A few days ago I found out that one of the people I love suffers from a serious mental illness. It was amazing to me that until I learned some of their history from family members I would have never really known that they were suffering from this.
Everything they described to me points to bipolar disorder, so off I went and did research, looked back at past behavior I had observed. Times when I said: "you have way too much energy today" or thought to myself: "they were so happy yesterday and today they won't get out of bed." I was ignorant of it, just like many other people, so I didn't think much of it other than that maybe they were just going through a little funk.
It was not until the behavior started to seem more out of control than usual that I realized something was wrong but I didn't know what it was. You see, people with bipolar disorder will seem pretty normal to you when they are manic and all you have ever seen is their mania. They tend to hide away when they are depressed so that no one will see their low. They can get irritable when something does not go how they planned it.
By the time I found out, the only people who knew about it were close family and that close family had gotten frustrated and tired because they didn't know how to help anymore. What was sad though is how many people on my support system pretty much said that this was this person's problem and not mine. I understand that they all love me, that they all want me to be ok, and that they all know how much this is affecting me. But I found it cruel that people would just say "turn your back and walk away."
That is the problem we unfortunately face with mental illness these days... and then I wondered if they would have done the same if the person suffering from it was me. Would they have said that it is my problem and I had to get out of it on my own? Would they have just walked away and not help?
How bad does it have to get before someone actually takes the time to help out? Why do we have to wait so long to figure it out? Right now I am wondering myself why it is that I didn't see it before, I am wondering what I could have done differently because maybe a lot of what has happened could have been avoided. I am now aware of how bad this is and I am scared to death that something worse could happen.
I am aware of how many people have committed suicide due to this illness, I am aware of how many people have committed suicide due to any mental illness out there, and now that it has been something close to me I wonder how much pain they must have felt. I wonder how hopeless they were that they couldn't reach out. I wonder how many of their families tried to help but because they were not aware of what was happening they couldn't get them the treatment necessary and felt like there was no other choice but to give up and so their loved one felt the same way.
I have read several articles so far, posts from people dealing with the disorder. Most of them tried to keep it hidden, they hid their lows and only showed their highs. They went through several different medications before they found the one that would work. They went off their medication when they felt better, only to end up feeling worse. They all had different ways in which the disease showed in their life, but they all agreed on one thing: None of them would have been able to do it without people supporting them and that they would have gotten help sooner had they not felt so embarrassed about it, had there not had been stigma over it.
I wonder if they all would have suffered less if we were all more compassionate about this. Trust me, I know that you cannot help someone who does not want to be helped, that is the first step, they need to want it. But they also need to know that asking for help is not a bad thing. That they are going to have people on their corner who know how frustrating and tiresome it can be to deal with the illness but that will have the patience to go through their recovery process. If they don't have that, chances are they will never get help.
We need to back up just a little and stop this "it's their problem" crap. The whole "until they are diagnosed, I am not going to excuse the behavior," it is not about excusing a behavior, it is about finding out how to help so that the behavior is not repeated. It is about finding out what can be done because somewhere in there there's a person who is suffering and who is unable to cope with their disease, who has grown tired of their loved ones turning their backs on them because they don't know how to help anymore. Who thinks that they are all alone in the world and no one will ever accept them the way they are, but who would fly so high if only they had a good support group.
I have always said that we should work not on preventing suicide but preventing depression, the world would be a much better place if we did that. If we took the time to say: "hey, it is ok to ask for help, if there is something you are struggling with, please come and talk to me, I am here." or "if you are getting too overwhelmed please don't hesitate to call, I am a phone call away." But we don't, instead we wait until they are so overwhelmed that they already have the suicidal thoughts. Instead we wait until they are already hurting themselves before we open our eyes. And yes, I do know that not all suicides could be prevented, some people go through life hiding their mental illness so well that it is hard to know they ever need help, but if we see it, if we find out that there is something wrong and that maybe there is something, maybe just one more thing we could do about it... Why not do it? Why judge them? Why not come to them from a place of love and compassion? Imagine how many more people would come out and ask for help if we didn't have that stigma, how many lives would be saved and how many less people would suffer.
My prayers are with all those who have or have had a loved one go through the battle that mental illness is. I now understand a little of what you go through. I understand the stress and the frustration. I understand the hopelessness that can arise from it. I say hang in there, make sure you have a good support group of your own and until you feel like you have done everything you can to help, don't give up on them. I can tell you that they often feel more like a burden to those around them, so in a way they are also feeling your pain. Talk to them from a place of love and compassion, communicate in that manner and let them always know that they matter, that you always want them around. Sometimes it might not help, but at the end of the day it is all about you being able to say: I tried and I am glad I did, regardless of the outcome.
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