try to catch the people that are in crisis.
But we need more than that. Less people would fall to crisis levels if they had meaningful support and a safe place to seek ideas and perspectives BEFORE things reached a catastrophic level. Furthermore, how many relationships, families, and friendships could be preserved if there was an easily accessible, safe pillar of support people KNEW they could trust to turn to? Whether mentally ill, family member, or supporter?
The options that we currently have available are generally bad. Free communities and social media groups ran by people who don’t understand the toxicity of the internet and enforce standards are detrimental to recovery and well-being. Hell, look at any depression social media page and watch everyone feed the depression of one another under the guise of commiserating. Crabs in a bucket, constantly pulling one another back in as they try to escape.
I want to build something better than that; and it’s going to take more knowledge and experience than I have to bring such an endeavor to life. It’s a simple premise that won’t be easy. I want to make peer and familial support easily accessible via your smartphone. I firmly believe that, if marketed correctly, this is a service that people would be willing to pay for if a high-quality, well-managed environment was guaranteed. Would you? Knowing that you could easily access a community of like-minded individuals pushing towards successful resolution, recovery, well-being, and a happy life? Knowing that your money was helping to empower and arm other mentally ill people and their families to recover?
This is going to be a long journey, probably a few years at least – and I want to share with you the first step on that journey.
Phase 1: About a Podcast
I have kicked around the idea with you all about a podcast several times, but there were many hang ups in my mind about it. And it all hinged on a phrase I’ve heard over and over from people, “I wish I could have you talk to my loved one.” Well, that would be impossible. What I can do is develop a serial, presentation style podcast that will essentially let any one of you go, “Hey, you should listen to this.”
The core of this podcast is going to follow the same principles I’ve used from the start, inspire hope through providing actionable information and insight. I’ve decided to organize it almost like an e-book, each season representing a chapter. The first chapter will be on “Perceptions,” that is, the numerous incorrect perceptions that I run into on a regular basis when trying to inform, convince people to seek the help they need, and avoid the many pitfalls that are on the wellness path.
Chapter 1 is going to be me laying foundation from my perceptions and experiences. I have it largely already outlined and planned out. The ideas I have for AFTER Chapter 1 are a bit different. Each Chapter will have a theme, and I will be sending out an email blast to my mailing list subscribers for their thoughts and ideas on what to include in those chapters; largely so I don’t overlook or forget anything.
In doing so, I hope to construct a podcast that will help a listener see that they can recover, facilitate understanding, and shift the listener to a mentality of active struggle for recovery and wellness. This is something that’s going to be a major undertaking, and it’s something I’m nervous about – which is a good thing. If I wasn’t, I’d be worried I was escalated.
The last time I brought this up, I had a couple of my international audience members ask me if it would be available in their respective countries. I’m planning on launching a companion website that will make episodes playable through the actual website in addition to traditional podcast avenues, so in theory, it shouldn’t be blocked because that will be a way to listen outside of iTunes or Play, which are more tightly managed.
Anyway, before I formally launch, I will most likely test the first few episodes with my mailing list subscribers for feedback. If you are not receiving updates from me in your email, you can sign up for my mailing list here!
And, as always, if you have any thoughts, questions, comments, or feedback feel free to share.
Been a couple months. Eh, folks? This past year has not been great or consistent for me on the creation front. I started my website and blog back in 2010. I’ve written a lot, I’ve created a lot, and I’ve talked to many of you on numerous occasions. At some point, I’ve come to feel like I have nothing new to add, not much that I haven’t already said before.
And then there is the matter of my audience, you folks. My original intention of starting on this path was to help other people with Bipolar Disorder find their way on their own wellness path. That goal was quickly overwhelmed by the friends and family of people with Bipolar Disorder reaching out to me, trying to make sense of what their loved ones were going through. The problem there is those are entirely different demographics.
Delivering effective messages to a group boils down to understanding that audience well enough to strike emotional chords that will resonate. I almost feel like it would have been better to split off with a different venture. But splitting is rarely a good thing for an audience or presence in general.
Where am I now? Aimless, mostly. I used to feel like I had a clear and distinct path. Now that I’ve walked that path for awhile, I feel more like I’m staring at a snowy field where I know the path is there, but it’s impossible to see.
Not too long ago I had a conversation with a friend who has followed my work for awhile now. And he suggested the importance of building relationships and alliances with other people instead of trying to stand alone. I’ve never really avoided building relationships or alliances. The problem I’ve always had is – what do you do with them if you have no meaningful ideas to move forward?
