Make it Funny

I use humor as a way to cope with my mental illness. What I mean when I say I use humor to cope with my mental illness is that I make jokes about what my life with mental illness is like. I make jokes about using the CBD products to manage my symptoms. I make jokes about the other management strategies and coping techniques that I pull out of my Mary Poppins-style bag of tools. I also make jokes about the emotions that often come with trying to live my best life in spite of the mental illness like the anger, the frustration, and the impatience. Sometimes, I even try my best to make my intrusive thoughts seem as ridiculous as possible so I can really play up the fact that they aren't based in reality so I can file them away more easily.

It's okay that I am the one making jokes about my life with mental illness. It's not okay when other people make jokes about my life or anyone else's life with mental illness. For me, it's not even really okay when other people repeat my own joke about my mental illness to someone else. It's also not okay for me to make jokes about anyone else's life with mental illness even if they're doing it, but I can laugh with them.

Making jokes about my life with mental illness is a coping strategy because mental illness is a dark, heavy thing to live with, and the moments when I can find something about it to laugh about make it a little lighter and take away a tiny bit of the power that it can feel like the mental illness has over my life. When other people make jokes about someone else's life with mental illness, it usually isn't to help that person cope. It's often at the expense of that person, in an attempt to belittle the fact that they're struggling with something the person making the joke doesn't believe is a real, life-threatening condition. That's why it's okay for mentally ill people to make jokes about their own life with mental illness but it's not okay for other people to do the same thing. 

When I'm making jokes about my mental illness and the way I live my life with it, my intent isn't to cause harm. My intent is to prove to myself that I can find a break in the suffering to laugh. If I can find that one break, then I know I can hang in there because, surely, there will be more breaks in the suffering in which I can find something to laugh about. If I can just survive, one bright moment of laughter at a time during the periods of struggling with my mental illness, then I know that the struggling will eventually end, and I'll be able to find my way back to a happier, healthier place again. 

I feel like I should make a distinction. While I use humor as a coping strategy, I'm not flippant about my mental illness. I still give it the proper seriousness, compassion, and treatment it deserves when required. Humor isn't a replacement for actual treatment, and "laughing off" signs or symptoms of a possible issue with your mental health is not the same thing as using humor to cope with a mental health condition. 

I'll end with this: Using humor is a pretty common way that humans cope with unpleasant things, and a mental health condition is no exception to that coping strategy. Laughing in the midst of the suffering is often the only way people can find the strength and the will to keep hanging in there until they can find their way back to a healthier place. It's okay if someone with mental illness makes jokes about their mental illness and the way they live with it. It's not okay if someone else makes jokes about someone else's mental illness or their life with said mental illness.

I Don't Have the Mental Space for This

Recently, I've had some extra things going on in my life in addition to work, the continued pandemic, and generally living with and managing my mental illness. As a result of those extra things, I've found myself blatantly refusing to take on more things. As an example, recently in a work-related situation, I had to tell someone, "I just can't do this for you. I don't have the mental space to be able to do this right now." I'm also feeling less social most days because I lack the mental space and energy to engage with more people than I'm required to for work. (And, yes, I feel guilty for having to tell people that I don't have the mental space to do what they're used to or what they want me to do even though my therapist is reminding me to make sure I'm being extra kind and compassionate with myself right now.)

A lot of the time, when we have to tell a loved one or anyone else, "I'm sorry, I just don't have the mental space for this right now," the other person feels stung. This is never our intention, but I get it. When we say we don't have the mental space for something it can feel like we're saying, "I don't feel like dealing with you right now." Or, "You're exhausting." Or, "I'm tired of hearing about X, Y, or Z." Or even, "I don't care about your problem."

Despite the fact that saying, "I don't have the mental space for this," is often negatively perceived, we don't mean it as a more polite way of saying any of the things in the previous paragraph. What the statement generally means is that we're feeling overwhelmed with some things that are happening internally, externally, or both at the same time. It can mean that we need to devote all our mental energy to making it to the end of a project for school or work. It can mean that we're using all of our available resources to survive a physical or mental health crisis (maybe ours or someone else's) or a mental health spiral if we have a mental health condition. It can mean that we're exhausted and need to recharge by engaging in extra self-care. Once we've survived what we need to survive or handled whatever it was that was taking up all of our extra mental space, then we'll come back around to help loved ones with the remaining things that we didn't have the space to help with before.

