Savage Stigma
This is something that's been on my mind quite a bit lately. And since I haven't kept up with this particular blog, here it is.
When I use the word "savage", I mean it in two ways. The first being crude, ignorant - and the second being dangerous, something that very few people seem to tack on to this particular breed of ignorance.
Imagine a person. Let's call this person a woman, since that's something I can relate to personally, and let's name her... Tristessa. Tristessa is a 20-something year old who works, has friends, has fun and is generally content with life. She's busy and sometimes doesn't eat right, so that's what she blames when she starts to feel tired. She pushes through it and keeps up her normal activities, but she's a bit more on edge, she sometimes snaps at people and when her boss criticized her slipping work habits, she inexplicably burst out in tears. Her friends and family tell her she's put too much on her plate, she needs to cut back, so she does. She spends less time with friends, less time on exercise... and tries to get more rest instead. Slowly her outside activities dwindle until her life outside her home is just work. Every few days, someone asks her if she's sick, she's pale and tired looking. Finally she goes to her doctor, she's shocked to find out that she has a potentially life-threatening illness. The doctor tells her that the good news is it's a common illness, it's treatable - so he writes her a prescription, sets up an information consulation and gives her lifestyle changes to work on.
One week goes by, two weeks, one day Tristessa realizes she feels a lot better. Her energy has come back, her focus and drive... she sleeps well and has colour back in her face. She calls her friends and says she wants to get together with them, that she's sorry she's been neglecting them but she'll explain... When they meet, she describes to her friends what the doctor told her. To her surprise, her friends remark "I thought you were stronger than that, you really can't get healthy on your own?" "You know that's just a racket right, you're paying the pharmaceuticals for nothing..." "I thought you said this was something serious? What is wrong with you?" Tristessa leaves feeling small. All night she mulls over what her friends have told her. One of her friends had even said her brother had the same illness and he'd managed to cure himself through diet and exercise. She wondered if they were right, if she was acting pitiful. She wondered if she was really as sick as the doctor told her she was. By the end of the night, she'd made a resolution. She didn't really feel so bad anymore, anyway... she threw her medication in the trash.
The next day she woke up feeling fantastic. Just like her old self. She woke on time, got ready, and left for work. Her day went smoothly, and she told herself again that she was fine, that this proved it. After work she met up with a few friends for drinks, she told them she had decided they were right, she was fine. She said she'd decided to go with diet and exercise, not run herself down so much, she figured she'd be fine. Her friends backed her 100%, and agreed that she'd be just fine.
Slowly she began to lose weight. She chalked it up to her new diet/exercise program, she felt mostly okay still and she must've been out of shape. She knew she'd adjust. She started to feel tired again too, but she glossed that over too. This time she kept pushing onward, even when she couldn't do any of her regular activities anymore, and had used up all her sick days at work. She told herself over and over that she was fine, that other people had dealt with this and come out okay, that she was strong enough... until she believed it with an iron conviction.
One day she collapsed at work. She was sent to the hospital, where they ran tests to find out what was wrong. She remained unconscious for hours, exhausted... and when she woke up she found that her right foot had been amputated. Her doctor stood watching her, and sat quietly while she woke up completely, then asked why she hadn't been taking her insulin. She knew she was diabetic, she knew she needed to keep on top of it to keep healthy... but she refused, why? She told him what her friends had said. Suddenly she realized that her friends shouldn't have had a say over her life or her health, that they clearly didn't know what they were talking about and now she was lying here paying the price. She felt angry, she felt sad and bewildered. She felt stupid. She'd thrown out the advice of a well trained professional because those closest to her had disagreed....
A couple years ago I read a news article about a girl who had diabetes, her parents had opted to care for her with prayer only. She grew weaker and weaker until she couldn't even sit up unassisted. A couple days later she slipped into diabetic coma and died, 12 or 13 years old. When the story broke, people were outraged at her parents - even more outraged at their statement that they would do it again if the situation arose. They were so utterly convinced in their ignorance that they blindly stood by their choice even after their daughter was dead. And people, most people, see the ludicrousness in that.
