I was recently discussing the new film Split with someone. (Split is an M. Night Shyamalan movie that just came out, and the main character is a man with Dissociative Identity Disorder, AKA Multiple Personality Disorder that kidnaps some young ladies. They have to try to escape the "bad guy" personality before he murders them. Apparently, one of his personalities doesn't even appear to be human anymore.) I mentioned that I didn't like it when movies like that made the villain a person with a mental health condition. (I haven't seen this movie for that reason, and also because I don't watch scary movies. I did do some research on it.) Right after the trailer for the movie came on TV, the person says in a matter of fact tone, "Well, it is proven that almost all serial killers have Multiple-Personality Disorder."
Just because we saw that movie trailer, that person was sure enough in their incorrect assumption to remark that serial killers had Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) because the person saw that the character had a bad guy alter/personality. That thinking right there is why I don't like it when horror movies, or any movies, really, make up a person with a mental health condition as a villain. (I'm not talking about movies that are based on true stories of someone with a mental health condition, just the made up, horror, thriller, or suspense movies with the main purpose of creeping out the audience.) Movies like that tend to get things wrong, and by making a person with a mental health condition the villain, such movies only add to the already stifling mental health stigma. Just so we're clear, people with DID are not likely to have a "psychopath"/ "sociopath"/murderer personality just because their personality has fragmented, possibly as a result of some kind of trauma.
I'm not sure what made that person arrive at that conclusion, but I don't doubt that the movie at least cemented or confirmed their idea. I will admit that I got irritated that this new movie may be giving people a negative idea of people with DID. I may have also gotten a little bothered by the fact that, just because they saw a movie about something, they somehow had arrived at the idea that it must be accurate to be in a movie. I attempted to educate them a tiny bit instead, in the hope that they wouldn't be going about life thinking that all people with DID could be serial killers or criminals or bad people.
I informed them that their statement wasn't, in fact, proven. I did point out that according to my psychology teachings and my therapist, that the people most likely to blatantly disregard rules and social mores, to view people as objects instead of human beings, and to lack a sense of empathy and/or guilt were those with Anti-Social Personality Disorder, which is nothing like DID. (Example: Think of someone who repeatedly steals just because they want something, and then that person doesn't feel any guilt or remorse for breaking the law. A serial killer with EXTREME Anti-Social Personality Disorder that comes to mind here is Charles Manson.) I am in no way saying that everyone with Anti-Social Personality Disorder is a serial killer like Charles Manson, I'm just stating that, generally, people with Anti-Social Personality Disorder tend to be the people that don't care if they break rules or sometimes laws to do/get whatever they want. People living with Dissociative Identity Disorder are not the same as people living with Anti-Social Personality Disorder, and living with either doesn't absolutely mean that a person is going to be violent.
I couldn't help but to think about people that have Dissociative Identity Disorder in real life after this movie. Imagine how they may have felt, knowing some murderous villain in a scary movie is supposed to have the very same condition that they live with everyday. (I wouldn't want someone to make a movie in which a person murders his whole family or somebody else because he has OCD, even though that idea would be EXTREMELY UNLIKELY and EXTREMELY FAR-FETCHED.)
Has this movie made people with Dissociated Identity Disorder feel bad or worse about their mental health condition? Are they now going to feel more concerned than before that people are going to treat them differently or even avoid them because of how DID was depicted in a movie? Is that movie going to make them feel ashamed of their condition because it blew it up and distorted it so much that the person was literally shown as a monster? Are people going to call them too sensitive for being bothered by the fact that their mental health condition was used in a movie to frighten people? How many times are people with DID going to have to have "the talk" with people when they say something like, "Oh, like in Split?"
These things could happen as a result of movies like Split, because, even though their sole purpose is just to creep out a theater full of people, movies like this also further the stigma surrounding mental health conditions (even when they make something up, like a monster-like alter/personality). The movie still used a very real mental health condition to create a monster that people should be scared of. The movie blew a very real mental health condition up into something fictitious, that isn't a real thing anymore, like it was okay to take real suffering and make something silly from it for entertainment.
I'll end with this: I know movies and shows like this are everywhere, and I know these movies or shows don't have the intention of adding to the stigma surrounding mental health. I know furthering the stigma is sort of an accidental by-product of the popularity of the movies or shows, but that still is no excuse for the people the mental health stigma harms. We should all think critically of the things the media shows us about mental illness instead of just taking everything in without question. If you want to know something about a mental health condition, don't rely on pop culture. Do some research through the National Institute of Mental Health or ask someone in the mental health field to help you. If you think people with mental health conditions are too sensitive to the things like movies such as Split, ask yourself, if this movie made a spectacle of something like cancer, AIDS, or something like autism or cerebral palsy, would I be just as okay with that as I was with a movie making a spectacle of a real mental health condition?
