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Is There Hope?

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.

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About “Talk to Someone” and Crisis

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.

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Can a Person Recover From Their Mental Illness?

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.

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Can Bipolar Disorder Be Controlled Naturally?

I’ve spent a great deal of time talking to people newly diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. Inevitably, they ask about controlling Bipolar Disorder through natural means. Can Bipolar Disorder be totally controlled through natural means? I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that it can. I think that the numerous natural practices out there supplement a person’s overall wellness and stability, at best.

I am not a mental health professional or a doctor. However, I am a guy who has talked to literally hundreds of mentally ill people and their families over the past five years. I’ve met people who have believed a great number of things ranging from diet being able to cure their mental illness to people who thought Jesus came to them and exorcised their demons to “Native American secrets they don’t want you to know!” I’ve listened to a hell of a lot of claims.

If Bipolar Disorder can be well-managed or cured through natural means, where are the people doing it? 

Quality of life is an important consideration, even with psych medication. Oh, so your medication knocks you out for sixteen hours a day? A person can’t live that way. Call your doctor and see what should be done about it.

And then you have the people touting a natural approach. “I do X, Y, and Z and I feel AMAZING!” Well, I got news for you. You feel amazing because you’re either borderline manic or high, I can tell by the way you’re ranting at me and exuding energy. It’s obvious to anyone familiar with mania and you probably missed it because you’re escalating.

Here’s a simple pro-tip: if you have Bipolar Disorder and you feel “amazing” for absolutely no reason, start going through your process to make sure your brain isn’t escalating into unwellness. People don’t typically feel amazing for no reason.

I am not telling you to take psychiatric medication. That is a decision only you can make with a qualified professional. What I am telling you is to not delude yourself into thinking that you’re out of the woods because you feel good for the moment. That may not mean a damned thing a week, six months, or a year from now. You should certainly be prepared for a major cycle to kick your teeth down your throat should you trigger.

The Mental Health System is the Most Effective Way to Achieve Wellness

I believe that our flawed mental health system is the most effective way to attain control over mental illness and achieve a greater quality of life. That’s what I’ve seen work for people over and over.

I’ve met several well-balanced people who have achieved years of stability and peace through means offered by the mental health system. On the other hand, I’ve met zero who achieve it through self-medication and substance abuse, prayer, Native American secrets, smoothies, or positive thinking.

There are no shortcuts to achieving mental wellness and stability. It is challenging and it is work. Anyone that says otherwise is either trying to sell you a product or doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. Meaningful change takes time and effort, in all things. Period.

And, if you are a person with Bipolar Disorder who has managed at least a year of stability with a decent quality of life through “natural” anything, I would love to hear from you.

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To the Parents Trying to Get Through to a Mentally Ill Child

I receive correspondence from people dealing with a wide variety of issues relating to mental illness. One of the more common themes include parents, usually mothers, who are trying to figure out a way to make their adult child realize they need help and work toward recovery. I’ve talked to parents who have developed severe depression and anxiety, who have claimed strokes and heart attacks from the stress, who have gone so far as to take out additional mortgages to try and fund rehab, and far more.

In many cases, these parents have gone to mental health groups or counselors of their own. They’ve been told about the need and importance for boundaries; but feel that they can’t do these things to their child because of potential repercussions like violence, homelessness, self-harm, or suicide. All are very real possibilities when it comes to Bipolar Disorder and other volatile mental illnesses. That’s why it is vital to have the input and support of a qualified, licensed mental health professional. Being that I am not, it is not my place to tell you what you should do in that kind of situation other than seek professional help. Instead, I want to address the internal struggle of those parents.

On Waging the War…

I look at my mental wellness and my efforts in trying to help other mentally ill people and their loved ones in the context of fighting a war. You need a loose strategy that can be adapted as you push towards your goals. You need to have and manage resources. In war that includes troops, morale, weaponry, and money to keep the machine going. In mental health it’s professionals, your own emotional and health, therapy, medications, and money.

In war, you deploy your resources in a way that will push you closer to a victory. You do not want to arbitrarily waste your resources on battles that will not bring you closer to victory. In war, your troops may have advanced on and taken a hill. Intelligence indicates that a massive counter-attack is coming. Do you hold the hill? Does it serve a strategic importance to keep your troops on that hill and commit additional resources like air support and artillery to ensuring they hold it? Or is it a better idea to withdraw and let the enemy retake it so you can conserve resources and keep your troops in fresh, fighting shape for future actions?