I also feel like I should make sure we all know that saying, "I don't have the mental space for this," doesn't mean we're lazy. It means we're recognizing our limit and doing what we need to do to care for ourselves. Realizing that you can't take something on and then giving yourself permission not to go ahead and pick it up anyway is a healthy response. (And, yes, this is a reminder for me as much as for everyone else.)

I'll end with this: Saying, "I don't have the mental space for this" isn't a more polite way to let someone know that you don't want to deal with them, find them exhausting, or don't care about their problems. Saying, "I don't have them mental space for this" actually means what it says. It means we're overwhelmed with things that are going on internally, externally, or both and we don't have any more room in our minds to pick up any new things that we have to think about or worry about. It's also healthy for everyone to recognize when they've reached their limit and to allow themselves to say, "I don't have the mental space for this right now."

Who Would I Be?

I had an interesting conversation with my therapist a couple of sessions back. It was one of those sessions in which we had talked about my life with mental illness and my identity as a disabled person with cerebral palsy. She asked me, "So, if a magical cure, like a pill or a shot, existed that would completely and permanently cure the cerebral palsy, the OCD, and the panic disorder, would you take it?" She assured me that it was okay if I didn't want the hypothetical magical cure because plenty of people wouldn't want it.

The cerebral palsy and the OCD and panic disorder are the three things that most often make my life significantly more difficult than it needs to be. So, of course I told her I would definitely take a magical cure that could permanently rid me of those three things. I was surprised that some might refuse such a cure for their disability or mental illness. When I mentioned my surprise, my therapist explained that some people would be worried about taking the hypothetical magical cure, especially if they had been disabled or mentally ill for their whole life or most of their life, because they might not know who they were without those pieces of themselves. 

After she said that, I remembered that I used to think that way. For my whole life, I was "the disabled person," and that label stuck with me well into my healing journey in adulthood. Then while I was at my worst with mental illness, and while I was operating in survival mode, being "the mentally ill person" was all that I had the mental space to be. If my cerebral palsy and mental illness would have spontaneously disappeared five years ago, I definitely would have thought, "Wait! Now, who am I supposed to be? That was all I was used to, and it's gone!" Since I was so busy just trying to survive my own mind, which left me no spare mental space or time to nurture any other parts of myself, I definitely wouldn't have known who I was without the cerebral palsy and the mental illness five years ago. Suddenly finding myself without what felt like the BIGGEST pieces of who I was at the time would have been terrifying.

Then somewhere along the way, as I healed and stopped operating in survival mode, I had stopped thinking of the cerebral palsy and mental illness as the biggest things that made me who I was. Over time as I learned to manage my mental illness and finally made peace with the cerebral palsy that I had hated for my entire childhood, I was finally able to free up enough mental space to carve out other pieces of who I was as a person. I intentionally worked on discovering new pieces of myself that weren't related to being "the mentally ill person" or "the disabled person."

When my therapist assured me that it was okay if I was unsure about or definitely didn't want the hypothetical magical cure because I wasn't sure who I'd be without those three pieces of myself, I was able to honestly tell her that I actually didn't feel that way anymore. Because I had worked so hard with her in therapy, I was sure I would still be who I am right now because I had worked hard to intentionally become this person and carve out previously unknown or ignored pieces of myself as I healed. Taking away the things that make my life difficult wouldn't change that because all the new, more important, and bigger pieces that I've found would still be there. (Although, without the cerebral palsy, I might have tried a sport...maybe...)

My therapist seemed pleased with my answer, but that wasn't the point. The point was that I was happy with my answer and that I meant it. I had reached a point in my healing that I no longer thought of my mental illness and cerebral palsy as the biggest pieces that made up who I am or the things that prevented me from becoming who I was always meant to be. I finally saw my cerebral palsy and mental illnesses for what they actually are, just health conditions that I accept and make room for in my life while I discover and nurture other pieces that make up the complete picture of who I am now.

I'll end with this: If difficult things like a disability, mental illness, or trauma have felt like the biggest pieces of who we are for a long time, it can be terrifying to think about the possibility of healing from those things. It can feel like, once those biggest pieces become smaller with healing or treatment, then we'll have to figure out who we are all over again, especially if we haven't had the mental space previously to discover the other pieces of ourselves. But, as you start healing and managing the difficult things that were your biggest pieces, as you free up the mental space, discovering the "new" pieces and allowing them to become bigger than the difficult things can get easier.

