Mental Health

I believe in synchronicity.  Here is Carl Jung's definition to help you understand what I mean: "Synchronicity is the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer."  I believe in it because it has happened to me several time over the course of the last few years.  When it happens -- and you'll know what I mean if it has ever happened to you -- I have to sit back for a moment and marvel.

Today's post is not about synchronicity.  Sometime I will have to do a whole post about synchronistic experiences I have had. Not today.  I bring up synchronicity because what I have to say on my topic is vastly different than I would have said last week, and it was a synchronistic experience that changed my mind.

I try to get a post up once a week, every Saturday morning.  I missed last week's post because I was in the behavior health hospital on suicide watch.  It's a pretty good reason, I think, to miss a week.

Don't get alarmed.  I'm not suicidal anymore.  In fact, I'm very glad I went to the hospital.  I was at the end of my rope and needed help.  My Angel and some good friends encouraged me to go.  I got the help I needed, which was this: I learned that I have a mental illness or two.  Their names are dysthymic disorder (low-grade depression) and generalized anxiety disorder (pretty self-explanatory). 

Up until this point, I had been told that my depression and inability to stop worrying were my fault.  I didn't trust God enough...I needed to change my thinking and my emotions would change too...blah, blah, blah.  Let me tell you, I tried with every ounce of strength in me to do all of that.  Even after I left the IFB, changing my thinking was still a huge focus.

I've been searching for several years now for someone to tell me it's not my fault.  Yes, changing my thinking when I have a mistaken idea in my head does help.  To a point.  Then I was left with no idea how to handle the days of waking up feeling hopeless, depressed, and fearful.  Nothing had changed about my life circumstances.  I hadn't changed how I thought about them, so I had nothing to fight against.

I thought I was the problem.  I had a flaw, a shadow side, that would not be happy despite my best efforts.  I hated myself: hated looking in the mirror, because no matter how good I thought I felt, the reflection in the mirror told me otherwise.  Its face was sad, full of hopelessness and fear.  For a few weeks prior to my hospitalization, I fought this shadow side, becoming more angry at myself and more self destructive.  Simply put, I reached the end of my rope...had nothing more to fight with.  I planned to drive out into the countryside and abandon my car.  To give myself up to the swirling snow, lay down, and let the bitter cold take me.

In spite of my intentions, I drove home, angry at myself the whole way.  I couldn't fight the shadow side anymore.  Going home meant I had to give myself up to it, which would make my life and Angel's a living hell.  I hated myself for not sparing Angel the pain of living with me.
Thankfully, Angel and several other people encouraged me to go to the hospital for an assessment.  I was admitted, and that is when my tale of hope began.

The next day, a doctor spoke to me of mental illness and his diagnosis: dysthymic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.  I had heard the terms before from my psychiatrist, but they sounded like indictments to me at the time.  "You did this to yourself."  If they had been more *serious* disorders, I would have been able to feel okay about saying that having a mental illness was not my fault.  These?  Were too mild to qualify.  I felt they were psychobabble for "you make yourself depressed" and "worry-wart syndrome".

As this new doctor talked to me, however, he used the words *hereditary* and *real mental illness*.  It took a while for these to sink in: that I really hadn't made myself sick for all these years.  Instead, the childhood sadness and adult depression were merely indications that the illnesses were already active during those times.

Can I convey to you how like a balm those words were to me?  I don't have a shadow side: I have an illness.  Rather than being a depressed person, I am a person with depression.  Rather than being a fearful person, I am a person with anxiety.  (Much like "person with cancer" versus "cancer patient")

And best of all were the words that the doctor said next: *highly treatable*.  Sure, I have to take medicine and continue psychiatric therapy for a while, but I can and will get better by learning to manage the symptoms.

I AM A WHOLE PERSON!!!  I AM STRONG AND CONFIDENT, HAPPY AND LOVING.  WHEN I FEEL OTHERWISE, IT IS JUST SYMPTOMS OF THE ILLNESS AND NOT A REFLECTIONS ON MY MORAL CHARACTER.

I suppose I have strayed from my intended topic and made this post more about mental health.  This post was going to address the authoritarian system my parents followed in raising us kids: how it was harmful - even emotionally and spiritually abusive.  Last week while I was in the hospital, I even began writing the post.  Its tone was angry, and pointedly told my parents that following the IFB doctrine of child discipline is what had landed me in the hospital.

Synchronicity.  After I talked to the doctor and spent several days in the hospital, I learned a few things.  Since the illnesses I have are hereditary, they could have become active even if my childhood had been a happy one.  No one can make me suicidal: it's what I choose to believe.  Changing thinking is still an important part of my therapy, but, this time the premise is different.  Distorted, automatic thoughts are not something I conjure up.  The medicine I take helps keep the symptoms at a manageable level; from there, I have the responsibility to combat distorted thinking when it comes into my head and starts messing up my emotions.  I have a new mantra: "There is always a third option.  Reach for the middle ground."

So when I talk about the authoritarian system Mom and Dad bought into, I can't blame it or them for where I am today.

That being said, it need not keep me from saying how that same system is flawed and, many times, harmful.  Although I thought I would still get into that today, I have decided to save it for next week.  The topic deserves its own post.