Anxiety & how to survive surviving

Anxiety as anyone who has experienced it, which most of us have intermittently, can be rough. When it doesn’t go away it becomes a mental illness rather than a mere short-lived symptom and can be debilitating as you attempt to do the things others do.

Wading through mud is how we experience life is one way people with anxiety describe the feeling.

Watching others able to do things without hesitation, then attempting it yourself and finding it akin to holding your breath for a prolonged period of time, or experiencing a heart attack, makes living with anxiety an isolating hardship.

Typically people who experience anxiety keep quiet about it, due to social stigma and the embarrassment of admitting that they are anxious about something that others do not appear to be.

Some people who experience anxiety are able to work through it and ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ and because of their success, it may lead others who are not able to follow at the same speed, to feel like they have failed. But there are many layers and degrees to anxiety and this will always impact a person’s ability and how far their efforts take them.

Picture this; It is possible to be standing still trying with every pore of your being and yet not appear that you are (trying) to anyone else.

Picture this; It is possible to do something without trying and thus, expend no effort whilst someone with anxiety has to work ten times as hard to produce the same outcome.

Working ten times harder to do something is pretty exhausting. It can lead you to feel inferior because you perceive others finding things easy, and you conclude, therefore it’s me there is something wrong with. I am weak.

But anxiety is no joke and living with anxiety is a daily battle for those who do not respond to medication or therapy and/or have found the long-term side-effects of medication unacceptable.

We’ve all heard how anxious people are more prone to certain diseases (heart disease primarily) and struggle with jobs that are high-stress as so many of ours are these days. Anxiety can impact academic performance, test-taking, public-speaking, relationships, communication, authenticity and sleep. Often people can only tell we are anxious when we confess, otherwise they may perceive us to simply be avoidant, aloof, quiet or shy.

Shyness and anxiety can go hand in hand but one does not beget the other. The ‘bad rap’ both get in American society especially, is unfortunate. Just as the world does not need to be completely filled with extroverts, we should not expect shy people to become outgoing nor anxious people to stop existing in favor of daring people. Diversity is a good thing, that includes the types of people we are. Anxiety only ever becomes a problem when it begins to rule you and dictate to you, rather than the other way around, some anxiety is natural and we all experience it. In fact, the only people who experience almost no anxiety are psychopaths and sociopathic, meaning, if you have a conscience you invariably experience some anxiety and that’s a sign of being balanced.

Mental illness is when something becomes too much that it controls behavior in a detrimental way. I see it like the snake and the snake-charmer, the mental illness is the charmer, the result is the hypnotic snake that lulls us into altered behavior. In the case of anxiety this can manifest in our missing out on things we might actually like to do.

The first port of call is to establish, are you overly anxious and is it negatively impacting your life? If you are simply an introvert who loves your own company or smaller groups of people, and would prefer to read than say, go to a party, that is not a mental illness it’s a great choice and you will probably be very successful! If you are not going out because you are paralyzed by social anxiety that’s cutting the pleasure out of your life and something should be done about it.

Fortunately unlike some other mental illnesses, anxiety is relatively treatable. That does not mean everyone with anxiety will benefit from treatment but the success rate of treatment is higher with anxiety than any other mental illness. Nobody knows why this is for sure, but some reasons could include, responding well to medication and better options for therapy. Equally, in the milder forms of anxiety there is less morbidity, meaning some mental illness is very intrenched and hard to treat.

For some however, anxiety does not dissipate and this is true of all treatments there are those who do not respond. It’s not their fault, and it makes it very hard for them because it acts as a double-whammy, firstly they have something they see others may not, secondly they do not respond to treatment, two negatives. If you know someone like that, consider the impact of a flippant remark like “you may be anxious but just relax” and how that could add to feelings of inadequacy and error.

Anxiety is heightened by stress and what constitutes one person’s stress differs from another. Personally, the work place was my stressor. I related it subconsciously and consciously to stress because of bad experiences. Anxiety is often ‘the fear of what could or may happen’ rather than what’s happening right now. You can experience anxiety in the moment, but often it’s more of a preview feeling. In the case of work place anxiety, you can get very anxious on say., a Sunday night, imagining the potential stressors Monday morning.

Unfortunately whilst therapy can help you become aware of your ‘internal scripts’ and dialogue and seek to change how you self-talk by changing the meaning of what you internalize, it’s not a certain cure. I can tell myself, Monday may not be bad, Monday could be good, one bad experience does not equate to all bad experiences. And I may logically believe that, but emotionally it is harder to translate the logic to the emotion. The pathway is often fraught with long-learned anxiety triggers and it’s almost a battle of the wills.

Sometimes you hear that someone has been ‘strong enough’ to over-come their negative self-talk and I say, good on you if you’re one of them. Equally, this can lead to feelings of failure for those who are unable to quit the long learned script in their head that manifests dread. Sometimes it’s not even a palpable ‘fear’ so much as a generalized anxiety and it can manifest in more ways than an internal script. Anxious people often sweat, have trouble sleeping, may seek drink/drugs/bad habits to assuage their anxiety without even being aware of it, may increase their heart rate or worse case scenario have a panic attack.

All these things are symptoms of an anxiety disorder that can if left unchecked, control and dominate the strongest people. Whilst much can be done and should be done to limit anxiety, there is always going to be a difference between a laid-back person and an anxious person. This is as much as anything, personality, life-experience, coping, DNA and possibly even biology. The latter because anxiety can be learned, and can run in families (inherited) through a mixture of biological and social traits. Depending on how much is biological it may be impossible to completely eradicate.

Epigenetics is the study of whether something is biological in origin or ‘learned’ (socialization) with the belief being, it is a mixture of the two, and by understanding the relationship between two, you can better predict and understand, outcome. Studies done on twins show that whilst they have the same DNA their ‘life experiences’ and where they live and with whom, influence their outcomes. This is true about every facet in life, including what we eat (we are what we eat) how many children we have and tons of other little nuances. Epigenetics is complex and we can never know for sure, how many factors make up the differences and similarities in people and studied populations.

Whilst a researcher may need to generalize to create a working theory, within that generalization are many differences that do not get picked up by mass studies, this is true of the layers of anxiety and each person will vary in their response to treatment and cause. What may cause anxiety in one, does not in another, but equally, they may become anxious about something else entirely. Ensuring we are sensitive to those who experience anxiety will obviously decrease their anxiety! Thus, we can be the change we want to see!

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Mental Health Month “Personality Disorders”

The first day I was interning in a crisis center, I heard two women talking, and one said; “Whatever you do, don’t ever see a client who has Borderline Personality, they’re the WORST”

Shamefully I had studied but didn’t know very much about BPD yet, as I was only a year into my studies. I went home that night and read up on it and subsequently read some books devoted to BPD including the well-known book “I love you / I hate you.”

