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.
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.
Stress can be insidious, because it usually builds slowly in our lives. As we grow up, we take on one challenge, then another, social obligations pile up, responsibilities, bills … then, life shows us her teeth. Unfortunate things may happen, on top of everything else, which has already been stretched so tightly and worn so thin.
When I started to open up about disordered eating and body image, I learned that shedding light on the darkest corners of my life can help shed more light on a path to healing for myself and others. In the hopes that opening up about depression will do the same
Throughout this week, we aim to encourage communities to explore what hope means to them by exploring their own definition of hope, what it can look like, and experiencing what it can inspire you to do. These hopeful discoveries can be used to incite positive change while nurturing empathetic and compassionate conversations about mental health.
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.
Twenty-five years ago, or so, I received the basic stamp of “anxiety” and “depression” from some doctors doing what they could with a fifteen-year-old girl who didn’t know what was going on. In fact, my initial diagnosis came after six to eight months of checking for heart problems, anemia, food allergies, and “period problems.”
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.
As a child, I suffered from a panic disorder that went undiagnosed until I was 25. Because no one knew what was wrong with me, everything was wrong with me. Every symptom I displayed was labeled and classified as something else: learning disability, perfectionism, insecurity, processing disorders, hypochondriasis and on we go. I struggled with a self-criticism so intense I became trapped and stuck inside its horrifying whispers.
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.