In mental health, the wise will pick their battles in a similar way. You commit your resources when they have the greatest ability to make an impact and serve a strategic purpose. The most common piece of advice I give to people is don’t bother arguing with a Bipolar person who is manic. It serves little purpose. On the off-chance you actually do get through to the person in that moment, their instability can wipe out any perceived gains that you’ve made. What’s more likely to happen is you end up throwing fuel on the fires of their unwellness, anger them more, drive them further into instability. Then you have the emotional energy that you’ve expended in the form of your own anger, sadness, and frustration with the lack of meaningful gain.

In trying to get through to a mentally ill loved one, you must conserve your resources because it can take years for a person to not only realize they need help, but foster the desire to change their situation. You cannot sacrifice your mental and physical health, career, money, and home for someone who is not ready to help themselves. If you do, then you may not have those resources available five or ten years down the road when they could have been employed to make a real difference.

I Can’t Do What Is Suggested to My Child…

No one in this world is going to love your child as much as you do. No one. No one is going to put up with as much shit, sacrifice, or care as much as you do. What happens when you are no longer there? Will they end up on the streets? Will they commit suicide? Will they jump into a terrible relationship to just not be alone or on the streets? Will they turn to drugs or alcohol to escape? Maybe they are already doing those things now; but the difference is you are alive and reading this right now. That means you have the potential to be there for them and crack through the distorted perception that mental illness creates.

The boundary setting suggestions that mental health professionals make serve different purposes. Not only do they help you retain your sanity and well-being, but they also contribute to a controlled descent based on choice, whether that was the intention or not. Enforcing these boundaries forces the person to acknowledge that they have choices that will have repercussions. That helps to contribute to a controlled fall where hopefully the person won’t have to hit rock bottom to realize they need to change.

This is not something you are doing TO your child; this is something you are doing FOR your child. In following the recommendations of your mental health professionals, you are fighting the war FOR your child, which will hopefully push them towards the realization that they need to fight, too. Nobody accidentally recovers from a serious mental illness like Bipolar Disorder. Recovery is a major victory in a long-term war that requires a great deal of fighting, effort, and work. It is not something that can be handed to another person.

Your child, or loved one, is the only one who can truly help themselves. Enabling that person to realize it and that they have the strength to overcome will be two of the hardest fought, bloodiest battles in the war. Thus, you need to pace yourself to make sure your own life and well-being doesn’t get destroyed in the process. If the situation is so bad that your professional is suggesting extreme measures, you can’t tell yourself you can’t do them. You may not have a choice if you want to win the battle.

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The Problem With Mental Health Professionals

There are a lot of people out there who have had terrible experiences with mental health professionals. Sometimes those experiences are valid, other times they are the result of the way we interact with them. But you want to know the real problem with mental health professionals?

They’re human beings; not so different than you or I.

We expect them to understand hundreds of mental illnesses and the way they affect each of us specifically. Mental illness is an incredibly personal experience. Though we are bound by threads of symptoms, they can manifest in very different ways from person to person.

Many of us walk into their offices, withhold important information, lie about what we’re experiencing, and then blame them when they can’t meaningfully help us. Too many of us walk into their offices and expect them to fix decades of mental illness in the course of a couple hours a month.

It’s easy to think that many professionals don’t give a shit because they are under tight time constraints to meet whatever quotas they have to meet standards imposed by other parties; be it a medical conglomerate, the government, or just keeping up with paying the bills. Thus, they can appear to be callous when harshly enforcing time limits or being rigid.

Nobody becomes a mental health professional to get rich. It’s one of the lowest paying, highest stress divisions of the medical industry. The people that do go into it are often there due to personal reasons, be it a mental illness of their own or having been affected by watching a loved one suffer. And I have talked to several who have reached out to me over the years who are dealing with their own mental illness while trying to help their patients.

Too many of us expect perfection out of our professionals because we are suffering. But they can’t give us perfection, because they’re human. And they certainly can’t read your mind if you choose to withhold information or misrepresent what you’re dealing with.

Do you want to know the secret to making meaningful progress with a mental health professional? Be a proactive participant in pursuing your wellness with as much honesty as you can.

What does it mean to be a proactive participant?

You need to work to understand your diagnosis and how it affects you SPECIFICALLY. Bipolar Disorder, and several other mental illnesses, can look very different from person to person. A lot of material that is produced is written from a perspective that may not necessarily reflect your personal experience. A counselor can be very helpful for working to better understand how your mental illness affects you.

Ask questions. Know why your professional is making the decisions that they are making. How is this medication supposed to help you? What is it supposed to do? How will I know if it is working or not? What side effects should I be looking for? How long should it take? A good professional will take the time to explain it to you; a bad one will just ask for blind trust or make you feel like you can’t understand.