Shortly afterward I found out a friend of mine was BPD (BPD often goes hand-in-hand with Bipolar, as we often see Anxiety and Depression co-morbidly). She educated me significantly in a first-person account of what it was like to suffer from a personality disorder.

The very words ‘personality disorder’ strike me wrong. It’s not really giving someone a chance is it? If we label them as being disordered in some way?

It is thought personality disorders ‘grow’ in childhood and upon reaching maturity can be responsive to treatment or not, depending on the depth and extent they were reinforced in childhood. They usually have triggers such as the link between BPD and being sexually abused in childhood.

Why this is – isn’t so hard to understand if we consider, we all have personalities that are shaped by our experiences – any wonder then that certain experiences will commonly shape certain personalities and responses/reactions. If we take this to an extreme, a ‘disorder’ is a disorder of that personality caused by something wrong and traumatic that occurs to a child.

Why then doesn’t every child who is sexually abused BPD?

Because BPD and other personality disorders must be reinforced. If you are abused as a child but someone finds out, the person is taken away, you are told it was not your fault, the trauma is made better by a rectify and love and lack of shame, then you may well be affected by that abuse but not altered by it in terms of your personality.

If however, the opposite occurs and that trauma is reinforced, then by its very nature of reinforcement, the personality ‘disorder’ forms and every bad thing that happens afterward goes to continue that reinforcement.

It can work something like this;

Child A gets raped by her step-father. Child A tells her mom. Her mom calls her a dirty little liar and beats Child A. Child A is then raped repeatedly by her step-father who threatens to kill her if she ever talks again. Child A remains silent to her abuse for years and it goes on, unpunished. At 15 Child A goes to a party, gets drunk and is raped by a friend. Child A is told by her friends she is a slut and deserved it. Child A internalized all of this and develops BPD which among other things is characterized by a profound lack of trust in others.

Phrased like this, are any of us surprised?

In other words, a personality disorder is a consequence to abuse. As such I find the use of ‘disorder’ punitive because we’re saying the person has something wrong with their personality we are focusing on that, without really considering how this occurred.

Why? Because BPD can be very destructive, both to the person with BPD and those who know them. When you are dealing with someone who is capable of throwing everything into flux, it’s hard to make time to consider the background. You are too busy putting out the fires. And that is why BPD is so feared by therapists and wrongly, stigmatized as being a personality disorder people dread. Whether people dread it or not, any health care worker should aim to help those under their care and treat everyone equally. Perhaps that is easier said than done, but this is why more time should be spent learning about the formation of personality disorders.

Later on in my training I was warned again about BPD folk and told that they can be highly manipulative and destructive, they can and will always try to bring you down. I recall thinking ‘I can’t see how anyone could do that’ but later on I saw several colleagues have to defend their licenses against false accusations by BPD patients who were ‘testing’ them or flexing their muscle.

It appalled me to think anyone, even someone mentally ill, could deliberately go after someone with the sole purpose of trying to ruin their life. I found it hard to understand and empathize with them on that. Which is why I now understand why mental health workers can fear certain diagnosis in people. But despite this, I believe, given the right training and awareness, people can find ways to help those who even lash out at them.

BPD is characterized by a pull-push approach to relationships, an intensity, followed by a rejection, both of which are extreme, due to an inability to trust people shifting from intense attraction/like, to repulsion and hate. For most of us, this extreme is not impossible to imagine, perhaps if we have fallen out with a friend who back-stabbed us or a relationship went wrong because someone cheated on us, we went from love to anger at very least. With BPD those emotions are amplified and far more aggressive, with anger as the source. BPD individuals stoke the flame and are among the most angry and vitriolic of the mental spectrum.

For this reason when befriending someone with BPD it’s important to secure firm and unwavering boundaries. Ensuring the BPD knows the ‘ground-rules’ in other words, don’t flirt one day, and be cold the next, don’t be close one day and distant the next, because by doing that, you are feeding into their fears that nobody is trustworthy, and that will only bring on an extreme response.

Many BPD’s confess that the hardest part of the illness is the social disapprobation and isolation. They do not maintain long-term friendships or relationships, they are at high risk for suicide and self-harm, they vacillate between self-incrimination and feelings of persecution. In short, it’s an instability of their psyche due to being fractured in childhood.

This is among the myriad reasons I condemn child-abusers unreservedly. It is not just rape and abuse, it is messing a child’s life forever when you take someone and you fracture them. If we can take child abuse more seriously and catch more of them before they go on to ruin more people’s lives, this will have the knock-on effect of reducing the numbers of people who grow up to develop BPD and save them from difficult and unfair experiences in life. The one positive of a personality disorder is you can prevent it from happening, we cannot do that with all mental illness but when we can, we have no excuse but to try our hardest.

Mental Health Month “All queered out”

The relationship between the LGBTQ community and Mental Health has long existed. Someone who believed same-sex relationships to be a sin, may point to the mental health ‘sickness’ of those who are attracted to partners of the same gender. This goes back to the seventies where mental health and being queer or transgender, was considered a mental defect/illness. It was not until the early seventies that the bible for Psychiatrists changed this diagnosis and it no longer was considered a mental illness.

During this time of stigma, those who admitted to being queer or transgender were often subjected to camps and programs that attempted to ‘cure’ them of their ‘proclivity’ of course they were unsuccessful but they did a great job of messing up generations of queers, so much so that many stayed in the closet, marrying and having children and never ever admitting who they really were.

Someone who is anti-gay may argue, that means they have a choice because they choose to stay in the closet and marry, they can be normal after all!

There is however, nothing normal about pretending to be someone you are not, and this definitely can be one reason LGBTQ people suffer from a higher than average degree of mental illness.

If it’s an argument of which came first, the chicken and the egg, then you can cross-compare to other studies looking at marginalized and condemned groups such as racial minorities, and see that levels of mental illness rise when bigotry and condemnation in the larger society are directed toward that group. No surprise, hate begets mental illness. It’s not all in your head!

How can hate cause someone to be mentally ill if mental illness is not a mailable and ‘chosen’ ailment? Hate cannot cause someone to get cancer, so how can we argue mental illness is as serious as cancer?

Hate can lead someone to drink too much, smoke too much, and that can cause cancer. It is called an indirect relationship. Cause and effect. The same is true of hate and the LGBTQ community, if you are condemned, judged, shamed, picked on, hated and treated badly day after day, that can literally drive you out of your mind. More commonly, a pre-existing tendency toward certain mental illnesses is exacerbated and tipped over the edge.

This does not mean, anyone ‘chooses’ to be mentally ill, but like anything in life, extreme stress CAN bring on symptoms. They have long known this with Schizophrenia, Bipolar and Borderline Personality Disorder and of course, PTSD has its roots in society as does anxiety. You cannot remove societal influence from the development of a mental illness yet it is as ‘real’ as any other disease in terms of true manifestation and side-effects.