Of course I'm not talking about diabetes, though it is an awful illness. Most would agree that treatment is necessary for that diagnosis.
Take away the word diabetes and put in the word "mental illness". Depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia... those who have never been diabetic can fathom the gravity of the disorder. Those who have never wrestled with mental illness don't seem to be able to comprehend. While it may be simple to grasp sickness in the heart, lungs, liver or kidneys, sickness in the mind is treated differently. As if, being of the brain, it's simply "in your head". Imagined. Less real. Less hurtful. Less debilitating. Less harmful, or less deadly.
I was diagnosed bipolar when I was 17. It was a hard diagnosis to untangle, because I grew up as a victim, impoverished, confused, stressed... bullied. It was hard to untangle because nobody knew where my damage ended and my illness began. I had sky-high anxiety and could only be with one or two people at a time, and I was selective about those people. I couldn't leave my house without panicking. My sleep was in shambles, my eating habits were sporadic. My weight yo-yo'd. Sometimes I cried hysterically for no reason. Sometimes I raged for no reason. I literally felt like my mind was my enemy, that I couldn't tame it or understand it. I felt trapped in a special hell built just for me.
When I finally agreed to go under observation for a week, the doctors were equally baffled. They thought at first that I had a split personality, my personality was so disjointed, my moods were not even remotely tied together. Eventually they settled on bipolar disorder. I spent a year having regular check-ins with a psychiatrist, adjusting medications, until I was more or less okay again.
I've always been an open person. Open and honest. But I learned a valuable lesson about what's my business, and what's other people's business. By the time I was 19 I'd heard it all. "You really shouldn't take that stuff, you're better than that." "You know it's all in your head anyway, those are just placebos..." and any variation of "It's in your head anyway, why don't you just 'think' yourself better?" People who were closest to me told me that I was fine, I'd been duped. I didn't need this medication, *shouldn't* need this medication, that doctors were just pill pushers, or that "they knew someone who was bipolar before, and you're *nothing* like them". They belittled my illness, my experience, and ignorantly talked about what they knew nothing about. I felt small, weak, stupid. In fact, in the face of the constant barrage of "well meaning" idiots, I felt nearly as bad as I had before. Eventually I threw out my medication. I convinced myself I was fine, I'd exercise better, I'd eat better, I'd do okay. I'd felt alright for a year or so already, I guess the memory of how bad it'd been before had faded.
At first I was fine. Then my first son was born. I suffered horrible anxiety and post-partum depression. I fought with my best friend so badly we didn't talk for a year. I had no social skills in me at all. I convinced myself I was fine because I lived for my son, he was the only thing that made me happy and I was sure if I had "baby blues" I wouldn't be so attached to him.
Time went on. Stresses mounted. My husband and I fought so badly the police were called sometimes. I'd usually end up crying hysterically, like I had to. I felt like there was something inside me that needed to get out and I would wail until I was exhausted. My anxiety increased, my fatigue increased. I was irritable but I couldn't sleep. I felt trapped in my mind, like the thoughts were spinning all around me so fast I couldn't just grab one. I was confused and forgetful. In the end I slept about 3 hours each night, tormented by nightmares, night terrors and hallucinations. I eventually would have panic attacks if I tried to go to sleep. I couldn't function but couldn't rest. I tried relaxation techniques, I tried cognitive therapies. Nothing helped, I just kept feeling worse. My body hurt. My head hurt. I had palpitations and nausea.
Anyone who tells you that mental illness is "all in your head" is ignoring the fact that so many physical symptoms manifest. These aren't imagined, they aren't hypochondria. They are real and they are painful. It is exhausting to deal with your mind as your enemy. And that exhaustion comes out in aches and pains, sicknesses, susceptibility to viruses and other illnesses. My ongoing mantra has been "I'm not sick but I'm not well." You never feel *good*. And you never feel sick enough to just crawl into bed. You feel like you're going, going, going... like a car would run on fumes. You're not even close to 100% but you feel lazy if you stop.