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Keeping Up
While I was in college, after I chose a career path for myself, I gave myself a set of goals and a timetable by which to accomplish those goals. Within three years after my college graduation, I wanted to have a writing career off the ground, a photography business on the side, and maybe a boyfriend. That was the timeline in which I knew most of my peers would be finishing up graduate school and finding cool jobs. I even finished my first novel just a year after graduation.
Then something I hadn't carved out time for in my schedule of life events occurred, and my original timetable was chewed up and spit back out. I got hit fast and hard with a debilitating amount of anxiety like I had never experienced before. With my anxiety disorder diagnosis, my life was derailed. Every goal I had for myself took a backseat to my mental health, and new mental health goals were scrawled on the remaining pieces scrap paper, to like to get my anxiety under control so that I wouldn't cry every day when my mom had to leave me to go to work.
During that time, I found myself unable to work on a new book. I couldn't concentrate, and when I could, none of the words that came felt like the right words, so I would delete and start again. I couldn't even remember to contact literary agents about representation for my first book. It seemed like the only thing I was capable of was trying to make it through each day and looking for something, anything that might help me get my brain back to a healthy place again. My career life and my daydreams of an actual love life halted as working through OCD became a primary goal.
Suddenly, I realized that life had continued to move on while I felt like I was frozen in place. My peers finished graduate school and started interesting and fulfilling careers while I hadn't wracked up any publishing credits or started a successful photography business. There I was, suddenly closer to 30 than to 20, with nothing objectively successful accomplished, terrified I would never be able to write another word after my first book, all because of an anxiety disorder that got out of control.
I felt like I was behind in life, like I had fallen drastically behind my peers. I was no longer in the same place in life as all my friends. I had no fancy career in the works like they did. I had no serious relationship like most of them did. I had no graduate degree like some of them did. I wondered if I failed at life. I wondered if I had made the wrong choices and wasted valuable time that I could have been accomplishing great things, like everyone else I had graduated college with. I didn't think I could ever catch up and accomplish the things I wanted at the rate I had been going for the past couple of years.
Here's the thing that I realized after this mini-crisis about keeping up with my peers: Priorities and goals change as circumstances change. My circumstances were suddenly vastly different than the circumstances of my peers. That meant my priorities and my goals changed to reflect that. I suddenly found myself on a different timetable than the people I had graduated college with. Sure, I wasn't accomplishing the same things as my peers, but I was accomplishing things on the detour I had taken, like talking myself down from a panic attack, being able to be alone again. Starting this blog also became a new priority of mine instead of only writing fiction because dealing with the mental health stigma was a new priority of mine, and helping people feel like they weren't alone on their mental health journey was a new goal.
I realized that I wasn't behind in life or failing at life. I had just reorganized my priorities. My mental health was number one on the list, writing was number two, getting published was number three, and my love life came in somewhere near the bottom. Each priority seemed like a stepping stone of goals to the next priority. Plus, I could accomplish more things if I had a healthy brain to better deal with the stress of trying to accomplish something.
I realized that I didn't need to compare myself to my peers. I don't need my accomplishments to match anyone else's accomplishments. I have different circumstances, priorities, and goals than Suzie down the street, so why would I look at her with her job and her life and think I needed to have the same accomplishments that she has? That would be silly. It's okay if your best friend wants to go to medical school while you want to get a BA in Photography and travel the world for a year. You wouldn't compare your life to theirs, and then feel bad because they achieved a medical honor that came with a plaque while you won a photography competition that came with a ribbon, right?
My life is my own to stroll and stumble through at whatever pace I choose. Sure, I had to take a detour that I didn't like, but I still managed to accomplish different things while I was on that mental health detour. I even realized some new goals, and I accomplished them in a way that I never expected. I'm not behind just because strangers can't objectively see the most recent thing I've accomplished. I'm also not failing at life simply because I found myself on a different timetable than I imagined for myself. There is no rule written in stone that tells me what I should have accomplished by the time I'm 30.