There are a lot of good people in mental health care that want to help, but caring about people is a very difficult thing to do. The chaos and instability of mental illness, bad decisions, malicious and toxic people all take a very drastic, deep toll on caregivers.

That’s not even touching on the unethical or bad mental health professionals out there. They definitely do exist. Not everyone is good or even competent at their jobs.

Mental health professionals do not fix mentally ill people. They are there to help us fix ourselves. Mental health recovery is like 95% personal work and effort. No one can just hand wellness to you. It’s something you struggle, fight, and sacrifice for.

Understand that and you’ll have a much better time dealing with your professionals.

And, to any mental health professionals that may be reading this, thank you for your personal sacrifices and doing what you do.

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Bipolar Disorder is Not a Gift

I wish I could put more expletives in the title and still have it be acceptable through common social distribution channels. Bipolar Disorder is a brutal mental illness that can result in suicides, deaths, destroyed quality of life, abuse, substance abuse, destroyed relationships, and so much more. What ingenious think-tank decided it was a good idea to promote a mental illness that regularly features delusion as a gift to be cherished!?

And why is it, that every time I see one of these pieces come out of some advocacy group, they always use the most well-adjusted and healthy looking people to promote it? The last one I saw featured an aesthetically pleasing woman with a gleaming white, broad smile. Nary a trace of coffee or cigarette stain to be found! You know what that makes me think? They hired an actress and gave her a script.

Why not show the OTHER faces of Bipolar Disorder? The mentally ill that end up homeless? The mentally ill that end up disconnected from reality and turning their families inside out? The people that cycle in and out of mental institutions or prison?

I suppose “mental illness can be hell” isn’t as great of a promotional point and slogan.

I have to wonder what demographic of people they are trying to reach with this narrative. The people who are not diagnosed? That can’t be right because they wouldn’t have the context to understand the message. The people who are diagnosed but not seeking help? I don’t know about you, but it was a rare time I would have considered Bipolar Disorder a gift when I was alternating between suicidal depression and hypomanic instability and rage. That doesn’t seem right either.

The only groups it seems to be relevant to are the people who trend towards euphoric escalations and the artsy types who view mania as their muse. Or, maybe, they simply chose that angle because it has such a dominant narrative in Bipolar communities and social media groups around the internet? I don’t know, but it’s an ignorant message that I believe alienates more people than draws them in.

Why not present a realistic message? Why not something like: “Hey, Bipolar Disorder is a brutal, difficult mental illness that can destroy your life. Seek help so you don’t wind up insane, homeless, and with a family that hates you by the time you’re 50, assuming you don’t kill yourself by then, because you didn’t do shit to try to control it.”

And I feel reasonably certain I’m going to get angry comments from people who experience euphoria about how it feels so great and is their muse and blah blah blah. Just because something feels great doesn’t mean it’s good for you. If you have anyone in your life that loves and cares about you, I would be willing to bet money they are scared shitless during euphoric escalations because who knows where the limit is at?

Mania as a muse? No. Mania is a creative crutch that far too many Bipolar artists milk as their “tragic gift”. You want to create interesting, inspired art? Practice. It is so very common for unstable Bipolar people to circulate lists of artists or other creators as personal validation. And it’s not.

Those people were not special because of their mental illness. Those people were special in spite of their mental illness.

Bipolar Disorder is not a gift. It’s a challenge that needs to be controlled and overcome. And the stakes are far, far higher than any of those idiotic campaigns ever insinuate. Be greater than the Disorder by working with your mental health professionals to combat it.

Don’t delude yourself into thinking that the pain and misery of this mental illness is a gift to be cherished. It’s fucking not.

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A Video Post from Sophie

Bit of a different post today. Was recently reached out to by Sophie, a young lady who wanted to share part of her own journey with others. As y’all may or may not know, I’m generally pretty picky about what I choose to share from other people. I appreciated her short presentation for it’s authenticity and genuine nature.

Also, she is a person who was misdiagnosed for quite awhile as well. Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder get confused on an all too regular basis.

So, I am passing her video along.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxB0if_bUaQ

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Mental Illness and The Importance of Professional Diagnosis

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There are a lot of people in the world that are looking for easy, convenient answers. Not a week passes when I don’t receive correspondence from someone asking, “Am I Bipolar?” or “Is my loved one Bipolar?” And my response to all of these people is the same. “I’m not qualified to make that kind of statement. You need to discuss everything you just told me with a mental health professional.”

It’s not hard to find statements on the internet, throughout mental health websites, and advocates talking about how important it is not to self-diagnose or attempt to diagnose a loved one. But, I’ve yet to see anyone really address the question, “why?”