When I was at the point (literally) of collapse, I realized I couldn't do it on my own. I knew I needed help. I had done it alone for 10 years and I was literally falling apart. All my positive thoughts, all my pushing myself, pampering myself, pep-talking myself - all had done me no good. I was suffering. My family was suffering. I wasn't the wife or mother I wanted to be, the wife and mother I knew I could be. When I went to see a therapist, she told me at the end of our first session she was shocked I hadn't had a breakdown. She thought I belonged in the hospital. I was adamant I needed to keep going. I was also adamant I didn't want or need medication. Eventually the therapist said there was nothing she could do for me, my anxiety was literally too high for relaxation to work. I was referred to a doctor with mental health who re-diagnosed me bipolar, type 2. And I finally gave in and took the medication. They made it clear that nothing else was going to work until I got things evened out, I agreed tentatively to try it "for a while".
A month into the medication I felt like a whole new person. I literally had not felt so good in a decade. I could sleep again, I wasn't exhausted, my brain was working. I could focus. I could remember. I could socialize. I could get up and do everything I needed to do without wearing out so bad. At that point it struck me that I had robbed myself of 10 years based on what other people thought. I realized that I probably will always need to be medicated, and that it's for the sake of my own sanity, and for my family's well-being. I can be the wife and mom I need to be now. I can be the friend I need to be. I feel better about myself and my life. I can handle stress without melt-down. I'm not perfect, but really, who is? The only bright point to me is knowing that I *know* now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, why I take the medication I take. I know how bad life can get. I know how close this illness came to killing me, I know there were times when I felt buried alive, like I couldn't get my head out to breath. I felt crushed. I felt burdensome. I felt, often, like there was no way out. Many times I wanted to just cease to exist. I felt hopeless and helpless, and knowing that I'd be judged if I took the "easy" way out, by being medicated, just added to the burden.
Mental illness is real, and it's dangerous. When you feel there's no way out, suicide is a very real danger. Mental illness can kill. And it does. Even when it doesn't, it is no way to live.
So I wrote all this to try to change some of the stigma surrounding mental illness, in hopes that some people reading might try to shake off some of their preconceived notions and really listen to someone who's been there, who *is* there. We're not weak people, we're strong enough to live through hell. We are smart, creative, loving... we have families and friends who care about us, who we care about. We have lives that we alone have to live. Our illness is not who we are, it's something we cope with. But just like any disease, it can take over if it's not properly treated.
Statistics:
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 1 in every 4 people, or 25% per cent of individuals, develops one or more mental disorders at some stage in life. Today, 450 million people globally suffer from mental disorders in both developed and developing countries. Of these, 154 million suffer from depression, 25 million from schizophrenia, 91 million from alcohol use disorder and 15 million drug use disorder.
Mental illnesses are more common than cancer, diabetes, or heart disease.
Mental disorders can now be diagnosed reliably and accurately as the most common physical disorders; some can be prevented, all can be successfully managed and treated.
Treatment works. Yet, as many as two-thirds of all people with a diagnosable mental disorder do not seek treatment, whether for fear of being stigmatized, fear that the treatment may be worse than the illness itself, or lack of awareness, access and affordability of care.
Mental illnesses do not discriminate – they can affect anyone, men, women and children regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status.
Mental health problems represent 5 out of 10 leading causes of disability worldwide; amounting to nearly one-third of the disability in the world. Leading contributors include depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, substance abuse, and dementia.
Mental illnesses rank first among illnesses that cause disability in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe.
It was predicted that by 2010, depression would be the leading cause of disability worldwide, not cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or AIDS (WHO).
Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time, and also with co-morbid chronic diseases such as diabetes, HIV/AIDS, cancer, heart disease, etc.
Mental illness is a serious public health challenge that is under-recognized as a public burden. The toll of mental illness is tragic:
Human Cost: Suicide claims a life every 30 seconds.