I'll end with this: You are under no obligation to keep up with your peers. If you feel like your mental health condition is keeping you from accomplishing things, just look for your small victories. Did you manage to get out of bed and eat something during a rough patch with depression? Did you manage to go out with friends even though you were worried your anxiety would ruin an outing? Then you've accomplished something, and that small something is one tiny stepping stone to accomplishing other things. You aren't failing at life if a mental health condition derailed your plans for your life for a little while. There is no rule that says you have to accomplish certain things by a certain age. Just move forward one stepping stone at a time, and feel proud of each step.
Then something I hadn't carved out time for in my schedule of life events occurred, and my original timetable was chewed up and spit back out. I got hit fast and hard with a debilitating amount of anxiety like I had never experienced before. With my anxiety disorder diagnosis, my life was derailed. Every goal I had for myself took a backseat to my mental health, and new mental health goals were scrawled on the remaining pieces scrap paper, to like to get my anxiety under control so that I wouldn't cry every day when my mom had to leave me to go to work.
During that time, I found myself unable to work on a new book. I couldn't concentrate, and when I could, none of the words that came felt like the right words, so I would delete and start again. I couldn't even remember to contact literary agents about representation for my first book. It seemed like the only thing I was capable of was trying to make it through each day and looking for something, anything that might help me get my brain back to a healthy place again. My career life and my daydreams of an actual love life halted as working through OCD became a primary goal.
Suddenly, I realized that life had continued to move on while I felt like I was frozen in place. My peers finished graduate school and started interesting and fulfilling careers while I hadn't wracked up any publishing credits or started a successful photography business. There I was, suddenly closer to 30 than to 20, with nothing objectively successful accomplished, terrified I would never be able to write another word after my first book, all because of an anxiety disorder that got out of control.
I felt like I was behind in life, like I had fallen drastically behind my peers. I was no longer in the same place in life as all my friends. I had no fancy career in the works like they did. I had no serious relationship like most of them did. I had no graduate degree like some of them did. I wondered if I failed at life. I wondered if I had made the wrong choices and wasted valuable time that I could have been accomplishing great things, like everyone else I had graduated college with. I didn't think I could ever catch up and accomplish the things I wanted at the rate I had been going for the past couple of years.
Here's the thing that I realized after this mini-crisis about keeping up with my peers: Priorities and goals change as circumstances change. My circumstances were suddenly vastly different than the circumstances of my peers. That meant my priorities and my goals changed to reflect that. I suddenly found myself on a different timetable than the people I had graduated college with. Sure, I wasn't accomplishing the same things as my peers, but I was accomplishing things on the detour I had taken, like talking myself down from a panic attack, being able to be alone again. Starting this blog also became a new priority of mine instead of only writing fiction because dealing with the mental health stigma was a new priority of mine, and helping people feel like they weren't alone on their mental health journey was a new goal.
I realized that I wasn't behind in life or failing at life. I had just reorganized my priorities. My mental health was number one on the list, writing was number two, getting published was number three, and my love life came in somewhere near the bottom. Each priority seemed like a stepping stone of goals to the next priority. Plus, I could accomplish more things if I had a healthy brain to better deal with the stress of trying to accomplish something.
I realized that I didn't need to compare myself to my peers. I don't need my accomplishments to match anyone else's accomplishments. I have different circumstances, priorities, and goals than Suzie down the street, so why would I look at her with her job and her life and think I needed to have the same accomplishments that she has? That would be silly. It's okay if your best friend wants to go to medical school while you want to get a BA in Photography and travel the world for a year. You wouldn't compare your life to theirs, and then feel bad because they achieved a medical honor that came with a plaque while you won a photography competition that came with a ribbon, right?
My life is my own to stroll and stumble through at whatever pace I choose. Sure, I had to take a detour that I didn't like, but I still managed to accomplish different things while I was on that mental health detour. I even realized some new goals, and I accomplished them in a way that I never expected. I'm not behind just because strangers can't objectively see the most recent thing I've accomplished. I'm also not failing at life simply because I found myself on a different timetable than I imagined for myself. There is no rule written in stone that tells me what I should have accomplished by the time I'm 30.
I'll end with this: You are under no obligation to keep up with your peers. If you feel like your mental health condition is keeping you from accomplishing things, just look for your small victories. Did you manage to get out of bed and eat something during a rough patch with depression? Did you manage to go out with friends even though you were worried your anxiety would ruin an outing? Then you've accomplished something, and that small something is one tiny stepping stone to accomplishing other things. You aren't failing at life if a mental health condition derailed your plans for your life for a little while. There is no rule that says you have to accomplish certain things by a certain age. Just move forward one stepping stone at a time, and feel proud of each step.
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