This week is National Mental Illness Awareness Week, and because I have bipolar disorder, I want to take a minute to talk about what it’s like to have a severe mental illness, and what you can do to help.
I have Type II ultra-rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, which is one of the more severe forms of bipolar disorder. Without medication, I suffer major mood swings, anything from hypomania to severe depression. I get visions of being tortured (a knife thrust between the two bones of my forearm, being flayed alive, pins thrust into my eyes), mental pain like having my skin rubbed raw with sandpaper, and an inarticulate sense of being in great danger, of something hunting me. I get suicidal: I get impulses to smash the car into the concrete supports of an underpass, to jump off an overpass, to hang myself from a tree I happen to see. Not always, and not all the time, but it’s a constant worry, a constant concern about keeping myself stable and symptom free. It’s a delicate balancing act, reducing stress, avoiding anything that could trigger a bipolar episode. In many cases that has meant breaking up with boyfriends when stressed (because people stress me out), hiding in my room, and avoiding anyone who doesn’t feel extremely safe. It also meant, for many years, understanding and accepting that I would live a short life with an unpleasant end, when the pain grew too much to handle.
What I want to say is that this is different from being irrational, and different from being insane. It is possible to be perfectly sane (in the sense that you can behave, process information, and think logically) and still suffer from a severe mental illness. Even at my worst times, I was aware that there was a disconnect between my feelings and how I would “normally” feel in the same situation, and could reasonably compensate, at least enough to “pass” as normal.
So that is the first thing I want to say: people with severe mental illnesses can look and behave perfectly normally. (You probably know a couple of them yourself.) They are, in fact, people like yourself, except with a few additional challenges that make life significantly harder.
The second thing I want to say is that, as medical professionals will tell you, you should take it seriously when someone talks to you about depression, or looks or acts suicidal. There’s a very good chance that they have been “covering up” their feelings for quite some time – especially if things appear suddenly – and are near the end of their rope. Don’t panic (that doesn’t help anyone), but do find out whether they’re feeling suicidal, and how long they’ve been feeling that way. You might suggest consulting a doctor. It wouldn’t hurt to mention that depression is a physical (biochemical) disorder, not a personal weakness. Don’t be afraid to call the police if you think they are really about to commit suicide.
(A side note: just because you’re suicidal does not mean you want to die. I have gone through many periods of having impulses – even nearly continuous ones – to suicide, without wanting to die. I have also reached a point where, after an extended period of severe mental pain, I came very close to choosing to die – not because of the suicidal impulses, but because no one in their right mind would want to continue living under those conditions. That was not depressive thinking but a perfectly rational decision. It’s been almost ten years since that desperate time, but I still feel the same way: I would rather die than go through that much pain again, and I mean that quite literally.)
The third thing I want to say is that mental illness is not forever. If you have a mental illness, there’s a very good chance that it can be treated. Even if you have a genetically based mental illness – and I do – modern medicine can help control it, letting you live a normal life despite your genetic predispositions. I’ll be taking bipolar medications for the rest of my life, but they’ve allowed me to be symptom-free the last eight years (since I was diagnosed and the right combination of medications found), and I now expect to live a normal lifespan. This is so much more than I had expected, especially right after being diagnosed with a lifelong disorder!
And the last thing I want to say is that people with mental illnesses are real people. The reason why I am public about my bipolar disorder is that I feel, very strongly, that unless some of us are willing to stand up and tell our stories, the stigma against people with mental illnesses will continue. We are people, just like everyone else. We have our ups and downs, good days and bad days, virtues and faults. The only difference is that, in addition to the rest of life’s challenges, we have biochemical disorders to deal with.
I wrote an essay on living with bipolar disorder this time last year, in response to a social worker who asked me to tell my story, in hopes that it might help one of his clients. I urge you to read it, and perhaps share it with someone else you know who is struggling with a mental illness, who needs to know that mental illness is not forever. It’s at https://tienchiu.com/2009/10/living-with-bipolar-disorder/ .
Cheers, and a peaceful Mental Illness Awareness Week to you!
Thanks for continuing to be so open about your bi-polar illness. Many of us (myself included) have much less severe forms of clinical depression and are mostly in the closet about it. Those of us with mild (and not so mild) mental issues are your friends, your teachers, perhaps your church/synagogue/mosque leaders, your guild sisters & weaving buddies, maybe even your own physician. Ninety-nine percent of the time, we function just fine. But once in a while, as Tien says, we just have to crawl into a hole and be away from people. Give us a day or two, and we’ll be back in society, refreshed from our period of turning inward.
I ‘suffered’ a burn out, one symptom of which is depression. My mother kept telling me to pull my bootstraps up but when I realized that all my usual coping mechanisms were not working I went to the doctor and got medication. It took two years but I recovered my enthusiasm and zest for living. People do go through enormous challenges, sometimes privately, sometimes publicly. Thanks for reminding us to be kind to everyone we meet. Not all challenges being dealt with are obvious, such as my broken ankle this year….
Laura
Tien..I am going to print this out and share it with some people! I suffer from depression and anxiety, myself and take Wellbutrin. Without it, I lose interest in doing things I love (the REAL reason I did not weave for several years!) and get quite reclusive. Layer the Aspergers under all that..and nobody is in on whether Asperger’s produces the symptoms or that they exist alongside. The anxiety is certainly a part of that.
We have had two suicides in my family , as well as a good friend of min, and I have made myself understand when the point comes that I pick up the phone and tell somebody “I’m in trouble!” That point is when you think there is just no alternative. You are right when you say that it’s not necessarily WANTING to die, you just think that this all you can do.
Survivors need to talk, though. I’ve noticed that, whenever a new acquaintence mentions a suicide in the family, and I mention that we had that happen, the other survivor gets as far away from me as possible. There is still such a taboo about that it seems to be the last “forbidden” topic. Adoptees will bond immdiately, cancer survivors, etc, but survivors of losing a family member or friend will distance themselves.
The problem is that, if you DO talk about it, you start to realize that your feelings of guilt (that was all my fault s/he felt that way”) begin to heal up. That has just been my experience.
I am so glad you have found medication that helps you be your real, creative, interested self!
thanks for having the courage to share this–i have the hope that someday mental illness will lose the stigma that it has, and that people will be able to get the help that they need. a friend of mine lost her husband a year and a half ago because he decided that ending his life was the less painful alternative. you are a truly amazing person!
Thank you Tien for sharing what it’s like to be inside mental illness. I am at a stage in depression where I can objectively say I am deprressed without curling up in a ball and pulling the covers over my head. Losing interest in the things you love (weaving!) is a good symptom. Medication and time will cure it but people should not either treat you as needing to be locked up, or being told to pull yourself together. The loss of control over your own life is the thing that sometimes makes me want it all to end.