Screaming into the Void

 I'm a person who regularly "screams into the void." What that means is that I write this blog, and I occasionally post on social media about my own mental health in the hope that somebody, somewhere out there in the void of the Internet hears something I've screamed and possibly even relates and connects with it so that we both feel less alone with our struggle. Screaming into the void is often the way I process life with mental illness, the trauma of living with mental illness, as well as how I'm thinking and feeling. I find that externally processing some of these things lessens the weight of them for me. 

Recently, I saw someone else screaming into the void as a way to process a traumatic event they had just survived. The person made a series of posts detailing how they reacted to the event while it was happening and how they were thinking and feeling in the aftermath of the traumatic event. I also saw, in the comments among the well wishes, prayers for healing and comfort, and validation of the storm of emotions the person was feeling, that there was a person who had bluntly and unkindly commented what basically translated to, "I've gone through stuff, too, but you don't see me posting about it online. This is a stupid way to process your trauma. You're really just looking for attention and sympathy from strangers on the Internet."

I know that everyone processes trauma differently. Some people prefer to be left alone with their trauma as they deal with it. Some people prefer to talk about it with their support system. Some people write about it as a way to process it, sometimes privately and sometimes publicly by "screaming into the void." None of those options are "attention-seeking" or "just a way to get sympathy." They're all valid ways to process trauma. (Extra tidbit: If you watched Sherlock on BBC, Dr. Watson's therapist asks him about the blog he's supposed to be writing to help him process his time in war.)

Experiencing trauma tends to isolate people. It's hard to talk about our thoughts and feelings about a traumatic event when we feel overwhelmed by them or when we don't really understand why we're thinking and feeling the way we are in the aftermath. Sometimes, screaming into the void is the only thing that keeps us from feeling so alone and feeling like we're drowning in the tidal waves of emotions we're trying to sort through. 

Screaming into the void often feels like a safer, more cathartic way to process trauma because it feels more anonymous than sharing with our everyday support system. When we see someone every day, like friends or family members, they develop these ideas of who we are as people, and they expect us to think, behave, and speak in certain ways that fall in line with that idea of who we are. We know this, so we may be worried about how these people think of us, and we'll probably be worried about shocking, worrying, or disappointing them. This concern for how they see us often leads us to censor ourselves to preserve their positive opinion or prevent disappointment, worry, or judgement. 

We don't have to worry about censoring ourselves if we're screaming into the void to people on the Internet that don't already know who we are. They don't have any preconceived notions about us or expectations for how we'll feel, think, or behave. This sort of distance can allow us to be more honest and more vulnerable than we would be able to be with people we see all the time, sort of like how the airport phenomenon works. 

And, honestly, sometimes it's nice to have a wider reach to connect with other people, especially if we feel like our friends and family might not truly understand something we're going through. With as many humans as there are on this planet, surely somebody can relate to something we've screamed into the void at some point. Maybe they scream into the void, too, saying, "Hey, I feel that same feeling, and it makes it easier to carry knowing someone else feels it, too." Because some things are easier to carry when you know you're not the only person on the planet that has had to carry it and survived. (That's why I always looked for someone else writing online about dealing my same kind of intrusive thoughts whenever a new theme would present.)

I'll end with this: People process trauma differently. Some people sit alone with their trauma. Some people talk it out with their support system. Some people write about it privately in a journal or dairy. Some people "scream into the void" by writing about it online to feel less alone with it. Externally processing trauma isn't attention-seeking or sympathy-seeking behavior. It's a valid way to process that works for some people and not for others. 

It's a Mental Healthcare Issue, Too

*Warning: This post will be political as well as personal. Discussion of Roe v Wade. 

Mentally ill people are considered a vulnerable population. People with mental health conditions are more likely than people without mental health conditions to be victims of crime, including domestic violence and sexual crimes. In addition to that, many people with mental illness live in poverty because their mental health condition prevents them from getting and keeping a steady job. Many people with mental illness are on disability for their mental illness, and they can barely survive on that small monthly check when they have to pay rent, food, and utilities costs. Never mind about paying for medications that aren't covered by insurance if they even have insurance, a car with car insurance, or a cellphone. Many mentally ill people are so unwell that they can barely take care of themselves, let alone another human being.

I am a mentally ill person. For the rest of my life, I will be a mentally ill person. Now, I may have reached a point in my treatment that I can live alongside my mental illness without fighting it every day of my life, but I do still have some periods in which my mental illness severely affects my ability to function at my usual level. Keeping my mental health in a place where I have more good days than bad days is like a full-time job for me, and it's the kind of full-time job that I can't really slack off of or take a vacation from. 