I’m not exactly the most sociable person as it is, which may or may not be apparent from my writing, and it seems like most group endeavors I’ve tried to be apart of have been more about keeping their own morale up than anything else.
That’s probably not a bad thing, but it’s just not something my brain needs. It’s more exhausting than anything.
My original strategy and goals landed in an entirely different place than expected. But, I think that was also because I wasn’t experienced with what I was stepping into. At first it was trying to help other people with Bipolar Disorder find good information. And then there was the realization of how few people with Bipolar Disorder, diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder by a professional, actually understood how severe and intrusive of a mental illness it is and just don’t take it as seriously as they should.
So, I don’t know.
Anyway, I mostly just wanted to post an update to let you know I’m still here and around, just aimless and feeling like I don’t have anything worthwhile to say that I haven’t already said before. I really don’t want to go the route of a lot of content creators and start producing junk content just to fill the void.
Realistically, I should probably just pick a random direction and go rather than losing more time.
Ah well. Thank you for being here.
On July 20th, 2017, Chester Bennington died by suicide. I was never much of a fan of Linkin Park. They had a couple of okay songs and, a long time ago, I owned one of their CD’s (that’s a Compact Disc for you youngin’s). I didn’t even know his name before the headline started crashing across social media. Even still, it hurts to see another person lose their war. You know that there will be pain and suffering left behind in the people that he loved and that loved him. And, as a mentally ill person, you wonder if that will be your end as well. You may not want it to be, but you can’t really know how the culmination of your past with the grinding of the present and future will wear you down. It’s a stark reminder of a reality that many of us live with twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Every time there is a high profile suicide social media is overran with grief and anger. People are constantly sharing articles about warning signs, retweeting crisis services, and posturing about how much they care and claim to want to help. As you may have guessed by my tone, I have a problem with this.
My problem is that I feel it may prevent at-risk people from getting meaningful help that they need while instilling a false confidence in the general public of how much they can legitimately help a person who is in crisis. I want to call specific attention to the words “in crisis,” because there are plenty of people who may be in a dark space that just need someone to be present with them for a little while.
I am not talking about that. I am specifically talking about people who are at or near their limit.
About Target Audiences and Demographics
As a writer and a marketer, understanding one’s target audience is of the utmost importance when constructing a Call to Action (CtA) or message. The method you choose in trying to gain a conversion is often more important than the message. A conversion can be anything from convincing another person to accept a new idea, buy a product or service, sign up for a newsletter, or take some kind of action. A CtA is the content or statement that you are using to try to get the viewer to take an action.
Let’s deconstruct a common Call to Action. “Talk to someone if you are having a hard time.”
Who is the target audience of this CtA? It’s people that are struggling, unstable, depressed, possibly suicidal, and emotionally compromised – people that may not be in the best mental space for making sound decisions. Still, it’s an audience that needs to be reached.
What action are we trying to convince this audience to take? We want them to get the help and support that they need to get through whatever it is they may be dealing with. We want them to communicate. Again, nothing wrong with that. That is a valuable message.
My problem with this statement comes from “talk to” and “someone.” They are not the right words.
On “Talk to…”
All my life I’ve been told to talk about my problems, I’d feel better. I know I’m not the only one. That works well for people who are not mentally ill because they do not have traumatic experiences or physiological processes impeding the way their mind should function.
On the other hand, I have Bipolar Disorder and Major Depression. Talking about my problems never did much for me because talking about those problems did not change the physiological processes and physical problems associated with my mental illnesses. I stopped talking about my problems because talking about them just made them more complicated to deal with. In regards to friends and relationships, now I have to deal with what’s going on in my mind on top of trying to make you feel like you actually helped so you won’t feel bad, so I won’t feel bad for making you feel bad and like you couldn’t help me. What I really needed was medication to control the physiological processes and therapy to fix the way I perceived and interpreted the world through my mental illness.
You have social attitudes about talking about your problems to cut through. The way I combat this perception is to frame that kind of statement in a way that is solution oriented. I don’t want a person to just talk about their problem, I want them to talk to a certified professional that can help them find a way to manage or solve that problem.
The statement “talk to” is too indirect, intangible. An important piece of an effective CtA is an action that spells out a direct reaction. Why? Because people will not figure it out on their own. They just don’t. You have to lead people directly from Point A to Point B. You can look at about any commercial or advertisement that is asking you to do something for confirmation. “Sign up for this newsletter and receive a free XYZ!” You must tell people exactly what you want from them and why or the chance of them taking action drops straight off.
