Lots of people blog or write about living with mental health
problems. It is incredibly important. It means that people can understand and
help others, or helps those also with difficulties to process how they are
feeling and to get hope and encouragement.
What people write about less is recovering from mental
health problems and remission.
The first person who used the word remission in this context
was my psychiatrist a couple of years ago. I mentioned it to someone else and
they disparaged the term – claiming it was incorrect and ‘that only applies to
cancer’.
But it is important to recognise that some people do recover
from mental ill-health, when given the right treatment and support. If we don’t
recognise that recovery is possible it can prevent those very people recovering. Mental health problems can be one-off, recurrent or chronic - in exactly the same way that physical health problems can be one-off, recurrent or chronic.
Recovering is not straightforward. For a start, there is the
three steps forwards, two steps back aspect. This is the same with any process
of recovery from an illness. It takes time. And it is not a straight gradient
upwards. It is a bumpy line.
The next difficulty is the elision of problems like
depression and anxiety, on the one hand, and alcoholism or dependency, on the other. People readily make
comparisons which are not necessarily appropriate. They will say things like ‘well, if you
have depression, you always have depression, it is like how an alcoholic is
always alcoholic’. To be fair that is usually followed up with the phrase ‘but
it’s ok’, which comes from a place of care and trying to understand. The truth is that it is not always an accurate comparison! We know, and experts know, that someone
can feel better after depression. There is a life after anxiety or PTSD.
The final difficulty, and this is the stage I currently find
myself in, is that when you recover you are left with the things that happened
when you were unwell. You are left with the memories of all the things that you
said and did while you were unwell. And some of those things may have been
badly out of character.
Take my case – because of the anxiety, PTSD, and extreme
grief following my friend's suicide I became very angry. It is probably better
to call it rage. Because it was more. It was an anger beyond that which someone
would usually feel. It was terrifying and scary. Feeling like that every single day was horrible
and incredibly hard to cope with. Sometimes feeling that rage made me wish that
I could die as well. Just to escape it. But what is even worse is that I couldn’t
always contain that rage. I tried incredibly hard to keep it contained, but when
provoked by things that would make someone feel ‘normally upset’ I lashed out.
And in lashing out I hurt my very closest friend very badly.
For someone on the receiving end of that behaviour it is very
hard to separate out the real person underneath from the illness that is
causing them to react. How can they know the difference or what is going on in the other person's head?
For me looking back on it - it is very painful. To know I said and did things that were 'not me'. They were not part of who I am or who I want to be. They came from a place of illness and deep psychological pain that was almost impossible to process. But I still said and did those things. I still hurt people I care about.
So, I am now left in the aftermath of the hurricane that was
the illness. It has been 6-7 months since the last 'flare up' when things got really bad again. Aside from feeling sad about the past, things are better and I can cope like a 'normal' person.
I am trying to rebuild. As the 'Real Me'. Knowing I have spent 5
years of therapy and medication and hard work overcoming the suicidal ideation
, anxiety, insomnia and the PTSD-induced nightmares and panics. Getting to a point where I can
stand in front of 500 people and be honest about how I have had anxiety and
depression. Knowing that at least now I am in control of my own mind and actions. Choosing how I want to take my life forwards.
And – to be honest – this place that I am currently in is the
loneliest place of all.