Historically gay and minority populations experienced a high degree of stress and fear. They were having to hide who they were, meet in secret, they could be arrested because their emotions were illegal if expressed physically, and they often had other concerns such as low-income, poor access to care in the community, nobody to talk to honestly and unanswered questions about their own identity.

Our society is typically Heterosexist and Heterodominant because the vast majority of people in our society are heterosexual. It is one thing to show two women kissing, and have a bit of bisexual fun, quite another to be a committed full-time lesbian. Most people don’t relate to that, they may try to understand but that’s like a white person understanding the experiences of a black person, you can only go so far with that.

Thus, LGBTQ are misunderstood at best, and not understood at all at worst, with pastiche and parody being the status-quo. Historically this was even more so, as it was an illegal ‘act’ to be with someone of the same gender sexually (and everyone considered the deviancy of gay sex to be the key to being homosexual rather than thinking for a moment it could be about something other than sex).

Unfortunately a large portion of gay men were so promiscuous it did not help the ’cause’ because they really did live the life style that heterosexuals feared. I do condemn this in the sense that I see no good coming out of sleeping with twenty strangers a night, and whilst that may seem homophobic of me to say, having read the history of HIV and AIDS I see a causal history there as to why homosexual men became one of the earliest groups to be significantly infected by HIV/AIDS. This set the gay cause way back because straight people condemned all gays outright for the actions of the few, and believed HIV/AIDS to be a gay-plague, which of course it was not.

Reading the history of this time, I tried to better understand what would lead gay men to be that promiscuous, my first thought was, a lot of straight men would do the same thing given half the chance! My second thought was, it’s about reaction. Gays were subjected to such strict secrecy and condemnation they could not really be ‘out’ and when finally some cities were tolerant enough to be relatively out, certain populations ran with it. I understand the reaction/action/reaction cycle it exists in every subjugated population to some extent, and every new generation reacts to their parents, it’s a cycle of over-throwing the old for the new. But the level of promiscuity in cities like NYC and San Fransisco was a contributing factor as to why HIV/AIDS initially hit the homosexual male population so hard.

When we consider what a heterosexual who knows little about homosexuality must have thought upon hearing that some homosexual men with HIV/AIDS were sleeping with twenty plus partners a night, as well as doing drugs, it’s not hard to see why there was another wave of backlash against the gay community en mass.

That said, times have somewhat changed and whilst you can still find ‘bath houses’ and gay men (and some lesbians!) who wish to be as promiscuous as those early days, there is also a greater appreciation for actual relationships among the homosexual population. This should be emphasized more in our culture, as heterosexuals still believe homosexuality is about sex, and it is often a very small part of what goes into being a homosexual. The stereotypes are hurtful to the community as a whole, those include the idea that all lesbians are ugly, all queer men are paedophiles, all lesbians are men haters, all bisexuals are sex-addicts, all gay men are perverts.

Going back to mental health … when HIV/AIDS first hit, there were not enough resources to help the gay community, and there was therefore, even less help mentally. After the crisis began to die down and some treatments that worked began to help people live longer and HIV/AIDS was no longer a literal death-sentence a strange thing occurred…. there was a mass influx of extreme depression among the survivors of the ‘gay plague’ as it was known.

Survivor guilt and the depression that comes from severe illness and PTSD (seeing all your friends die) are HUGE factors in the development of mental illness. Some survivors actually deliberately stopped taking their HIV/AIDS medication and let themselves sicken and die because of not being able to stand surviving. They felt they didn’t deserve it. Why me and not my friends?

This was exacerbated by virtually NO resources for gay individuals who needed to talk about what they experienced, witnessed and felt. This still stands, in most cities throughout the US there are no specific mental health services for the homosexual and bisexual and transgender populations.

During my studies as a psychotherapist I sat in a large room with over a 1000 counselors on a briefing about ‘homosexuality and mental health’ during which everyone was told that to be homophobic or intolerant of homosexuality, was incompatible with being a mental health professional. Sounds good huh? Not so good. Of the 1000 there I would easily hazard a guess and say that a third, possibly half, were somewhat prejudiced, very ignorant and possibly homophobic. I say this after hearing them speak, the questions they asked, the people they were.

This is not condemning someone who is homophobic, any more than I would someone who is racist. It is your right. But it’s not legal and it’s not moral. So given this, those people have the difficulty of being legally required NOT to be what they actually privately are. Do you think many of them would admit this? Do you think they would stand up and say ‘I am against homosexual relationships’ and possibly lose their license? For those who are homophobic or anti-gay, you may be shaking your heads and saying ‘this is why it should not be legalized, you are forcing people to feel what they do not’ and I agree with the latter statement.

If you are homophobic you probably shouldn’t be a therapist with the exception of working in a religious community for like-minded people.

If that sounds extreme, well it is. Just as I would say if you are racist you should not work in a public setting but you would be fine in say, a community that supported your views and this cuts both ways (white and black).

LIkewise, if you are sexist, don’t work with the opposite gender.

I’ve been told that when you are a ‘ist’ you should work through your feelings and you should take clients who push your buttons. I don’t agree. Therapy is a fragile experience, and people pick up on intolerance. When I was training I saw and heard enough people to see, they KNOW when you are not comfortable with them. The same goes for ignorance, there is no place for ignorance and therapy when it comes to treatment. If you don’t understand it, refer, refer, refer. To someone who does.

The problem is funding, there are no funds for the queer community because it’s seen like Planned Parenthood as a problem more than anything else.

So if gays don’t have access to good mental health services (and other services) is it any wonder they have higher percentages of certain diseases and mental health issues?

The bottom line is; LGBTQ populations exhibit higher levels of anxiety, depression and alcohol/drug abuse than the standard population. This is not because they are all sex-addicted club fiends who pour drugs down their throats whilst sleeping with twenty partners a night. But the reality of this does lead ignorant people to label mental health as a weakness and point to this as an example. Some even go back to the idea that mental health is a perversion of nature, just as the pilgrims did when they put mentally ill people to death or locked them up.

It doesn’t take long to learn about a group of people you have nothing in common with and it can go a long way. Typically Native Americans ask that therapists working on reservations be of Native American heritage. Some say it should not matter who the helper is, it is more about their willingness to help.

I disagree. It does matter. Just as if you are black and you have been subject to racism you may wish to see another person of color, there’s nothing wrong with that, just as there is nothing wrong with being female and wanting a female gynecologist or therapist.

More gay people need to educate the majority about the specific issues relating to their population so those heterosexual therapists can actually be of some help to queer populations. Even more than that, those therapists who are anti-gay or prejudiced should recuse themselves. Yes – step away – don’t see homosexual patients – do them a favor!

