I know I have said it a few times now, through my various social media platforms, that my goals for discussing my mental health diagnoses publicly is to educate and create awareness and to help others who are perhaps going through the same or similar situation feel seen. And of course, sharing serves as a healthy outlet for me.
It breaks my heart that a lot of people don’t understand mental health. It really breaks my heart. And then I realize that my understanding, exposure and awareness of mental health is through a culmination of lived experience of over 40 years as well as formal and informal education. I have lived it and I have studied it and many people simply haven’t, so I try not to get so emotional when others appear not to understand.
Sometimes mental health prejudices can be a little bit like religion, race and weight prejudices – they can be deeply entrenched, no matter what you say or do. I try not to personalize it, I try not to let it get to me, but it is really difficult.
There are a few misconceptions though that I will continue to address and repeat over time.
Let’s start with the element of choice.
It is staggering how many people believe that mental illness is self-inflicted or a personal failing; and others who also believe that even if it is not self-inflicted, staying mentally ill is a choice. People either believe it is through personal choices that a person got mentally ill or it is through a defeatist, victim mentality that a person stays mentally ill. This thinking breaks my heart.
For mental illness to occur, to manifest, to be triggered, something or an experience must have happened to a person at some point in their life, and the illness is often a response, a reaction or an adaptation to the thing or experience that occurred. The challenge is that the mental illness diagnosis does not always immediately follow the things that occurred in the person’s life, particularly from childhood, to cause the illness.
I am not just referring to trauma, multiple other mental illnesses, including addictions, are because of invalidating childhood environments. When you speak of childhood environments, it’s not just about direct abuse, neglect and hardship, it can also be the absence of validating and affirming love, care, safety, and comfort. And then some 20 years later, a young adult, or a young mother becomes addicted to drugs or develops depression or mania, and the external world views it as a personal, moral failing or lack of control. What makes this narrative stick even more, is when others who grew up in the same household appear okay, or others who claim to have had it worse growing up, claim to be okay. Then the personal issue of choice, will power, moral or religious failing is strengthened.
Every single human being on this earth is different – our minds, bodies, nervous systems, chemistry, everything is different. No two people experience the world, or even their parents or their household the same way, and no two people have the same brain chemistry. Just because your brain and nervous system held up under duress does not mean it was by your own personal willpower, or because you have a stronger prayer life.
The second issue I want to discuss is the issue of resiliency.
There is a dichotomy that needs to be addressed. People see mentally ill people who are struggling to function or live or work as weak, failing, frustrating, and see others like me with mental illnesses but who work, seemingly function and yet complain about challenges as being somewhat dramatic, ungrateful and whiny. But sometimes though, if you are lucky, they will refer to us functioning folks as strong and resilient, admirable even. Of course, mental illness falls on a spectrum of functionality, but trust me, no one chooses to fail. What may appear to be a lack of trying may be driven by so many unseen factors – history, systems, genetics, resources, support, access, brain chemistry, and so forth. Even those of us who seem to function well, there is a battle that rages within us that no one can see or ever understand.
I have chronic depression, borderline personality disorder, complex trauma. Despite all that, yes, I wake up at 4:30am each day, and after dropping my son off at school, I head to the Burma Camp Sports Complex, from Monday to Friday, without fail. During the week, I strength train four times a week and I swim three times a week, over 2.5k in total. And then on Saturdays, I walk at the Legon training oval for 2 miles, and then on Sundays, I swim as well.
I also work full time in senior management, I’m a parent, I post on socials daily and I am attempting to revive my podcast, and I am the author of six published books. That may absolutely look like resiliency, but no one sees the times I sit quietly at the gym in between sets, feeling waves of sadness welling up within me and praying to God to take the pain away. No one sees as I close my eyes in the pool water, tears mingled with the chlorine, praying again for relief. No one sees the nighttime sobs and prayers, as I curl up in a ball, worn and exhausted, desperate for a miracle that wipes all the illnesses away. No one sees when I pick up my phone and I have absolutely no desire to call anyone or respond to any of the texts and messages piling up on the phone. I am an introvert, so I easily hide behind that label as I recoil from interactions. No one is witness to the inner turmoil and struggles.
Whether someone is high functioning, semi-functioning, or going through some form of major psychosis, I promise you, there is an inner battle raging. Fighting your mind is hard, exhausting, painful, and just because some people pull through, and some don’t, it is never really about personal resiliency.
Unless you have a mental illness yourself, no one can ever truly understand the inner turmoil, the war zone that occurs within, the fight to be present. It takes warriors to battle any form of disease, physical and mental, especially mental.
I know it is hard on caregivers, friends, colleagues, and family who observe the deterioration of others. Frustration, pain and hurt can cause you to believe your loved ones are not trying hard enough, are not fighting hard enough. That’s often not the case. Healing is a very complex, strenuous and difficult journey that goes beyond the will of the individual. It took over 25 years to get my father who was afflicted with schizophrenia to maintain an extended lucid life after his last stint at a facility. Despite multiple hospitalizations, he often reverted back to life on the streets, rejecting medications, but I never once saw that as his personal failing, perhaps because I understood mental illness.
It is not the fault of the sufferer, and it is not the fault of the caregiver. It is the disease and we need to transition our blame to that. But beyond simply putting blame on the disease, it is best to focus on – what truly happened to cause this disease, this downfall, how can it be treated, what would it take, how can we help this individual fight what they are going through?
The one thing I really want people to understand though, truly understand, is to know, that mental illness – is not a matter of choice, willpower, personal resiliency, religious failing, lack of faith, or anything controlled by the self. Mental illness is often caused by genetics or environment, and even if it takes years to manifest or rear its head, something caused it, something triggered it. And the success of treatment is also not a simple matter of choice, willpower, positivity, gratitude, resilience, faith, or anything fully controlled by the self. The success of treatment just like the cause of illness, is complex and nuanced.
Mental illness requires compassion, patience, education, awareness and care. I know I may seem different from someone who is in full blown psychosis. Here I am writing articles, but what I go through is just a different type of suffering. I am not necessarily better or more resilient.
We really need to remove the individual from the issue of mental illness. We are fighting. We are at war within ourselves daily, whether you see it or not. We do not need more chaos as we battle ourselves, as we try hard to push through the fog, to be here, to be present, to make it. Regardless of what you see from us, what you experience from us, what it appears to you from the outside, just know, really know, there is a war raging within. Help us fight, do not fight against us.
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