I am also a person that does not want children...at all...ever...even under "ideal" circumstances for a lot of reasons that I won't go into detail about in this post. I did not make that decision lightly. I did not make that decision because I'm irresponsible, immature, selfish, lying to myself, too feminist, or any other stereotype that seems to be tossed at people who choose not to have children. I made the decision because being childfree is the best choice for me, my life, and my mental health.

Not only would having children be bad for my mental health because I would be trying to make myself fill a role that I felt I wasn't meant for, but I also already live with two clinically diagnosed mental health conditions. Treating, managing, and living healthily with those conditions takes a significant chunk of my internal resources. Parenting a child properly takes practically all of a person's internal (and in many cases all of a person's external) resources as well. So, when I consider the resources that I have and my mental health in thinking about whether I could adequately parent a child without my mental health or the child suffering, my answer is: NO, I COULD NOT DO IT. Yet, I could end up being forced to since I live in state with very strict abortion laws.

I know my story isn't unique. Plenty of people list mental illness as a reason that they have for choosing not to have children. Many people recognize that they don't have the internal and/or external resources to properly care for a child AND themselves. Many people don't want a child to suffer through growing up with a parent that has a mental illness that would interfere with parenting and/or don't want to subject a child to a genetic predisposition to a mental illness that would make life more difficult for them. In addition, many psychotropic medications (the medications used to treat mental health conditions) can cause birth defects, which can make babies unable to survive outside the womb or, if they do survive, they may be a child that needs expensive care or surgeries that someone who lives in poverty because of their mental illness wouldn't be able to afford. 

Since Roe v Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, many states, including the state that I live in, have laws that will go into effect banning abortions in almost all cases. There are no exceptions for rape or incest in my state's ban. There are also no exceptions for birth defects in the fetus in my state. There IS an exception for the health of the mother, but it only applies if the mother's life is in danger or if a major bodily function would be irreversibly damaged. As you can guess, mental health is not included under the exception for the health of the mother. 

States like the one where I live already don't think of abortion as healthcare unless the person who is pregnant is teetering on the edge of death. So, of course, they completely ignore that abortion is a part of mental healthcare as well. For me, it doesn't seem that farfetched to be concerned that many people with mental health conditions will be forced to stop taking the psychotropic medications that literally save their lives once it's medically confirmed that they are pregnant because the fetus is already considered more important than the person carrying it, according to the coming law in my state.

With laws like these, we'll likely see an increase in suicide among mentally ill people who find themselves pregnant and can't access abortion and can no longer take their medications because they don't want to cause damage to the child they'll now have to raise. We'll see more children neglected and some actively harmed because they live with a parent who can't care for them because of a mental illness. We'll see more children who had the misfortune to be born with a genetic predisposition to mental illness left in foster care until they age out of the system because people don't want to adopt children with "red flags" like a family history of mental illness or possible birth defects. Those "unadoptable" children will grow up to be traumatized adults who will also need access to mental health services because the foster care system isn't actually the kid-friendly system people think it is. 

Forcing more children to be born to people who don't have the ability or the resources to care for them isn't saving children. It's creating more children that will end up suffering. (And no, having a child more than likely won't be the thing that saves a mentally ill person from their illness. It doesn't work like that.) It'll actually create yet another crisis in mental health and even more of a strain for agencies like the Department of Human Services and Child Protective Services.

I'll end with this: Safe, legal and easy access to abortion isn't just healthcare, for many people it's also mental healthcare. If people with mental health conditions are barely surviving to care for themselves, expecting them to care for another human being that is completely dependent on them for survival is only going to be a stress that can exacerbate their mental illness. In fact, forcing anyone to live a life that they feel they can't sustain and be healthy, or that they feel isn't true to who they are, is going to have mental health consequences for them and the child they're going to be forced to care for.

What's the Point?

Currently, no cure for mental illness exists, but mental illness is treatable and manageable. This means that once a mental illness shows up in a person's life, they'll likely be dealing with the symptoms of that mental illness for the rest of their life, even if they go to therapy, take their medications, and do everything they're supposed to do to manage it. This reality of mental illness can lead a lot of people to think, "If it's not even curable, and I'm going to continue to experience symptoms with treatment, then what's the point of getting treatment at all?"

I know, it's really hard to hear that an unpleasant condition is now going to be a thing that you have to make room for in your life instead of a thing that you can get rid of completely. I know it's discouraging to hear that you can do everything "right" and still experience symptoms that interfere with your life. I've been there, and I've felt all the emotions that go along with that realization. I will still tell you that treating and managing your mental illness is worth it, even though it won't be cured. 