Currently the accepted protocol is to be objective and even if ‘you are personally anti-gay’ you can be objectively helpful to a gay client. That’s ridiculous, no you cannot. I have a friend who is fairly anti-gay and works as a therapist and he is not ever going to be helpful to a gay client and can do more damage than good. Period. I have told him this but until the system changes, his boss and other leaders will insist that anyone, irrespective of their personal beliefs, treat gay clients.

Let’s change this…. and some other things and maybe the rates of mental illness will begin to decline in the LGBTQ population and with it, the high rates of suicide.

 

Mental Health Month “Carers of those with mental illness”

We often talk about how hard it is for say, a person who is a relative and carer of someone who has dementia or Alzheimer’s. The toll it takes on them economically, emotionally and physically. In fact it is understood that many times the carer will die before the patient if they are of equivalent age, in the case of elderly couples where one is looking after another who is sick. This is because the stress upon that carer is enormous and not enough help and resources exist to off set that.

In America because we don’t have a socialized health care system we have less affordable or Government paid resources than any other Westernized country.

If it is true that many will go on to develop Alzheimer’s (1 in 3 by age 85) then it beggars the question, what will become of those people?

Whilst Alzheimer’s is not literally classified as a disorder of mental health, it affects mental faculties and health, and especially has a negative impact on the mental health of carers.

Take a typical example.

With people having kids older in life, let’s say someone has a parent who is 80 they are 40, the parent gets Alzheimer’s. The 40-year-old is working in a high stress insecure job. Most jobs today have less guarantees than ever and are ageist. The 40 year old has two kids, and a husband who doesn’t make very much money (another common feature in today’s economy) the cost of sending the kids to college is already almost impossible. The family lives in the city, their home is small because homes are so expensive in the city. When the parent is sick enough that they cannot take care of themselves the 40 year old is stuck not knowing what to do.

There are not free resources for the parent.

There are no affordable care-facilities and the cheap ones are tantamount to prison.

The house is too small to bring the parent into and both adults work, who would look after the parent?

Hiring help is too expensive.

What does that family do?

This is what we are seeing more and more. This is becoming a burgeoning problem of epic proportions but nobody seems to be doing anything to off set the disaster that will occur.

The only possible outcome in the above scenario would be to put the parent in a really awful care-facility that was still expensive and was well below par in terms of what you would ever wish your parent to experience. It would literally torture those who loved that parent and make that parents last years horrendous.

The only other outcome for those who could not live with themselves, would be that one adult in the family (if there were even two adults to begin with) would give up working. That would impact all members of the family and create a financial crisis. The kids couldn’t afford college. If the parent were a single parent as so many are, they would not be able to quit working, therefore this option would not even exist.

Can you imagine being FORCED to put your parent in a home that has feces on the floors, a record of patient abuse and rape, and where the patients are restrained and ignored?

It may come to that and it may come to kids euthanizing their parents out of feelings of hopelessness and despair. If that sounds melodramatic, believe me when I tell you not only have I witnessed that but I predict it based upon the lack of other options.

Despite this nothing is being done and increasingly, carers are effectively giving up their lives, their financial security, and their other responsibilities such as parenting and working, to care for elderly (and sometimes surprisingly youthful) members of their family with Alzheimer’s.

The long-term impact of this hasn’t been properly evidenced yet but it will and is revealing itself. Our generations have less savings, less security and less money than our predecessors and this will be a house of cards.

The mental health impact of caring for loved ones with such diseases can cause the carer to resent even those they deeply love and also cause depression, anxiety, feelings of helplessness, isolation, guilt, inadequacy, panic, anger, and other negative mental feelings that can impact the effectiveness of the care and the carers own personal life.

As much as we may as a nation be against anything with the word ‘socialized’ what alternative exists but some socialized healthcare whereby we have resources to care for these expected high populations?

Likewise, where are our resources for carers such as social workers and nurses who can at least, take some of the pressure off 24 hour care.

Even those countries with socialized healthcare are experiencing an unpresidented rise in patient need and struggling to cover this. Imagine what will happen in ten or twenty years time when our workforce will be negatively impacted, our economy will flounder and people’s mental health will be affected by this pandemic. What are we really doing to prepare for that? Why isn’t this considered of crucial importance but we can find time to pour money into one-sided wars in far-flung countries? Are our priorities very wrong?

Thanks to Johann for inspiration on this one.

Mental Health Month “I can deal with it / why can’t you?”

Want to hear a horrible truth? Some of the worst judges of the mentally ill are former mentally ill (or current!) people!

How can that be? Think of ex-smokers and it will become apparent.

There is something in the human psyche in some people, where if ‘WE’ have conquered something, we become intolerant of those who do not.

Why? Maybe it’s a defense mechanism, maybe it’s a feeling that if you’re able to, others are weak for not being able to, maybe it’s just the euphoria of knowing you have, or perhaps it’s denial, you think you have, you say you have, you condemn those who have not, because you’re trying to believe it yourself.

Whatever the reason (and it is important, but it’s very complex) the outcome is if you are mentally ill and another mentally ill person or someone who ‘was’ tells you that you need to get over it, that hurts twice as bad, because you know they know! Or you think well they must do, right?

Wrong.

Just like women will sometimes tell you they cannot recall the extent of the pain they experienced in child-birth because we have hormones that specifically block some of those memories so that women will not be put off having children again, this can be the case for the ‘formerly’ mentally ill. They forget how they felt, they forget how bad it was, they are over it now, they have moved on!

Except, if they have moved on, then why are they so keen to judge?

The truth is, it is too close to home, and a part of them knows they could feel it again, maybe even already does, and so, they lash out because .. they’re frightened.

And that’s why most people do bad things, out of fear.

The man who is in the closet for being gay may tell others it’s wrong to be gay.

The person who is abusing children may be one of the loudest condemnor of sexual predators.

Humans can be hypocrites, never more so than when fear or fear of judgement is involved. We will deny our very selves and turn on those who have the most in common with us, just to save ourselves.

There are of course, other reasons, but fear is a big motivator. Denial is another. And fear and denial can, as we all know, be a great breeding ground for extremist thinking.

Think of those who join extremist cults and their stories and this will be painfully apparent.

So one of the worst things to happen to mentally ill people is … other mentally ill people.

Sad but true. When you think the one person who will ‘get it’ doesn’t, that can really leave you floundering. You may be able to ignore someone who doesn’t get it, but if someone who ‘should’ get it, still doesn’t, that can leave you thinking it really is my fault, it really is something wrong with me.

A bad recipe.

So if you have ever experienced a mental illness and you feel better now – good on you – but spare a thought and better still spare some mercy and empathy for someone who isn’t there yet and may never be.

