Accountability

     Accountability AKA taking responsibility for one's actions. Humans are taught to be accountable by good parents as soon as they're old enough to play with other children. This idea of being responsible for one's actions is one of the big life lessons educators hope their students learn, that ministers hope their parishioners can take to heart, that bosses hope their workers come equipped with, and that mental health professionals hope their clients can grow into. In other words, having accountability is extremely important on a personal and societal level.

    Having accountability is so important, yet, people with mental health conditions aren't always held accountable for their actions, particularly by their loved ones. I get it. It can be difficult for loved ones to navigate the changes that come with the sudden onset of symptoms, the diagnosis, and the subsequent trial and error process of finding the right therapeutic approach and the right medications. So, many times our loved ones will be more lenient with problematic behaviors in an attempt to be understanding while they're waiting to figure out what's going to be most helpful. That can be a good thing as we all need extra compassion, understanding, and leniency from time to time.

    Many times, though, the need to be seen as understanding can go too far. Sometimes, loved ones will make excuses for problematic behaviors and use the mental health condition as the excuse, even after a treatment plan is in place and the adjustment period has long gone. As in, "He hit you because he has bipolar disorder, and he just can't control himself sometimes." Or, "She yelled at you because you touched X, and you know that triggers her OCD." Or, "They only have a substance abuse problem because they have depression, and that's the only way they can cope." I personally know someone who says things like, "Well, you trigger my anxiety and depression, and then I turn into an asshole. That's just the way my symptoms present themselves," because other people let them be this way, and now their mental health condition has become an excuse for poor relationship skills.

    That's...not actually how it works.

    Living with a mental illness IS NOT an excuse to treat people poorly. If someone is treating you poorly and blaming it on a mental health condition, please note that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (AKA the DSM) doesn't list "being a jerk" as a symptom of any mental health condition. I had a professor at university say something along the lines of, "You can't always control how you think or feel in a situation, but you can ALWAYS control your behavior." So, stop making excuses for them, especially if the excuse is their mental health condition. People always have the choice between treating people respectfully or treating people poorly. Accountability isn't supposed to fly out the window in the name of being understanding.

    If someone is having problems in their relationships or problems functioning in society, that person has the option to take responsibility for their actions and address the issue in treatment with their therapist. If they do not address these problem behaviors and work to correct them across all of their relationships, that is a choice, and they chose not be accountable. That person is then choosing to willfully continue that harmful pattern of behavior. That choice had nothing to do with their mental health condition and everything to do with their lack of accountability and lack of care for the people their behavior is hurting.  

    Also, that whole pattern of, "I have a mental illness which basically means that I can be a jerk and pretend that I can't help it," hurts more than just the people in that one person's life. It hurts EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the world that lives with a mental health condition. The mental health stigma already tells society that mentally ill people can't have normal relationships, and so by choosing to treat people poorly and then blaming it on a mental health condition, the person is just allowing that piece of the stigma to become more widely believed and more deeply ingrained in society.

    I'll end with this: Having a mental health condition isn't a free pass to treat people in an unkind way. Yes, trying to be understanding, sympathetic, and lenient when someone is learning how to live with a mental health condition can be a good thing, but when that leniency turns into making excuses for problematic, hurtful, or abusive behavior "because they have a mental illness" that is no longer good. That is enabling, and it helps the other person avoid taking responsibility for their actions. How someone treats other people is always a choice, whether they have a mental health condition or not.