Awareness, not ignorance. With something this common, you'd think people would rethink their prejudices. Think about it.
When I use the word "savage", I mean it in two ways. The first being crude, ignorant - and the second being dangerous, something that very few people seem to tack on to this particular breed of ignorance.
Imagine a person. Let's call this person a woman, since that's something I can relate to personally, and let's name her... Tristessa. Tristessa is a 20-something year old who works, has friends, has fun and is generally content with life. She's busy and sometimes doesn't eat right, so that's what she blames when she starts to feel tired. She pushes through it and keeps up her normal activities, but she's a bit more on edge, she sometimes snaps at people and when her boss criticized her slipping work habits, she inexplicably burst out in tears. Her friends and family tell her she's put too much on her plate, she needs to cut back, so she does. She spends less time with friends, less time on exercise... and tries to get more rest instead. Slowly her outside activities dwindle until her life outside her home is just work. Every few days, someone asks her if she's sick, she's pale and tired looking. Finally she goes to her doctor, she's shocked to find out that she has a potentially life-threatening illness. The doctor tells her that the good news is it's a common illness, it's treatable - so he writes her a prescription, sets up an information consulation and gives her lifestyle changes to work on.
One week goes by, two weeks, one day Tristessa realizes she feels a lot better. Her energy has come back, her focus and drive... she sleeps well and has colour back in her face. She calls her friends and says she wants to get together with them, that she's sorry she's been neglecting them but she'll explain... When they meet, she describes to her friends what the doctor told her. To her surprise, her friends remark "I thought you were stronger than that, you really can't get healthy on your own?" "You know that's just a racket right, you're paying the pharmaceuticals for nothing..." "I thought you said this was something serious? What is wrong with you?" Tristessa leaves feeling small. All night she mulls over what her friends have told her. One of her friends had even said her brother had the same illness and he'd managed to cure himself through diet and exercise. She wondered if they were right, if she was acting pitiful. She wondered if she was really as sick as the doctor told her she was. By the end of the night, she'd made a resolution. She didn't really feel so bad anymore, anyway... she threw her medication in the trash.
The next day she woke up feeling fantastic. Just like her old self. She woke on time, got ready, and left for work. Her day went smoothly, and she told herself again that she was fine, that this proved it. After work she met up with a few friends for drinks, she told them she had decided they were right, she was fine. She said she'd decided to go with diet and exercise, not run herself down so much, she figured she'd be fine. Her friends backed her 100%, and agreed that she'd be just fine.
Slowly she began to lose weight. She chalked it up to her new diet/exercise program, she felt mostly okay still and she must've been out of shape. She knew she'd adjust. She started to feel tired again too, but she glossed that over too. This time she kept pushing onward, even when she couldn't do any of her regular activities anymore, and had used up all her sick days at work. She told herself over and over that she was fine, that other people had dealt with this and come out okay, that she was strong enough... until she believed it with an iron conviction.
One day she collapsed at work. She was sent to the hospital, where they ran tests to find out what was wrong. She remained unconscious for hours, exhausted... and when she woke up she found that her right foot had been amputated. Her doctor stood watching her, and sat quietly while she woke up completely, then asked why she hadn't been taking her insulin. She knew she was diabetic, she knew she needed to keep on top of it to keep healthy... but she refused, why? She told him what her friends had said. Suddenly she realized that her friends shouldn't have had a say over her life or her health, that they clearly didn't know what they were talking about and now she was lying here paying the price. She felt angry, she felt sad and bewildered. She felt stupid. She'd thrown out the advice of a well trained professional because those closest to her had disagreed....
A couple years ago I read a news article about a girl who had diabetes, her parents had opted to care for her with prayer only. She grew weaker and weaker until she couldn't even sit up unassisted. A couple days later she slipped into diabetic coma and died, 12 or 13 years old. When the story broke, people were outraged at her parents - even more outraged at their statement that they would do it again if the situation arose. They were so utterly convinced in their ignorance that they blindly stood by their choice even after their daughter was dead. And people, most people, see the ludicrousness in that.