Talk is technically a correct word, but it’s not a good choice because of the stigma and emotion people associate with it. Hell, “talk therapy” doesn’t necessarily indicate just talking about one’s problems. I found talk therapy to be incredibly helpful in learning to understand myself and my mental illness. What I did not do was talk just to talk or be heard. I talked because I had a specific goal in mind of understanding what was going on in my head and how to manage it. Talking about my problems? Useless. Talking about my problems to find a solution for them? That provides a course of action not influenced by my personal feelings or perceptions.
Why does this matter? Because of the word “someone”.
On “Someone…”
Who exactly is “someone?” Now, you may be sitting there thinking, “Oh! A doctor! A crisis counselor! A therapist!” Fair and valid. What about a person who is suicidal or going through something horrible? Who are they are going to reach out to? Is their first thought going to be seeking professional help? Doubtful. They are more likely to reach out to people that they believe love them, care about them, or that they care about. That is a major problem.
It’s a problem because of mental health stigma and how many people are in dysfunctional families and relationships. I started on my advocacy path in 2010. I cannot tell you how many fucking times I’ve heard variations of, “I tried talking to my mom, but she didn’t think it was a big deal.” “I tried talking to my husband, but he doesn’t care.” “I tried talking to my sister, but all she said was, ‘This, again?’” “I tried talking to my best friend, but they were too busy and I didn’t want to bother them.” Over and over and over and over and over. And that’s not even touching on the number of abuse survivors who reached out for help in their worst times and were met with inaction.
Who is “someone?” Is someone the spouse that’s been gaslighting and tormenting them? Is someone a parent that doesn’t believe in mental illness? Is someone a person they think is their friend, who doesn’t actually give a damn about them? Is someone a member of a dysfunctional family? Is someone a person who has ground down that at-risk person’s mental and emotional health to control and manipulate them?
Or maybe someone is a person who cares, is a kind and loving soul, is gentle, considerate and warm. Someone who donates to charity and would offer you the shirt off their back. And maybe that someone, with all their warm thoughts and good intentions, doesn’t have an iota of knowledge or experience in being that close to something so delicate. Perhaps that someone believes that the fact they care is good enough to patch up the wounds of a difficult or traumatic life. It’s not. Caring isn’t good enough.
Many wounds just don’t heal all of the way. Look at Chester – sexually abused as a child, recovering from addiction, and long-term mental health challenges. For a lot of people, those scars do not fully heal. They can be brought under control, they can be managed, they can be worked on, but they still linger to some degree and need to be managed in the long-term. And to manage them in the long-term, mentally ill people need more than just people caring. They and their families need support, they need the clinical knowledge that professionals can provide, they need affordable and accessible services.
Crisis services are well, good, and important; but what about the rest of life? What about the times when we’re not in crisis but starting to slide? What is the long-term solution to that? I watched many people beat the drum on Chester’s “cries for help.” I don’t know how many of those people realize that he did reach out for help and support when he needed it from his friends and bandmates. But, after awhile, you just don’t want to anymore.
In Conclusion…
The posturing that happens every time there is a high profile suicide feels so phony. It’s bothersome how oblivious society is about the everyday struggle of dealing with and surviving long-term mental illness. And I dislike the phrase, “Talk to someone if you are having a hard time.” I feel that this statement puts at-risk people in a position to either be harmed or dissuaded from pursuing professional help more often than not.
I do not believe that encouraging suicidal or severely mentally ill people to talk to just anyone about their problems is a good idea. By all means, be supportive, try to be understanding, thank them for opening up…but encourage them to talk to someone who is trained to meaningfully help them. Yes, support from friends and family is important. As a supporter, there is definitely a line where help from a qualified, certified mental health professional is necessary.
It’s a tricky thing because people need different things. There are plenty of us out there who do see and talk to our medical professionals, who still do sometimes just need someone to be present with us in a difficult moment. On the other hand, a lot of the messages being pumped out after high profile suicides are related to suicidal people.
It all just depends on the person and the specific situation; which isn’t a good combination with the general, generic nature of social media posturing.
