On Mental Health

I read not too long ago an article by Wil Shipley, entitled ‘On Being Crazy‘, in which he discusses obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression, and it kind of hit home for me. I’m fortunate in that the challenges I face aren’t as potent as those Wil describes having, but there’s an aspect of it which I can relate to, and a lot of points he makes with which I agree.I was speaking to a friend of mine the other day who is having some problems. Truth be told, he’s always seemed like there was something bothering him, something ‘wrong’, and it’s made all the worse by the fact that he’s a great guy, kind, caring, and incredibly clever and insightful. I’d easily count him among my few best friends, and truth be told, he’s always felt like more of a brother than a friend.

We were speaking the other day about his issues, and I suggested that he speak with someone about them, and this is where it gets complicated because it’s a hard thing to do without coming across completely wrong. You see, people don’t want to be ‘crazy’. They don’t want to be ‘weird’ or ‘broken’ or any of a thousand other negative adjectives. There’s a stigma attached to mental health that people have a lot of trouble getting around, and no one wants to talk about it or confront it.

Most people that I know who have mental health problems don’t want to talk to anyone about them. They don’t want to cross the line from ‘personality quirk’ to ‘mental health issue’, because they think that if they do, that makes them crazy. Only crazy people take pills, right? Only crazy people need medication to function normally in society. So since they’re not crazy, and don’t want people to think they’re crazy, they convince themselves that that’s not what it is. It’s just a personality quirk, and if they work hard enough, try hard enough, and just smile whenever they can, they can become a better person, they can ‘fix’ what’s wrong and everything will be ok.

My friend expressed a longstanding concern that taking psychoactive drugs changes who you are. It’s a feeling I’ve heard expressed many times, and my response is always the same – it’s the issue at hand, the depression, the anxiety, the panic, that changes who you are. It gets in the way of you being you, it prevents you from living your own life. You become beholden to this problem, waking up in a panic, grinding your teeth in your sleep, or swinging wildly from one emotional extreme to the next.

I liken it to a physical disability, such as losing an arm. It changes you, it changes how you act and how others perceive you. It changes how you’re able to deal with the world, and how the world can deal with you. Getting a prosthetic arm isn’t the same, not entirely, but it gives you back a lot of what you’ve lost. You can carry things, you can wave to people, you can sort through your change without dumping it on the table. You can get back a large part of what made you who you are, by getting rid of what’s preventing you from being yourself.

The important thing to understand is that there’s a difference between having a mental health issue and being ‘crazy’. Crazy, to me, implies that you are unaware of your surroundings, incapable of comprehending what’s around you. The homeless guy staggering down the street shouting at someone who isn’t there about his yogurt baseball is crazy. The cute girl that you see in the elevator every day, the one who takes one pill in the morning and one pill at lunch so that she doesn’t have to deal with crippling anxiety all day, is not crazy.

When I was in my teen years, I felt pretty bad about myself. I wasn’t able to finish anything, I couldn’t concentrate on a project long enough to follow through. I couldn’t pay attention in class, and when I tried to get anything done, even a fun project that I enjoyed, I was never able to finish. It became so bad that eventually, I wouldn’t even try anything. I’d get an idea for a neat project, but put it aside. I wouldn’t bother to learn new things, because I could never use them. I felt like I was useless, like I would never amount to anything and I would always be the pathetic failure that I knew I was.

For ten years, I felt that way – that I wouldn’t accomplish anything, that I didn’t deserve to have anything good happen to me because I couldn’t even put in a little effort to show I wanted it. Then one day, I came across something on Wikipedia that described me better than even I knew myself. It told me how I felt depressed and useless, how I could never do anything or follow through on a project. It described how I would avoid committing to anything because of a crippling fear of failure, and how, night after night, I would just get more and more depressed about feeling worthless.

The something that I came across was the Wikipedia article on adult ADHD – specifically the section on inattentive ADHD (vs. hyperactive ADHD). When I read that, it was like a revelation. All this time, I had thought there was something inherently, irreversibly wrong with me, that I had some monumental character flaw that I was born with, an inherent loserishness I couldn’t surpass no matter how hard I tried. This page, however, described me in exact detail, and, more importantly, described a (possible) solution – stimulants. Stimulants change the way the brain works, accelerating the production of hormones that regulate the brain’s ability to pay attention. More production = more attention. Sure enough, I started to realize that I was only truly productive when I was drinking energy drinks.

The revelation wasn’t that I had ADD. The revelation was that it wasn’t me that was broken. Sure, my brain didn’t work quite right, but that’s largely a mechanical problem. My eyes don’t work quite right either, but I don’t get depressed about wearing glasses – and why would I? I can see how many other people need them. There’s no stigma attached.

Are you having a problem, or is someone you know? Do you feel broken, or feel like there’s something wrong with you, like you can’t behave the way you’re supposed to? Do you feel anxious all the time, or nervous, or swing wildly from one emotional extreme to the other? Do you feel sad or depressed all the time, like nothing’s ever gone right and never will? And most importantly, do you feel that you can’t talk to anyone because they wouldn’t understand?

There are people who will understand. Maybe those people aren’t your parents or your friends or your coworkers, but that doesn’t mean you’re alone. There are people with problems that you can talk to, and they do know what you’re going through and how it feels. More importantly, they can help you get your life back on track, and help you deal with the problems you have. A lot of people have issues, large or small, but regardless of how mine compare to yours or yours compare to Wil’s, we still understand what you’re going through, and we’re not going to judge you for it.

If you can muster up the courage (and believe me, it’s tough), speak to your doctor about it. I know it’s hard, and it took me years to do, but if you can, do it. If you can’t, and believe me there’s no shame in that, then drop me a line. Post an anonymous comment, friend me on Twitter or Facebook, and I can help show you that it’s not impossible to get your life back.