After all, there are degrees of mental illness, and how bad it gets. There are biological reasons. There are physical reasons. There are emotional and literal reasons. No two people are the same. Some of us by our very DNA are more likely to be addicts, others are more likely to be suicidal. Studies show time and time again, we are not simply bound by the same rules, but our biological legacies. It is literally true that if you have not walked in that person’s shoes you cannot know what they are going through.

If you feel you are stronger than others because you once had a mental illness and now you do not, if you believe you ‘cured’ yourself by sheer will power and effort, and you are ready to condemn and criticise others and tell them that they need to get with the program, consider the above, and hold your tongue. It is one thing to support and encourage, it is quite another to make someone feel that if they just tried as hard as you have, they will not have whatever is wrong with them any longer.

Sadly for many with mental illness it is a recurring, cyclical or intermittent disease that will return. For others it goes away and never comes back. Much of this has to do with the type of mental illness and why it occurred. For example if someone has PTSD from witnessing a brutal attack, the prognosis for them long-term is good, if they did not have a pre-existing condition.

But for someone else with life-long anxiety or depression, being told they should be able to get over it, by someone else who has, but for differing reasons, is counter productive and damaging. It can act as a disincentive, just like the focus on being happy all of the time in our society, can be a thorn in the side of those, who are attempting to just cope with getting out of bed.

We come at things from a myriad of differing directions, lest we forget this, consider long and hard before ever judging, every single time and maybe you’ll find, there is never a good reason (to judge).

Mental Health Month “Mental illness in education”

It may have the same rules and the same applications, but as anyone who has left home to attend a college will testify, college-life is a world of its own. Thus, the usual rules of society are different and that applies to the handling of mental health.

When I first went to college I was surprised at how good the mental health facilities were but I was not in America. Even during post-grad studies in America I was glad there were some mental health facilities for students that were an improvement to what was out there for everyone else.

But that’s just my experience. Since then I have come to see many failings in the provision of mental health resources and support for many students. This includes people of color, foreign students, exchange students, different age students, transgender students, homosexual students, females, males, androgynous students and many more.

By this I mean, one size does not fit all. My own relatively positive experience is not everyone’s.

Girls who report rape on campus, historically were quashed, played down, underreported and asked inappropriate questions. Counselors are often not equipped or trained specifically in sexual assault and sexual trauma, despite that being one of the key reasons a student may seek counseling (exam stress being the number one reason). This goes double for boys who are raped on campus, and transgender students who are raped.

A foreign exchange student unfamiliar with the laws of the land, with their own cultural biases and experiences may not have the kind of emotional support they would get in their country of origin, equally the support may be better.

Stigma and shame are infrequently addressed as leading causes of student drop out rates.

Having taught this age-group I found teachers were picking up the slack and acting as surrogate counselors because of huge cut-backs in school/college/university counselors. It is simply not considered a priority. Example; A local university to me, has cut their counselors from previously 15 to wait for it …. ONE. Yes ONE counselor for the entire student population.

Having academic advisors is equally important as they act as academic counselors, and can also defray some of the potential issues that could turn into mental concerns. Anxiety being the most common symptom reported among students nationally, this dual approach to helping students could reduce drop-out rates but maybe that’s not what universities want? It is known many universities use the first semesters as a form of culling high student bodies, but these are people’s lives? Is that our best approach?

The increasingly difficult and narrow world of work and our work force are causing more and more students to become anxious about what awaits them upon graduation, we cast them out with their degrees and do not offer them any follow-up counseling which they may not be able to afford once they are out of the system. It’s no good patting ourselves on the back for graduating students if we are literally leaving them to sink or swim.

More and more students struggle to pay for increasingly inflated student fees and universities are literally profiting off student accommodation and meal plans, they are becoming real estate magnates owning vast swaths of land that are worth millions and not putting enough investment in the students that make this possible.

Suicide, rape, and the onset of many mental health issues often become apparent during these crucial years away from family often for the first time. It is now that we need to support our young future work force in making the right decisions and helping them with any encroaching mental health issues or we risk having a fall out that will last far longer and cost far more.

Having to personally pay for disability testing as is the case in many universities is wrong because students should not be expected to foot the often prohibitively high costs of disability testing to ensure they are covered by the disability act. This applies to all learning disorders and stress related complaints. For those who believe this is letting students off lightly, ask yourself, what would you do instead? Do you want an uneducated mentally ill workforce instead of one you are trying to help be their very best?

Equally, not everyone should go to university, though all should have the chance, and as such, we should be offering better academic counseling before students enroll at university, because we send them into a system of one size fits all without due regard to individual strengths, interests and needs. Often times someone training in a profession rather than obtaining a degree can earn more and has a more realistic chance of getting a job after they graduate.

Minority students of all walks of life run the risk of isolation, exclusion, racism or prejudicial behavior. Many first time university students whose parents did not go to university have no guidance and can flounder in unfamiliar territory. when I went to a foreign university I had no idea about certain things and it would have helped to have some mentor or guidance for questions.

Finally, resources should include counseling not just medication because we still do not know the long-term effects on the developing brain of strong psychotropic pills.

Students can achieve much of this by petitioning their student council to make this a priority and close the gap between those high functioning students and the attrition rate.

Mental Health Month “Military secrets”

It struck me during a normal day working at a Rape Crisis Center when I got a call from a young woman who was a recent recruit stationed at a local military base. She told me she had reported being raped by her supervisor, it was dismissed and she was told to drop it or lose her military standing and be dishonorably discharged. She didn’t know where to turn.

I ended up seeing her for over a year, during which time we tried to find out how she could circumvent the military ‘establishment’ and obtain some fair treatment with regards to her sexual assault. Sadly we were not successful and her only recourse was to come see me privately and in secret for fear of people finding out in the military. Her rapist was never prosecuted. Some years later a large national scandal erupted concerning the number of new recruits who were being raped and sexually assaulted en mass on US military training bases and how they were being covered up.

This is one way joining the military can provoke a mental health crisis.

A friend’s brother signed up for the Army at 18 and was deployed overseas to Afghanistan. He came back the only survivor of his platoon, injured but relatively physically well, with crushing PTSD. He developed chronic insomnia, anxiety, clinical depression and had a host of issues that had never existed before, among them, survivors guilt. When he sought help through his local VA he was told he had not served long enough to qualify for many things and his only option was a crowded PTSD group for men, he went a couple of times, there was never enough time to talk about things individually and the anger and tension in the room was overwhelming. He never went back and his VA psychiatrist loaded him up on five medications instead. A couple of years ago another scandal rocked the VA for the over-dosing of soldiers and military personnel of medication for mental health issues, with little therapy or other options being given.