Of course I'm not talking about diabetes, though it is an awful illness. Most would agree that treatment is necessary for that diagnosis.
Take away the word diabetes and put in the word "mental illness". Depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia... those who have never been diabetic can fathom the gravity of the disorder. Those who have never wrestled with mental illness don't seem to be able to comprehend. While it may be simple to grasp sickness in the heart, lungs, liver or kidneys, sickness in the mind is treated differently. As if, being of the brain, it's simply "in your head". Imagined. Less real. Less hurtful. Less debilitating. Less harmful, or less deadly.
I was diagnosed bipolar when I was 17. It was a hard diagnosis to untangle, because I grew up as a victim, impoverished, confused, stressed... bullied. It was hard to untangle because nobody knew where my damage ended and my illness began. I had sky-high anxiety and could only be with one or two people at a time, and I was selective about those people. I couldn't leave my house without panicking. My sleep was in shambles, my eating habits were sporadic. My weight yo-yo'd. Sometimes I cried hysterically for no reason. Sometimes I raged for no reason. I literally felt like my mind was my enemy, that I couldn't tame it or understand it. I felt trapped in a special hell built just for me.
When I finally agreed to go under observation for a week, the doctors were equally baffled. They thought at first that I had a split personality, my personality was so disjointed, my moods were not even remotely tied together. Eventually they settled on bipolar disorder. I spent a year having regular check-ins with a psychiatrist, adjusting medications, until I was more or less okay again.
I've always been an open person. Open and honest. But I learned a valuable lesson about what's my business, and what's other people's business. By the time I was 19 I'd heard it all. "You really shouldn't take that stuff, you're better than that." "You know it's all in your head anyway, those are just placebos..." and any variation of "It's in your head anyway, why don't you just 'think' yourself better?" People who were closest to me told me that I was fine, I'd been duped. I didn't need this medication, *shouldn't* need this medication, that doctors were just pill pushers, or that "they knew someone who was bipolar before, and you're *nothing* like them". They belittled my illness, my experience, and ignorantly talked about what they knew nothing about. I felt small, weak, stupid. In fact, in the face of the constant barrage of "well meaning" idiots, I felt nearly as bad as I had before. Eventually I threw out my medication. I convinced myself I was fine, I'd exercise better, I'd eat better, I'd do okay. I'd felt alright for a year or so already, I guess the memory of how bad it'd been before had faded.
At first I was fine. Then my first son was born. I suffered horrible anxiety and post-partum depression. I fought with my best friend so badly we didn't talk for a year. I had no social skills in me at all. I convinced myself I was fine because I lived for my son, he was the only thing that made me happy and I was sure if I had "baby blues" I wouldn't be so attached to him.
Time went on. Stresses mounted. My husband and I fought so badly the police were called sometimes. I'd usually end up crying hysterically, like I had to. I felt like there was something inside me that needed to get out and I would wail until I was exhausted. My anxiety increased, my fatigue increased. I was irritable but I couldn't sleep. I felt trapped in my mind, like the thoughts were spinning all around me so fast I couldn't just grab one. I was confused and forgetful. In the end I slept about 3 hours each night, tormented by nightmares, night terrors and hallucinations. I eventually would have panic attacks if I tried to go to sleep. I couldn't function but couldn't rest. I tried relaxation techniques, I tried cognitive therapies. Nothing helped, I just kept feeling worse. My body hurt. My head hurt. I had palpitations and nausea.
Anyone who tells you that mental illness is "all in your head" is ignoring the fact that so many physical symptoms manifest. These aren't imagined, they aren't hypochondria. They are real and they are painful. It is exhausting to deal with your mind as your enemy. And that exhaustion comes out in aches and pains, sicknesses, susceptibility to viruses and other illnesses. My ongoing mantra has been "I'm not sick but I'm not well." You never feel *good*. And you never feel sick enough to just crawl into bed. You feel like you're going, going, going... like a car would run on fumes. You're not even close to 100% but you feel lazy if you stop.
