We are privileged to share blog postings from our Ambassador Jessie Close, Adrienne Gurman, Henry Boy Jenkins, and other guest bloggers. Please visit regularly as our content will be updated often.
Use self-care skills like stretching, meditation, self-massage, and breathing techniques as needed through the day;
Be an active listener, try to be a good communicator, open to negotiate and compromise, and enter into interactions with an open-mind and heart. Ask questions, and make less assumptions. Set limits and boundaries as needed, with diplomacy and politeness.
The psych-evals had to be wrong. I did not have a split mind. The person I knew myself to be could not be schizophrenic. The monsters I’d been seeing for years were real.
Within that framework, there is a danger that suicide becomes presented as a ‘selfish’ action, addiction as ‘indulgent’ and depression as ‘dramatic.’ We need more people who suffer with mental illness and addiction to tell their stories, if they are willing and able. We need the real narratives of mental illness and addiction to both challenge stigma and to impact the policy and public health approaches that are implemented.
I usually write about how things are hard, how my bipolar is challenging and how I fight. For the first time I feel I can confidently share how my life has clicked into place.
I can’t really begin to describe how it feels to “go manic” other than it feels like your brain is being taken over and that you have this heightened sense of paranoia. For me, that meant that the government was watching me, studying my every move.
I’m respectful of my illness now. Time in the hospital has taught me to be prudent. I acknowledge the delicate nature of my mind. I feel confident that my life today has meaning and value.
Fear. Pain. Hopelessness. Shame. These feelings haunt a rape victim. They eat away at your spirit and follow you wherever you go.
If a symptom sneaks in under the radar of medication, I’ve got to be vigilant and check in with my psychiatrist or my therapist to right myself. Finding the wherewithal to do so is a part of the new normal, whereas before I would have been baffled and just avoided doing anything to help myself.
Because of the stigma surrounding mental illness, I found myself feeling unnecessarily ashamed that I receive help from our state. Even though I have friends in the same boat, even though these programs are in place to help individuals like us, I still hang on to the self-stigma that shames me, or more succinctly put, I shame myself for.
No one wants to die from Depression, or any other illness. To suggest otherwise is diminishing the value of life and the individual affected by Depression. Unfortunately, the concept of “suicide” interferes with our shared responsibility and opportunity to effectively prevent Death by Depression.
