Reframing Brokenness

    I recently had a friend that also lives with a mental health condition ask me if I thought we (those of us with mental health conditions) were doomed to be broken forever. I haven't stopped thinking about her question ever since she asked. 

    Feeling like you're permanently broken is, quite possibly, one of the worst feelings in the world. I vividly remember what it was like when I felt like I was irreparably broken. I remember being so sure that no one would ever be able to "fix" me. I remember feeling more alone than I've ever felt in my entire life. That was a time in my life when I thought it would be a divine act of mercy if I didn't wake up the next morning. It honestly breaks my heart to think that other people feel the way that I felt a few years ago.

    I even told my therapist that I was "too broken". She was quick to ask me something along the lines of, "If a friend told you they had OCD, depression, anxiety, PTSD, or any other kind of mental health condition, would you think they were broken?" I answered that, of course, I would never think that about them. Then she asked me, "What makes you different? Why do you think you're broken if they aren't?" I sat there in silence because I didn't have an answer. The real answer is this: Unwell brains lie, my friends. 

    I understand that it might be hard to believe me or anybody else when they tell you that you aren't broken. On my worst days I still fight with that lie. On my worst days, in the middle of a panic attack or an OCD obsessive loop, it's so easy to believe the lie and just accept my fate to be permanently broken and to get lost in the darkness and the hopelessness that belief brings. I understand that just accepting the lie as truth is a whole lot easier than the work it takes to haul ourselves back from the edge. I understand that it's easier to let yourself feel broken than to have hope (and then face the possibility of that hope being snatched away) that you might not actually be broken. It's also hard to let go of the idea that you're broken when you've lived with that belief as a piece of who you are for too long, as we often see with those of us that live with an undiagnosed and/or untreated mental health condition. 

    Mental illness does not equal brokenness, no matter what our unwell brains tell us. Having a mental health condition just means that I have a chronic health condition that affects the chemicals in my brain. Like all other chronic health conditions like diabetes and autoimmune disorders, my chronic health condition (AKA my mental health conditions) need assessment, proper treatment, and symptom management. It's a lot easier, in my mind, to live with my mental  health condition and to show myself compassion since I've stopped viewing it as the thing that makes me broken because viewing my mental health condition as the thing that makes me broken has the potential to make me hate my mental health condition and myself. Instead I view it for what it actually is...a chronic health condition that affects my brain.

    I'll end with this: If you're brain is telling you that you're broken it's lying, I promise. There is actually hope with proper treatment and a whole lot of compassion for yourself. Your mental health condition isn't some defect that makes you broken, it's a chronic health condition that affects your brain chemicals just like other "invisible" chronic health conditions affect other areas of the body.