When I was at the point (literally) of collapse, I realized I couldn't do it on my own. I knew I needed help. I had done it alone for 10 years and I was literally falling apart. All my positive thoughts, all my pushing myself, pampering myself, pep-talking myself - all had done me no good. I was suffering. My family was suffering. I wasn't the wife or mother I wanted to be, the wife and mother I knew I could be. When I went to see a therapist, she told me at the end of our first session she was shocked I hadn't had a breakdown. She thought I belonged in the hospital. I was adamant I needed to keep going. I was also adamant I didn't want or need medication. Eventually the therapist said there was nothing she could do for me, my anxiety was literally too high for relaxation to work. I was referred to a doctor with mental health who re-diagnosed me bipolar, type 2. And I finally gave in and took the medication. They made it clear that nothing else was going to work until I got things evened out, I agreed tentatively to try it "for a while".
A month into the medication I felt like a whole new person. I literally had not felt so good in a decade. I could sleep again, I wasn't exhausted, my brain was working. I could focus. I could remember. I could socialize. I could get up and do everything I needed to do without wearing out so bad. At that point it struck me that I had robbed myself of 10 years based on what other people thought. I realized that I probably will always need to be medicated, and that it's for the sake of my own sanity, and for my family's well-being. I can be the wife and mom I need to be now. I can be the friend I need to be. I feel better about myself and my life. I can handle stress without melt-down. I'm not perfect, but really, who is? The only bright point to me is knowing that I *know* now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, why I take the medication I take. I know how bad life can get. I know how close this illness came to killing me, I know there were times when I felt buried alive, like I couldn't get my head out to breath. I felt crushed. I felt burdensome. I felt, often, like there was no way out. Many times I wanted to just cease to exist. I felt hopeless and helpless, and knowing that I'd be judged if I took the "easy" way out, by being medicated, just added to the burden.
Mental illness is real, and it's dangerous. When you feel there's no way out, suicide is a very real danger. Mental illness can kill. And it does. Even when it doesn't, it is no way to live.
So I wrote all this to try to change some of the stigma surrounding mental illness, in hopes that some people reading might try to shake off some of their preconceived notions and really listen to someone who's been there, who *is* there. We're not weak people, we're strong enough to live through hell. We are smart, creative, loving... we have families and friends who care about us, who we care about. We have lives that we alone have to live. Our illness is not who we are, it's something we cope with. But just like any disease, it can take over if it's not properly treated.
Statistics:
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 1 in every 4 people, or 25% per cent of individuals, develops one or more mental disorders at some stage in life. Today, 450 million people globally suffer from mental disorders in both developed and developing countries. Of these, 154 million suffer from depression, 25 million from schizophrenia, 91 million from alcohol use disorder and 15 million drug use disorder.
Mental illnesses are more common than cancer, diabetes, or heart disease.
Mental disorders can now be diagnosed reliably and accurately as the most common physical disorders; some can be prevented, all can be successfully managed and treated.
Treatment works. Yet, as many as two-thirds of all people with a diagnosable mental disorder do not seek treatment, whether for fear of being stigmatized, fear that the treatment may be worse than the illness itself, or lack of awareness, access and affordability of care.
Mental illnesses do not discriminate – they can affect anyone, men, women and children regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status.
Mental health problems represent 5 out of 10 leading causes of disability worldwide; amounting to nearly one-third of the disability in the world. Leading contributors include depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, substance abuse, and dementia.
Mental illnesses rank first among illnesses that cause disability in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe.
It was predicted that by 2010, depression would be the leading cause of disability worldwide, not cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or AIDS (WHO).
Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time, and also with co-morbid chronic diseases such as diabetes, HIV/AIDS, cancer, heart disease, etc.
Mental illness is a serious public health challenge that is under-recognized as a public burden. The toll of mental illness is tragic:
Human Cost: Suicide claims a life every 30 seconds.
Awareness, not ignorance. With something this common, you'd think people would rethink their prejudices. Think about it.
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