It’s not that difficult to tell if someone needs to be speaking to a mental health professional. A mental illness is defined as some form of behavioral or mental pattern that impedes a person’s ability to meet the basic needs of human existence, often compared against Maslowe’s Hierarchy of Needs as a rule of thumb. Once you understand that, it is much easier to see in the way a person conducts their life.

What is not so clear are the details of that person’s history, life, and medical history. Furthermore, many mental illnesses look very similar. People regularly confuse Borderline Personality Disorder with Bipolar Disorder because they both can include drastic swings. However, the details of those mental illnesses differ greatly.

Details are vitally important. A lot of loved ones of the mentally ill do not get to see all of the details that will really help explain the whole picture. We keep a lot buried and hidden away from others. Furthermore, many mentally ill people do not always understand what details point to symptoms. It’s easy to view a “minor quirk” about ourselves as just part of our personality instead of a problem.

That makes the work of mental health professionals all the more difficult because we don’t necessarily know what information needs to be communicated. That’s a knowledge that we gain over time as we grow to understand our mental illness and how it manifests in each of us, specifically.

The biggest threat of self-diagnosis is convincing yourself that you have a certain mental illness. The biggest threat of attempting to diagnose a loved one is convincing them that they have a certain mental illness. Because an unwell mind can latch onto that and hold tight to it as an explanation for why things are the way they are. Why is that bad? What if the person becomes convinced that they have the wrong mental illness? How long is it going to take to convince that mentally ill person that they do not have that mental illness? Months? Years? The rest of their life?

Diagnosis by a professional is the only way to go. Yes, misdiagnosis happens. The doctor may not be as knowledgeable on a particular mental illness, the patient may not be cooperative or communicating, important details may get overlooked. There are numerous reasons for misdiagnosis even in the best of conditions. But, that can be corrected by the patient educating themselves on their diagnosis, working out how it affects them specifically, and openly communicating with their professionals about what they learn and the affects of their treatment.

If you take nothing else from this blog post, I want you to understand this. There is NOTHING simple about confronting, fighting, and overcoming mental illness. Even getting a correct diagnosis can be hard and can take time. Do not make that process more complicated for yourself or your loved one by attempting to diagnose. Leave that to qualified professionals.

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Bipolar Disorder and the Complicated Nature of Management

Misconceptions about the treatment and management of mental illness stem from incorrectly associating it with traditional treatments. That causes mentally ill people and their supporters to draw poor conclusions on how treatment will progress and what benefits management can provide.

As an example, consider a headache. You can down a couple over-the-counter pain relievers and it’s normally gone within a half hour. It’s pretty consistent for most people. Psychiatric medication, on the other hand, can be very random in the benefits it provides because it is dealing with a much more complicated problem.

A majority of mentally ill people that take psychiatric medication will not have a “perfect” experience with it. It may include side effects that are difficult to manage. It may make the person too numb to function or unable to think, essentially mirroring the effects of severe depression. It may only control a limited number of symptoms or not have as powerful an affect as needed. There are so many factors that influence how well psychiatric medication works that it’s just not possible to know ahead of time what exactly it will do from person to person. Brain and body chemistry are incredibly complicated.

Just swallowing the pills doesn’t mean they are going to fix everything or even eliminate it completely. Effective mood disorder management usually includes several other facets, like reducing stress, changing diet, giving up other chemical substances, exercise, and a consistent sleep schedule. And even after all of that, the person can still have bad reactions to certain situations and triggers.

Balance is an important choice as well. Some of us choose to stay on medications that provide a great deal of benefit with minimal side effects rather than pushing for an ideal solution that may bring more severe side effects with it. Why? Because there is no guarantee that we will ever reach that ideal place with our medication.

It’s all trade offs. Are these side effects worth the benefits I’m receiving? Should I keep pushing for something better or settle for how I feel now?

Mental health wellness can be a very messy affair. Even when taking medication, the person may still experiences symptoms of their mental illness that can be disruptive to their life. It’s rarely as simple as just taking a pill.

It’s important to maintain reasonable expectations. We, as mentally ill people, cannot just assume that our mental state and the damage resulting from it is going to be fixed with medication cocktail. Supporters and loved ones of mentally ill people need to understand that wellness is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a long-term endeavor in which there can be many obstacles and bumps in the road.

There are times when the only choice you have is to ride out mental unwellness, whether you’re on medication or not. And for a supporter, that may mean needing to have a bit more patience as the waters calm in the mind of their mentally ill loved one, even if they are taking medication.

Sometimes all you can do is have patience.

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