Calling life with a mental illness, particularly an undiagnosed and/or untreated mental illness, unpleasant is an understatement. Life with an undiagnosed and/or untreated mental illness is a miserable existence for most of us, and the longer a mental illness goes untreated the worse it tends to get until we reach a point at which we're no longer actually living; we're just...here, drowning in an invisible ocean of misery and barely surviving hour by hour. 

So, what's the point of treating and managing your mental illness if it can't be cured? The point is simple: you deserve it. You deserve to live a life that is made up of more than drowning in the invisible ocean of misery that your mental illness has created. You deserve to live as fully, as healthily, and as happily as you possibly can alongside your mental illness. You deserve the healing that happens as you learn to manage your mental illness and live peacefully with it. You deserve the treatment to be able to get to that place. 

Yes, the mental illness and its unpleasant symptoms will still be there, but your relationship to it and the amount it affects your life will change over time with proper treatment. The treatment and the management techniques make the mental illness less difficult to carry so that you're aware of it but it's not a thing that you're drowning in ALL THE TIME anymore. Bad days will probably still happen, but with treatment and mental health management, the bad days can become more spaced out and a little easier to recover from when they do happen. Treating and learning to manage your mental illness makes life a little easier to live, even with the bad days. 

 

I'll end with this: The reality of mental illness is that it can't be cured. It can only be treated and managed, which means symptoms are going to come and go, even when someone does everything "right" to treat and manage the illness. This reality often leads people to wonder, "Well, what's the point of treatment if I'm just going to keep having symptoms anyway?" The point is that life with an untreated mental illness is miserable, and you deserve to live a life that is filled with more than the misery created by your mental illness. You deserve to heal and to live as fully, healthily, and happily as you can with your mental illness, and treatment and management can help you along that path.

Trending: Mental Health Stigma

Recently, I've noticed people on social media, especially Twitter, saying something that seems to be a sort of slang that goes a little too far, especially when I think about the fact that we're still dealing with a heavy layer of mental health stigma as a society. Lately, I've been seeing people mention a personality trait, habit, or behavior and then say, "that's mental illness" as a way to emphasize that they don't like whatever the trait, habit, or behavior is. Not only are statements like those judgmental and unkind, but they also keep the mental health stigma alive and well. 

The knee-jerk reaction to my assertion about the mental health stigma related to the above-mentioned statements might be to think that I'm just nit-picking. People might roll their eyes and think, "Oh, come on. It's just the newest trend in harmless Internet speak. It'll pass soon enough." You might be right that the trend will pass relatively quickly, but it probably won't pass before somebody in your friend group or family who quietly lives with a mental illness is negatively affected by it.

Statements like the ones I mentioned above turn neutral terms like "mental illness" and "mentally ill" into an insult. When terms like "mental illness" and "mentally ill" are used to convey a dislike of annoying habits or even some problematic behaviors, then being annoying or a "problematic person" can become another generalization about or even another stereotype of mental illness. Once a generalization like that becomes thought of as common knowledge and a stereotype like that makes its way through society, then all people with a mental health condition start being thought of as an annoying and/or problematic person just because they have a mental illness, which can make things like entering into and maintaining a relationship or even finding employment even more difficult when or if they disclose the mental health condition. This extra layer of difficulty can lead even more people to refuse to get a diagnosis and treatment because they don't want to have to deal with the negative assumptions that society will make about them.

Using terms like "mental illness" and "mentally ill" as an insult is hurtful on a deeper level as well. Calling something like a habit or a behavior a mental illness just because you don't like or agree with it trivializes the struggle and pain of living with an actual mental illness. When words like "mental illness" and "mentally ill" start getting thrown around to mean or describe anything less than the actual, diagnosable conditions that take people's lives, the whole concept of mental illness can be seen as less serious than it should be. The mental health stigma already tells society that mental health conditions aren't real health conditions; we don't need slang on the Internet to play up that idea and make it even harder to fight that piece of the stigma.

I'll end with this: I know trends and slang change quickly, especially on the Internet. However, just because things like that come and go relatively quickly doesn't mean that they don't hurt people even after the words and their "updated" meanings have changed or faded from use. The words we use and the way we speak to and about other people matter. Calling something a mental illness that you don't like or agree with isn't only judgmental and unkind; it also helps the mental health stigma maintain its hold in society and makes life that much more difficult for people with actual mental illness.