In 2010, I started talking about my mental illness and path in life with other people. I have conversed with many people struggling with a number of different problems. I’ve spoken with several friends, family, and loved ones of mentally ill people who want to be compassionate and understanding to our challenges. The people who do well at it with least amount of emotional turmoil because of it share one important ingredient. Self-love.
The idea of selflessness is one that is heavily promoted and romanticized in our society because it is a beautiful ideal. You can look at anything from religious figures and icons, to movies featuring heroes and heroines willing to lay their life on the line for the cause, to questionable hero worship of people. Everyone who deigns to undertake some action of sacrifice is doing so for some reason in their own mind and soul.
“I felt like it was the right thing to do.” “I felt it was my duty.” “I’m doing this because I want to make a difference in the world.” “This is my calling…” “I believe in my heart…” All of these things have to do with the emotions and beliefs of the person expressing them. All of them. And I have crossed paths with so many people who think that by emotionally martyring themselves, they can somehow save another person. It doesn’t work that way. You can only assist someone in saving themselves.
I don’t believe that the romanticized version of selflessness that so many people seem to think is a good solution actually exists. And that’s why self-love is so important. Self-love allows you to see a situation more clearly. It helps you set boundaries that will keep you well and healthy. It helps you know when it is time to walk away from a situation, no matter how much you want to help. Self-love can also help you recognize relationships and friendships that you should not be in.
“I don’t care! I care about X more than myself!”
And that’s a problem. You just can’t do that and expect to come out of it unscathed. That’s not a mentality that will bear a healthy relationship with respected boundaries. Furthermore, someone that genuinely loved and cared about you wouldn’t want you destroying yourself for them. That all gets into much trickier territory when you’re talking about parental love or mental unwellness that is so severe that it’s really twisted the person’s perspective inside out.
Even in those situations, there does a come a time when one has to say enough is enough to ensure they can survive the situation intact. Love is not an infinite resource for many people. It’s something that has to be fed and nurtured to keep it healthy and strong. And that’s something that you need to do with yourself, just as much with the people you care about.
Parental love is different. I’ve met several parents who would sacrifice anything and everything to help their child – and quite a few that have. That includes wealth, property, and their own physical and mental health. But, again, you can’t save someone from themselves. Burning your own life and health to the ground will not help an adult child who refuses to help themselves.
And if you can’t see that for yourself or feel that your well-being is just as important as the object of your affection – that is something you should speak to a certified mental health counselor about. It may point to something in your own mind that needs to be sorted out so you can find more peace and happiness with yourself in addition to weathering whatever storm you are facing in your life.
Are you a kind, compassionate person? Are you the type of person who looks for and sees the best in everyone? Do you believe that many people can heal or recover from their mental illness? Believe it or not – I do. But, that’s not the most important question. The real question is – will they be able to recover?
That is an entirely different question altogether. Quite a few people I cross paths with want to hear a story of hope. It’s clear from the questions they ask and the statements they make. They are less than impressed when I tell them the truth; that my recovery was largely fueled by fear of my own mind, being stubborn, and anger.
People cling to hope because it’s positive and romantic. And yes, hope is an important thing because it can keep people moving through dark times. However, there comes a point where hope can be harmful because we invest so much emotional energy in how we want things to be as opposed to how they are. We spend too much of our time in the future instead of the present.
Do I believe that most people can recover and attain a higher quality of life? Yes. Do I believe that they will? That’s a more complicated question. And here are a list of reasons why…
1. The person has to want to change. My biggest system shock came with the realization of how few people want to change. They want something easy, a therapist or a pill to fix them. Recovery is like 98% personal work, 2% clinical assistance. That personal work includes reevaluating one’s emotions, how one conducts their life, how one interacts with others, learning management practices and actually implementing them, and so much more. Every person I know that has reached a high degree of recovery from Depression or Bipolar Disorder is a very different person from who they started off as. Why? Because the attitudes and emotions that these mental illnesses foster are often harmful and toxic. They must be changed.
2. The person needs adequate resources. Numerous people just don’t have access to the resources they need or reject the ones they have access to. Medication and doctor appointments can be expensive. And yes, I know, “Some have sliding scales!” Which means little when you have next to nothing and are barely able to keep your head above water. I’ve watched people absolutely refuse to request help from charities or other resources when they would have qualified because of their own pride. I was one of these people, too.
