I would like to say that mental illness exists in a vacuum; that when you get depressed for weeks at a time for no apparent reason or when you have delusions you go to the doctor and you get your solution. And when you go to the doctor you are trusted that you are telling the truth about yourself, and then after a blood test or a scan you get your diagnosis. After your diagnosis of bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder or schizophrenia you are prescribed a drug regimen and referred to a therapist so the muscles that your illness impact don’t atrophy. You are given pamphlets and support to help you live a full life. You have an easily accessible community you can tap into. It seems cut and dry. You change your diet and exercise to reflect your diagnosis.
However, mental illness does not exist in a vacuum. Not even remotely.
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Those of us who live with a chronic mental illness that will persist throughout our lives probably always had the predisposition to it. For some us it is embedded in our genes and for others of us it was just a matter of time. But what is common among, what I would argue, all of us is that we all have a trauma in our lives that we return to, something that no matter how hard we fight to put it behind us, it is still there. The fact is, this is part of the human condition, but when you have a mental illness how you deal with it and interpret it is different, how your mind handles the trauma is different. For some, that trauma is what jump starts the mental illness, and for others it is the beginning of a slow burn. But in the end, there is always something. After all, even with a mental illness we are human.
For me it wasn’t a single event, at least I don’t think so. But the single event that is easiest thing to return to. This single event is the most distinct trauma in a series of traumas in my childhood. But, for me that single trauma is marked by a date (today, Wednesday, October 26), it is something that is nearly tangible. Something that I can stick a pin in. And this year it was even more blatant in my life. Eleven years ago my mom left, she deserted me, abandoned me, quit being a parent, etc. And it was a Wednesday 11 years ago, and this year it is a Wednesday, which stimulates certain feelings and memories in my mind.
Today is about self-care. When you have a mental illness, you have to be proactive in order to maintain some semblence of sanity in the face of a known trigger. I know that I will feel things today, and I will deeply. I have to work very fucking hard to keep it together. I am hypersensitive to this trigger. For me, I think of all the things I have lost and never had, I internalize. And all those dark places of my bipolar disorder that my mind settles in when faced with a trigger light up with enthusiastic joy. With a mental illness, it isn’t as easily as acknowledging, accepting, and rationally moving forward. It doesn’t make sense like that.
So today, I must say – if you find yourself having difficulty processing a trauma, even years later, and you have a mental illness – you will be okay and you are not alone. This will be an ongoing process that you learn to deal with more and more with time. Your mental illness will and does invade every part of your life, especially those parts of you and your history that are unsavory. And you are enough. Even when a trigger envelops you and you can’t move. You are enough even in those moments and places and times where you find that you just have to submit to your mental illness and move through it. You are enough when it gets ugly, and you fall apart. You are enough when the world doesn’t make sense because you are in the thick of it and you are sick. You are enough in those deep, deep lows that you can’t control. Be gentle with yourself.