I read about a young man who committed suicide after returning from his deployment upon finding his wife had left him for someone else, and being isolated and unable to re-adjust back into society after being ‘in’ so long. He felt he had nothing to live for, and whilst he did have some old buddies from the tours he did, they were scattered. His isolation and PTSD was untreated and eventually he took his own life. Afterward everyone lamented that more had not been done but nobody thought about that when he was alive. The paltry mental health resources through his local VA which was miles away, were insufficient and outdated. Again, excessive quantities of medication was the norm.

This is the reality of mental health for so many of our soldiers and military who return from dangerous tours and find little by way of mental health support in their communities. The bottom line being, we can’t afford it. Yet, the VA manages to afford many other things, so it is more likely that the priority as is the case world-wide, is not on mental health, despite every published known statistic pointing to the relationship between suicide, illness of all kinds and violence and an inadequate treatment of PTSD and other mental health concerns.

Why don’t we fund mental health?

For those in the military this is crucial because they are being used up and spat out only to be over-medicated and forgotten. Young men who have lost limbs and vigor, get extensive physical rehab but next to none by way of mental rehab. Who doesn’t know that if you lose a limb you will need as much mental as physical ‘work’ to get better? What of the VA and their priorities? Happy to dispense medication or operate, but when it’s a malady of the mind, unable to offer further options? Whilst the VA can be a life-saver it is woefully inadequate as a mental health provider.

The chain reaction of this neglect trickles down. Higher rates of divorce, poverty, disability, inability to work, drug-use, alcoholism, spouse abuse, violence, crime, the list goes on.

If we worked at the source of the issue we would not have to spend most of our time trying to chase the consequences. If you solve the problem to begin with, things would not escalate. How much does it really take to offer better mental health services to our returning forces? Apparently this is not a priority, for counselors regularly apply and are turned away, either because they do not fit the narrow qualifications set out by the VA or they are not hiring, despite a burgeoning need! Psychiatrists see so many VA patients in a day they are overwhelmed and unable to be truly responsive (and responsible!) for each individual. Many times they are done via a satellite link and are not even present in the room.

If you had PTSD would you open up and be candid with a person on a screen?

We exult the bravery of those who join up, and we sing the praises of having a VA system, all well and good, but we need to reinforce this when military return from tours or are impacted by issues that lead to mental health just as much as physical health. Equally, the fears people have when raped, of not getting adequate justice through the military system must change, so that anyone no matter their position and the position of their attacker, can seek justice.

If left unchecked, mental health consequences of rape, PTSD and other mental impacts from working in this field, will go on to have a life-long effect on both the affected individual and their family. Many times we do not realize the family bears the brunt of that person’s return to normalcy. How easy is it to return to normalacy after seeing your platoon shot down and die in front of you? Support for the entire system prevents that system from fracturing, causing a myriad of cracks to appear in a previously sound foundation and this ripple effect can be carried through generations. It goes without saying this applies to both genders, and all law-enforcement as well. More, not less, mental health funding could fix this, but we allocate money elsewhere, thinking mental health is ‘optional’ – try telling that to someone who just saw their friends blown up in front of them.

Mental Health Month “the stigma-ism’s”

You can get rid of mental illness by …

believing in God more

working harder

socializing more

going to the gym regularly

quitting bad habits and making good ones

replacing negativity for positive thinking

sucking it up

reducing how often you ruminate

and so the list goes on

The problem with all of the above, whilst absolutely good habits for most of us (bar sucking it up) are, they imply therefore, the sufferer of mental illness is not doing enough to help themselves and ultimately they leave the after taste of judgement.

So how do you strike a balance between helping someone or seeking to help someone with a mental illness and coming across like ‘if only you did this, you would be well’ and thus, not understanding mental illness isn’t a lamp, it doesn’t get switched on and off easily, mental illness isn’t a fad (though it isn’t always life-long either) and (some) mental illness isn’t easy to dismiss with will power alone.

Why do we judge?

Why do we stigmatize?

Have you ever thought about that? What is within most of us that causes us to judge others?

If you really think you have NEVER judged someone unfairly or harshly award yourself the “unlikely” prize!

If you really think you have a right to judge someone else regularly, it’s probably best to stop reading now.

Judging has its place. If someone kills your entire family in front of you, chances are at some point you will judge them and find them guilty. Those who have lost family members to these examples of violence, typically say they have to forgive the perpetrator to some extent to prevent it consuming them, or they have to work through the hate and get to a better place. It is not ‘necessary’ to try to understand why someone would do something so evil, but usually in our effort to understand, our first port of call is judgement.

Why did you do this wrong thing? Why are you the way you are? What is wrong with you?

In the case of the murderer of an entire family I doubt many of us would have an issue with their being judged. That’s where judgement comes in handy. Law and order. Justice.

But what about every day life? Why do we go around judging things all the time thinking we are the judge and jury and even executioner (figuratively speaking) what is it about human beings that makes them relish judging or attracted to judging others?

Is it as simple as being insecure? Putting someone lower than ourselves helps us feel better in a twisted way?

Is it as simple as egocentricism? I know I’m right, therefore if you do the opposite of what I believe, you are wrong?

Is it blind faith? This is my faith and belief, anything you do to contradict it or throw it into doubt, means I will turn on you and condemn you.

Is it a knee-jerk reaction out of not understanding? Condemning what we do not understand?

Is it fear? Fearing we are more alike this person whom we judge than not, and thus, pushing them away by judging them, making it clear we are different so nobody will consider we are also guilty?

I don’t know the answers. What do you think?

What I do know is nobody likes being judged. Sometimes it’s useful or necessary in extreme cases like the one about the murderer, or in small incidences where we help someone learn or grow as a person – but this is more advice-giving than actual outright judgement. Outright judgement tends to have no benefit other than to shame that person. If they are guilty of rape, child abuse, murder, swindling, theft, I don’t have an issue with judging someone guilty and then giving them a consequence depending on the seriousness of the ‘crime’ that’s law and order, but in our society we judge continually in casual ways that we may believe have no lasting impact.

And yet … they often have a life long impact.

Cruelty goes hand in hand with judgement. Often the two are nearly indistinguishable. Mental health can be affected by bullying, judging, condemnation, shame, humiliation, etc. Ask yourself, do you feel judging will help anyone? Will it make anything better? Or is it just your desire?

Ever heard the phrase, you can think it but don’t say it? Sure you have. I’m one who is all for the truth, I would rather someone said something to my face than thought it and kept it quiet, but I’m in the minority, most people seem content to be ignorant of the truth of what someone thinks of them, preferring that they not share the negative assessments/judgements they may have.

Next time you find yourself tempted to say something judging, ask yourself, are you judging because you want to make something better and will that judgement achieve that goal? Or are you judging because YOU CAN AND YOU WANT TO.

Then put yourself in the shoes of the person you are judging.

