I believed that it was somehow normal for insects to live under the skin. I was too embarrassed to seek help because I never thought anything was wrong. Even after I was diagnosed with schizophrenia, I kept my bug problem to myself. It’s only recently that I’ve opened up about it in therapy. I’ve dealt with it since my first break at twenty-one.
Since getting my medications adjusted sixteen months ago, I’ve become incrementally capable of responding to the common reality despite schizophrenia’s influence. I’m more keenly aware of the difference between what I think is happening and what is actually happening. I’m growing more adept at handling reality as it comes to me, carefully sidestepping any mental pitfalls that might otherwise derail my ensuing thoughts and reactions.
I cannot accept that there isn’t a doctor out there who can help my son. My husband says I have to accept it and I scream NO, I’M NOT ACCEPTING IT. He shakes his head and says something softly that I can’t hear. Don’t want to hear.
When I was fresh out of college and struggling with my symptoms, my brother was there for me, listening without judgement as I shared my stories of paranoia. His compassion and strength helped calm me down. He was an anchor in the chaos of my volatile youth. A lover of life, he thwarted my suicide attempts and helped me rediscover my own will to live.
A notification from the hospital lab slides across the screen. His test results are back. Hmmm. Lithium level not great yet, but at least nudging at the therapeutic range. Okay.
Society still paints with a broad brush when it comes to The Other. We’re raised from an early age to be aware of our differences rather than our similarities, which, when misdirected, can result in such ugliness as racism, sexism, and ageism. Mental illness is the last target for intolerant behavior, the last quarry for the cruel, because mental illness by its nature knows no division.
I am always living with mental illness. It doesn’t magically go away because I take medication. The drugs help me manage my symptoms. Therapy helps with questions about the effect of the symptoms on my psyche. Psychiatry helps with the basic practical details of the meds. It all keeps me out of the hospital, which I appreciate. Medicated, I’m better suited to navigate life’s challenges. I can almost feel normal.
People are afraid to open up about mental illness, but at the same time they are dying to talk about it. Let’s start listening.
Even though I’d been going to the ER regularly for panic attacks, I hadn’t accepted that I was struggling with mental illness on any level. Stigma confronted me at every turn; I was dealing with the same stereotypes that anyone influenced by culture would. I couldn’t make sense of my life.
I advocate for myself, and am comfortable with my diagnosis, but I’m reluctant to offer it up casually, being concerned that the stigma against it will hinder any success I might have had in making a new friend. I wish it were different, so I approach it as such. Most of the time. Self-stigma tends to be the one area where I falter. Unwittingly, I will derail my own train, partially due to an inherent shyness, and otherwise to a general discomfort in my own skin.