3. The person needs to be okay with changing. This is different than the first point because a person may decide they want to change, but not like how they change. I find this to be especially true in Bipolar people who trend towards the escalated side of the Disorder that is pronounced, but not necessarily destructive. But even a destructive mania can feel absolutely wonderful to the person experiencing it. And I’ve met several people who view it as their edge in their art, career, or social life. Real emotions are so quiet compared to what a Bipolar person experiences in escalation. Some people don’t want to give that up. On the other side of that coin are the people who are content to be miserable and depressed. Life is just horrible and they feel more comfortable being a victim to it all.
4. The person can make bad decisions. Many people are a bad decision or two away from serious repercussions. “I feel great! I don’t really need this med.” “I’m going to skip this doctor’s appointment.” “One night of hard drinking or drugs isn’t going to kill me.” “I didn’t call in my prescription early enough and they are out of my med until next week!” “I’m not really mentally ill. Everyone else is the problem.” I can talk until I’m blue in the face on what to avoid, but people insist on learning the hard way time after time.
5. Even if the person makes all the right decisions, the pursuit of wellness can still go sideways. Medication can have negative reactions or unmanageable side effects. A person can be medication resistant, meaning their body just doesn’t react well at all or positively to medication. Trying to push through past damage and trauma with a therapist can make a person worse before they start getting better. Many mental illnesses can get worse with age, not better. Bipolar Disorder is one of them. And then you have dealing with the general stresses of life on top of everything else.
And none of that is including the people who like having their mental illness as an effective “Get Out of Responsibility” card. Abusers and manipulators regularly use hope and compassion against their victim. The victim carries the hope that a toxic person will recover, feel sorry for their actions, and everyone lives happily ever after. That rarely happens.
Even if we do everything right, things can still go completely wrong. And getting people to want to change is the hardest battle of all, because change is fucking difficult and scary.
I know that a lot of people are going to take this post as me being negative, but I’m not. This is the reality that I’ve come to know in trying to help other mentally ill people and their loved ones walk their own path. It’s still difficult, even in an optimal scenario. Hell, it’s not like my life is where I want it to be yet either. Self-improvement is a marathon, not a sprint. And I still get shit wrong, too. All you can do is the best you can, really.
Quite a few people reach out to me in the hopes of gaining some understanding of what their mentally ill loved one is going through. One of the most common strings of questions I receive goes something like this: “Where do I draw the line? How will I know when enough is enough? Where does compassion end and accountability start for destructive behavior?”
There is a simple answer. The line is drawn wherever you want to draw it. That’s as complicated as it needs to be. No one but you can decide what you are willing to deal with. No one but you can decide where your compassion needs to end. You are the only one that can make that decision for yourself, based on your personal circumstances. And if you’re confused and unsure? Get off the internet and talk to a certified mental health counselor about the situation.
There are no internet articles that are going to be able to replace that important knowledge and neutral, third party perspective.
And it would be lovely if the more vocal, compassionate people of the world would stop pushing the romanticized narrative that martyring oneself is a good and noble choice. It’s not. It’s short-sighted and destructive. The stains, wounds, and scars of staying in an abusive situation, regardless of the cause, do not just disappear after. They may linger and continue to be destructive even decades later.
Then you have the generic, blanket advice to clearly state one’s boundary and enforce it. Okay. And if the other person is a skilled manipulator who can gauge how to coast just below that boundary to be destructive, but without overstepping? What about people who have been in emotionally abusive relationships that have been conditioned by an abusive partner to bend their boundaries?
Blanket statements can cause a person to give up far too much information to someone who may be adept at wielding that information as a weapon to harm. Anyone who’s been in an abusive relationship knows that honesty is an impossibility in that kind of situation. That person knows that what they say or do can, will, and often be used against them.
Always be wary of who you discuss the issue of boundaries with and treat their words with skepticism. They are not you. It is so easy for someone sitting outside of the situation to tell you to keep going through hell because they believe it’s the compassionate or right thing to do, when they aren’t the one suffering. That’s not their decision to make for you.
And in my personal experience, having listened to the survivors of these situations for years now, women tend to get the worst end of that. For men, it’s typically, “She’s crazy. You should dump her.” For women, it’s typically, “You need to be more supportive and understanding. It’s your job to keep things together.” Which is total bullshit on so many levels.
Draw the line wherever you want. You are the only one that can decide what you are willing to suffer through. No one else is going to live your life 24/7. No one else is going to have to deal with the consequences of that choice. You are your own person. No one has the right to tell you how compassionate you should or shouldn’t be.
Anyone that would criticize you for choosing your own survival and well-being is not worth listening to.
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