Sometimes its soooo tempting to want to bring someone down a peg or two. You’ve all met one of those, the people with huge inflated egos who boast and seem unbreakable. Haven’t you been tempted to give them a piece of your mind? Or dent their parachute? At the same time do you really know the egocentrism they display is real? Could it be an elaborate construct and underneath an insecure person hides?

If you have to judge, consider judging those who judge others. If there is anyone ‘deserving’ of being judged it is someone who does it for a living. Next time you hear someone being torn apart, defend them, stand up for them, shame the judger. That’s the best way to use our proclivity for judging, for the benefit of the underdog and others who are picked apart.

Words stay forever. You only have to be told once that you are ugly, worthless, a failure, stupid, to believe it. If that seems weak, look at a childs face when they’re told that by a parent or someone who matters.

Mental Health Month “Suicide”

The first time I was personally touched by suicide, a friend’s mom took her own life, her kids found her in the bath, I heard about it second-hand around the age of eight. I remember thinking how I would feel if I found a family member dead, and I tried to be nicer to my friend whose mom had died. I remember other kids said things about how the mom was selfish for doing it, I didn’t join in, there was even then, a part of me that didn’t see it that way.

The second time I was personally touched by suicide, my grandfather took his own life. He overdosed on Valium and was found the next morning when he hadn’t come down for breakfast. He was an artist and a long time Depressive, but despite that, everyone was shocked that a man still in his prime would consider death a better option. I remember people saying; “What a waste, he was so talented” and “How selfish, he had two children and a wife.” Although I didn’t think it at the time, I now wonder, does that mean it’s not selfish if you have no one? Is it more understandable or acceptable if you are not talented? Again, how things are phrased can stick with you.

At the time I saw my grandmother trying to come to terms with it. She ended up drinking the pain away, and developed an addiction to drinking for many years before she joined a cult and through this new-found sense of belonging quit drinking and became happy once more. Whilst we didn’t particularly like her being part of a cult we were glad for her restored peace of mind, but when I think back on it now, I also think we were relieved, we didn’t have to look in the face of grief anymore, everyone wanted to get on with things.

And that’s the hardest part of suicide, how people cope or do not cope after the fact.

Who is left behind, what fall-out carries on sometimes for generations.

One of the first questions a therapist asks is if anyone in your family has committed suicide, there is a reason for that. People whose family members commit suicide have a far higher risk of committing suicide themselves. Some have postulated whether this is ‘learned behavior’ or ‘permission granted’ or biological/in our DNA.

I can definitely see why people who have relatives who commit suicide would go one of two extremes. They are either going to be the last person to commit suicide, because they know first-hand its fall-out, or they may feel that because someone close to them did, it gives permission for them to follow suit. I can also see how some people are genetically at higher risk because something within their DNA makes it more favorable than for others. This doesn’t seem so very different from say, the God Gene.

There definitely are, as with addicts, two camps, the person who just won’t kill themselves under any circumstances and those who will. We may never quite know why, there may be many factors that go into that, but the people who are ‘at risk’ versus those who are not, are often hard to distinguish because in many ways they may both exhibit the same symptoms.

Many times I hear people say that those who commit suicide are ‘weak’ and ‘selfish.’ I have never thought they were. I see no good coming from condemning someone who was sad enough to take their own life. If we do it to discourage others, well it’s not really working, and whilst I would never advocating encouraging anyone to commit suicide or over-justifying those who do, I see no good in criticizing them after the fact. They made a decision, they chose to do it, who are we to say they are weak?

At the same time, we all hope someone will find the ‘strength’ or conviction to keep living. Nobody really approves of suicide except in extreme cases such as euthanasia for those who are suffering and in agonizing pain. Even then, in America, this is a very divided subject with those against, believing no murder is justified including the taking of ones own life, whilst others, often those who have seen it personally, can attest, some terminally ill people have the right to end their suffering.

So if we look at suicide of ‘healthy’ individuals, where do we place the depressed and the mentally ill on that scale? In some Scandinavian countries there have been people who have petitioned the Government to be euthanized based upon mental-illness. This has sparked outrage among those who believe this is tantamount to murder, and in no way qualifies as a terminal illness. Technically mental illness is rarely terminal although many ways, mental illness accompanies terminal diseases and exacerbates their symptomatology.

But even without being terminal, can mental illness ever be ‘bad’ enough to warrant or justify the taking of ones own life? And if we open that flood gate, how do we close it again?

I don’t claim to know the answer, I’m not sure anyone knows the answer yet but the side of suicide we don’t consider as often, isn’t just prevention or reason(s) behind suicide, but the aftermath.

Another friend of mine lost her mother to suicide. If I had to say, without hesitation I would say she became a more responsible, compassionate person as a result. But that doesn’t negate the extreme pain she still feels with the loss of her mom. Given a choice, every day she would wish for her mom’s return over any compassion she may have. The positives cannot outweigh the negative reality of losing someone you love.

If her mom had been deathly ill maybe she would have held a different view, I have never asked her, but either way, it is hard to imagine being ‘okay’ with someone’s suicide. That said, when Brittany Maynard committed suicide (euthanasia) in Oregon a while back I was profoundly moved by her videos and writing on the subject prior to her choice to end her life. Still very young and with a beautiful family, Brittany was terminally ill and knew in a matter of months she would be in excruciating pain and there was no cure and only awful suffering.

Many people condemned her for ‘taking the easy way out’ or ‘going against the will of God’ but I recall admiring her so much for her resolve and strength. I simply could not imagine making that choice, let alone going through with it. Her family moved to another State where Euthanasia is legal in order to be eligible and she made her plight and story public in an effort to educate people on the right to die. I believe in the right to die in part because of her efforts to show it is not the same as suicide.

With depression and other mental illnesses that are not responsive to treatment, it is not hard to imagine why people can be pushed to the brink and wish to end their lives. Should we consider euthanasia for severe cases of mental illness? Currently I don’t think we should but I recognize I may change my mind as more information becomes available. When I stop and think about living with say, Schizophrenia and other illnesses your entire life, in misery, without respite, and medications not working, I can definitely see why someone may wish to end their life. So why do I hesitate in condoning suicide or euthanasia in those cases?

Maybe because whilst we see mental illness as a disease, it’s not terminal and until something is actually ‘definitely’ going to take your life, we have this belief that there is hope, and we should not end our life based on feeling badly. Is this dismissive? I would say in some instances, yes, because there are chronic pain conditions that may include mental disease, that it could be argued, are as devastating to someone as a terminal illness. Perhaps we should give everyone the ‘right’ to choose if they live or die, and I would agree with this except for a worry that sometimes in certain mind-sets we don’t have the right objectivity to ‘choose’ without bias.

