Opening up about being mentally ill

[Faith No More]

One of the biggest problems with cultural perceptions mental illness is that there are not enough people willing to be the face of mental illness.   The stigma associated with mental illness makes it hard for someone to stand up and say, "I am mentally ill."

Well, I've always wanted to change that and inspire other people to do the same.  I've never done anything like this, but I figured this would be a good place to start.  I've put a picture of myself along with a journal entry I just wrote to kind of personalize the whole thing and kind of give you a glimpse as to what I experience, while also giving you a face to put with it, in order to say "damn the stigmas, this is who I am and what I deal with."  

So I was kind of looking for suggestions or feedback from people here.  The journal entry is slightly long, so the TL;DR is I don't feel well.   Please take a look and let me know what you think about it, and hopefully others will be inspired to do something similar somewhere in their lives.

P.S.  It's just a first draft, so don't focus too much on the sub-par writing.

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                             My name is Chris and I am a face of Mental Illness




    My Brain chemicals are at it again.  Just when you think you've got them under control, depression sneaks up and settles in, passively at first, of course.  Then after the proper prompting from the outside world, depression takes the reins and gives you an unsolicited reminder of all the old feelings you had tucked away safely in the back of your mind.  Depression then gives you a face to face with those old feelings, those same ones you've diligently spent trying to prevent for the last several years.

    So here I am, several years later, experiencing a dark part of the ongoing crisis that is my life and trying desperately to figure out who I am.  I used to be so full of hope and aspirations.  First and foremost, I was dying to become a writer when I was younger, but I had aspirations in other things like music and art as well.  At the age of 36, it's as if life has worn all that out of me, and having each day feel as if I am just treading water has robbed me of those aspirations.  I can' even muster the energy to type anything out.

   Which brings me to this.  My weeks and weeks of misery have left me no choice but to purge my thoughts onto this goddamned keyboard.  I've been a miserable prick and have been taking out my frustrations on my wife by screaming at her when she doesn't deserve it.  It's smack dab in the middle of winter - on of the worst times for my mental health - and on top of that, my psychiatrist and I are trying out new medications to see if that will help.  Messing with your brain chemistry in that way can certainly make the cure worse than the disease in some ways.  It leaves your brain just a hodge-podged mess of neurotrasmitters, which can leave you feeling all kinds of funky.  High anxiety, worse depression, and many, many otherside effects of these medications makes taking them much like playin Russian Roulette.  But you have to do what you have to do to get the right one.  I haven't gotten  the right one.

     I've hit a perfect storm of misery, but I still persevere.  I'm older and wiser now than I was, and I am able to prevent myself from hitting the highly destructive downward spiral.  But that makes it no less easier to experience.  It feels as if a person from my distant past I never wanted to see again has suddenly reconnected with me.  Thankfully, I spent 15 years in a depression much worse than this, so I'm not about to allow this one to do any damage.

     But Goddamn would I not wish this on my worst enemy.

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[Joods]

I feel like I want to hug you right now.

[Faith No More]

Aww, thanks. But why?

[Jackalope]

I'm with you, FNM. I share your pain.

I have been largely asymptomatic in the 4 1/2 years I've been on AF, but in the last couple of months the illness has returned. I don't have the words to express what is happening inside my head. Clinically, it's a storm of depression, anxiety, and hypomania but that somehow doesn't provide an adequate description.

[Jackalope]

As far as the writing goes, I wouldn't worry too much about the warts. It's representative of where you are at right now.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Hang in there, brotha. You are not alone. I'm in the middle of quitting my heavy drinking right now, and am dealing with emotions I've been anesthetizing for years. I'm coming to grips with the fact that too often I've been an asshole to the people I love, and that I don't like that guy one bit -- but I am terrified at times of leaving behind my old self. And at other times, I loathe myself for who I've been. I know I cannot be that guy any more, ever again. But I don't know who I can be, and that scares the shit out of me.

I imagine the chrysalis wonders exactly what the fuck is going on at the moment of molting, too.

I'm not diagnosed nor prescribed, but what I'm going through in my own life is definitely giving me insight. I know how emotionally unbalanced I feel right now, even as I now that it is almost surely a temporary phase. I can only imagine how awful it must be to have to live with it days unending.

You're not alone, brotha. Drop a PM or give me a call if you ever need to talk.

[Faith No More]

Thanks, guys, but I think the point may have been missed a bit. I wasn't posting this to focus on my issues personally. I just wanted to used them as example of what I struggle with and to stand up and say that I am mentally ill. I appreciate the kind words, as times are rough right now, but I really was hoping to be part of the bigger picture when it comes to the stigmas in mental health and how that affects our laws and culture.

People are afraid to admit to something that millions of people suffer from, and that is a sad fact to digest. If people don't blow the lid off of these stigmas by standing up and saying "this is who I am, not the person you believe me to be," nothing is ever going to change. We will be seen as weaklings with character flaws, not people with legitimate illness.

I want to show the true faces of mental illness.

ETA: What I should have said is that I am one of millions of faces of mental illness.

[robvalue]

I am also mentally ill. I've suffered with serious depression for 8+ years now. I've battled suicidal thoughts and only just come out unscathed. The fight is far from over, and my depression looms in the background looking for any opportunity to attack again. I'm on a very high dose of anti-depressants and I wouldn't be able to mentally function without them.

[Whateverist]

I've put a picture of myself along with a journal entry I just wrote to kind of personalize the whole thing and kind of give you a glimpse as to what I experience, while also giving you a face to put with it, in order to say "damn the stigmas, this is who I am and what I deal with."  

So I was kind of looking for suggestions or feedback from people here.

I think it could be helpful to someone experiencing depression for the first time to realize that, though not welcome, it is something with which one can cope.  It might also help people who have never experienced clinical depression to realize that it really is an illness which can at times overwhelm those who deal with it, but that there are those who can work around it too.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Thanks, guys, but I think the point may have been missed a bit.  I wasn't posting this to focus on my issues personally.  I just wanted to used them as example of what I struggle with and to stand up and say that I am mentally ill.  I appreciate the kind words, as times are rough right now, but I really was hoping to be part of the bigger picture when it comes to the stigmas in mental health and how that affects our laws and culture.

People are afraid to admit to something that millions of people suffer from, and that is a sad fact to digest.  If people don't blow the lid off of these stigmas by standing up and saying "this is who I am, not the person you believe me to be," nothing is ever going to change.  We will be seen as weaklings with character flaws, not people with legitimate illness.

I want to show the true faces of mental illness.

ETA:  What I should have said is that I am one of millions of faces of mental illness.

I get what you're saying. When my ex- took a job working as a job coach for the mentally disabled (both developmentally and psychologically disabled), I had to reexamine my assumptions and cast off my stereotypes. And I guess what I was getting at with my above post was that even so, it's hard for the non-afflicted to understand mental imbalance until we suffer a taste of it ourselves.