Mental illness is one of those biases. When you are mentally ill you can really see the world through a different lens. If you have not ever experienced that, believe me when I say, one day you can feel hopeful, the next it’s like the color was sucked out of the world and the pain you feel inside is unbearable and often without any cause. When that goes on for a prolonged period of time each day can be agonizing. It is definitely understandable that when people feel this way they may contemplate suicide.

The argument against this is – people typically commit suicide or attempt suicide when they are panicking or have calmly given up (the two extremes) they either panic that they will never feel differently and ‘stop the pain! stop it now! stop it any way you can!’ or they feel reconciled to their fate, they do not believe it will ever change, and so they give themselves permission to let go.

Perhaps that is why the very young and the very old are the two groups most likely to take their own lives.

As mentioned earlier, there are many who no matter how bad it got, would never commit suicide. That isn’t necessarily anything to do with personal fortitude or strength, it may be a genetic proclivity, or several factors, but they often perceive those who take their lives as inexplicable. They cannot and will not understand, and they feel understanding is condoning. I would argue, understanding is NOT condoning it’s understanding. We need more understanding.

Mental illness is not always visible, so we often do not know someone is suffering from it until it’s too late. Signs to look for include giving away what we own, a sudden sense of peace and feeling good, high anxiety and stress and the bequeathing of things previously withheld. Of course that’s not going to ensure you accurately predict whom among us is at risk, because just like in the film 13 Reasons, so many people exhibit signs and so many do not, and that’s no guarantee of anything. Additionally suicide can be a sudden choice, you literally realize in a moment and bam, it’s too late.

One population aside teenagers that I believe will increasingly be at risk for suicide is the elderly. More so because our grandparents social security and pensions were more robust than ours will be with some exceptions. It is simply more expensive to live nowadays and the money we will need to live even relatively well in old age, is often more than we can save and invest. Poverty and loneliness are two of the main reasons the elderly choose to take their lives. The third is illness. This can include mental illness. We sometimes believe the value of a person’s life diminishes with increasing age, but every life should have the same value.

The elderly have less resources than teens and in a way, less hope, because they are ageing toward death, whereas a teen has their entire life ahead of them. Sometimes hastening ones death can seem a good choice, to end suffering, loneliness, worry, financial concerns. The elderly can feel they are a burden, they can feel they are not wanted in our ever busy society that highlights youth. Additionally, are we ready as a society to take care of the many who will devleop dementia, which often carries alongside it, chronic depression? Is loading an eighty year old with heavy duty medications and antidepressants all we can to do help them?

Caregivers of the elderly will also experience mental health issues as a result of the hard work they do. Presently elderly patients are over medicated and have less resources for talk-therapy or other treatments. It is deemed simply easier to stick them on a lot of medications and hope they’ll die than treat their suffering compassionately and with an understanding their lives, however long, still hold value. Is it any wonder then that so many elderly are at risk of suicide and premature death? As long as we judge people based on their economic ‘worth’ and believe the elderly ‘had their time’ we will never improve this and rates of elder-abuse will grow.

So whilst we can do more to look out for people, we will never prevent someone from committing suicide if they are absolutely set on doing so. What we can do is save the ones who do not wish to and need a reason not to. It may seem absurd that anyone should really want to die, but there will always be people who do, they find different ways, they take risks, they drive their cars too fast, they may join a terrorist group. Often very unhappy people choose suicide by proxy, by putting themselves in danger and waiting to see if it will take them.

Suicide and mental health are always going to be interrelated and there is a lot the people around those people can do to prevent a successful suicide, but ultimately the best we can do is not judge those who die, for what possible good comes from that? Sometimes the hardest thing in the world is to try to understand why someone did what they did. Sometimes there is nothing to understand. But with understanding we can learn, whereas if we simply condemn, we learn absolutely nothing.

Mental Health Month “Just die already”

Another blogger is to thank for today’s subject because she wrote a superb piece about what it felt like to have someone wish you dead when you are depressed.

I’m going to carry the subject on and share my own story.

Many times we hear in teen movies when someone has threatened suicide, some awful person say something to the effect of; “Go on then! Just die already!”

But what if that actually happens?

In my story a friend of mine experienced this that. This is his story.

Steven was 15 years old, good-looking, dyslexic and with a disruptive home life he had begun to experience the first signs of clinical depression as he came into puberty and he was turning to marijuana to numb his feelings.

Boys of that age tend not to be very responsive to therapy and this was the case with Steven when his mom took him to talk to someone after he failed most of his exams and began to wear a lot of black. It turned out Steven wanted to be a Goth (Emo) for a while and that led to him being picked on by others, which only exacerbated his feelings.

One may ask; Why choose something that is going to set you further apart from others? But that is exactly what people often do, it’s as if they have to act out how they feel inside, and they often do it unconsciously.

Steven met a girl three years older than him, she was mentally ill (Bipolar) and really beautiful and he had a huge crush on her. They did some drugs together including LSD that he had never tried before. During his ‘trip’ the beautiful girl had sex with him. He wasn’t sure how to feel about this first time, he felt both violated and excited and flattered and then guilty for feeling such opposing feelings. He didn’t really understand what he felt and when he had feelings of upset about it, he would berate himself because he worried it meant there was something wrong with him for not enjoying the experience.

He ended up getting VD (sexually transmitted disease) from her and he had to go to the clinic, his mom found out, his sister found out, even someone at school whom he had confided in, told everyone else and soon he was taunted even more at school. He was treated for it and over it, but the legacy of this carried on, with taunts of “VD Steven” being hurled at him.

Soon afterward Steven tried killing himself, he slit his wrists. He cut them side-ways not downward not realizing this was the less effective method, he bled a lot and ended up in ER where he was stitched up. The nurse was rude to him and made him feel like he was in the wrong for what he did and wasting resources. His mom was hysterical and angry, his father said nothing, his sister told him that he was weak. Two weeks later he returned to school and because it was Summer wore shorter sleeves, others saw his wrists and soon it became known what he tried to do.

Soon the taunts turned to; “Why didn’t you succeed you fucking idiot”

Steven tried an overdose the next time.

Around this time I met him and supported him back to a better place, along with some of his other friends who were not part of the campaign against him. It was his friends who told his parents not to guilt-trip him and explained what had really been going on.

If Steven had not had those friends to this day I believe he would have succeeded in his suicide attempts.

This for me is another example of the clear-cut connection between how people respond to mental illness and / bad situations and how this can push someone already vulnerable to take their own life (or attempt it). Parents should be aware of this and educate other siblings in how to approach the subject where they are not inadvertently making things worse. The best intentions in the world can come out wrong.

It really can save lives and sharing real-stories of real life people who have literally been saved can demonstrate to all of us the importance of how we treat each other. There should never be anything okay about telling anyone, suicidal or not, that their life does not have worth, or that they should go ahead and kill themselves.