I’ve been fighting with myself for months over whether or not to write about my struggles. I’ve created Facebook and Twitter posts only to delete them before they were published, their contents continuously hidden in the depths of my mind as almosts and should’ves. The nagging voice in my head that keeps telling me not to focuses on the possible repercussions of going public with my struggles. The voice in my head sounds a lot like my father, who has always wanted what’s best for me, and has been nothing more than the most supportive adult I have in my life. It’s why that voice is so hard to ignore in favor of scary transparency.
The problem is that by being silent, I can’t ignore the hypocrisy that I’m partaking in. I’ve always been a strong advocate for equal rights for all. I revel in being a voice for the unheard, and helping to propel the stigmatized into the limelight where people are forced to hear of their plights in a world that is unaccepting of anything it deems different. I’ve been vocal about my anxiety, and my ADHD, without worry. If I keep it to those two disorders, I can speak out about the need for reform in the area of neurological disorders and mental illness but still safely keep a part of myself in the dark where nobody can criticize it.
For all intents and purposes, I’m suffering from what most would consider a “functional” depression. Sure, I have mood swings, but look at what I’ve been able to do for myself! I can hold a job, I can afford my rent, I have periods where I can even be social and I’ve gotten so good at plastering a smile on my face even if I’m not feeling it so that those around me don’t feel uncomfortable. My empathy is on overdrive sometimes to the point of detriment, where the needs of others outweigh my own so much that I hurt myself.
At 28 years old, I finally decided that I needed to see a therapist. There wasn’t a clear-cut defining moment when this decision happened, but there were lingering factors that led up to me biting the bullet and making the appointment. My job situation at the time wasn’t ideal, and the targeting from those who should have been leaders left me having panic attacks daily. Sometimes I would have them multiple times a day, and it took all of my energy to show up to work and make it through to when we could punch out. When I got home, all I wanted to do was sleep. Sometimes I couldn’t fight through it in the morning, and I was forced to call into work with the vague excuse that I was sick because mental illness isn’t considered a valid excuse for missing work. Telling them “I’m sorry I can’t come in today, I’ve been trying to get myself out of bed for the past hour but I can’t force it” would surely get me written up or fired.
Eventually my therapist and I started to see a pattern in my behavior that clearly pointed towards me needing more help than just talk therapy. While my work environment wasn’t helping me in the slightest, my problem stemmed from something that I’ve been dealing with my entire life. Cyclothymia.
For those of you who don’t know, Cyclothymia is a type of bipolar disorder that is extremely rare. It follows the same idea of cycling through highs and lows, but the cycling is constant without a period of normality, and also not as extreme as most bipolar disorders are. My highs didn’t leave me doing reckless acts like drugs or extreme money spending, and my lows normally didn’t reach the point of low where I wanted to kill myself. Instead, my highs left me with feelings of grandeur. I could totally start three blogs, write this story, and do all of these lesson plans. Who needs sleep? And my lows… My lows meant that I became a flake with my friends, constantly faking sinus infections and stomach flues to get out of social commitments that I didn’t have the energy to partake in. It wasn’t a new illness that I had suddenly developed; I can remember as early as sixth grade wanting to sleep all day and avoiding being social with people because I didn’t have the energy. I remember in tenth grade when I completely stopped doing my homework, going from an A student to nearly failing because I had ideas in my head of “What’s the point?” I remember scaring my best friend my junior or senior year because I hated myself so much that I wanted to hurt myself with sharp objects. It was all chalked up to teenage angst, but I knew better. I knew it when I sobbed my first night away at college because change is nearly impossible for me. I knew it from my last week of college where I cried so hard while packing up my dorm that I made myself vomit for the very same reason.
I could keep hiding if I really wanted to. A lifetime of suffering has given me coping mechanisms and just the right amount of lying so that I could keep this a secret from the world probably for the rest of my life, but I won’t. I won’t because hiding in the shadows in fear of the stigma is part of the reason why we haven’t had the mental health reform in our country that we need. It’s why, when my psychiatrist found a combination of medication that worked well for me and allowed me to feel human for the first time in my life, my health insurance refused to cover one of the pills that would cost me almost $1000 a month without insurance off-setting the cost.
But I don’t want to hide anymore. I want people to understand, to truly get what it’s like suffering from a mental illness in a world where people use the phrase “ADHD” to mean they’re just having a rough day focusing, or OCD when they mean they’re just a little quirky sometimes. When people talk about being depressed because they’re a little sad from a break-up, I feel myself die a little at times remembering the days I couldn’t get out of bed and live my life because of my illness. Mental illness means sitting in your car in the parking lot for hours on the phone with your friend because your meds aren’t working right, so you’re crying and laughing at the same time and don’t know what to do. Should you start driving until the road ends? Should you go inside and sleep for three days straight?
My Cyclothymia has caused me to miss out on opportunities in life that I’ll never get back. It has caused me to have difficulties with relationships, both friendly and romantic. It has caused me, with the help of my anxiety and ADHD, to miss out on academic accomplishments that I should have been able to accomplish with my intelligence.
We need to talk about this. We need a country where people with mental illness have easier access to the help necessary to be able to live. We live in a country where close to 25% of the homeless population suffers from a form of extreme mental illness that is likely a contributor to their homelessness in the first place. People shouldn’t have to suffer in silence because their brain, an organ just like your lungs or heart, has a chronic illness.
The other day I received compliments from my aunts at a family get-together that I looked good. I thanked them, and I made the excuse that I looked better because I’m able to afford clothes that are nice now. It was a moment where I could have been honest with them and told them that it was because I feel better about myself now. I have the energy to not only go to social events, but to take the time to dress, do my hair, and even sometimes put on make-up. I couldn’t tell them that I look better because I’m not just existing anymore, I’m living. It’s an accomplishment that to me, and to others who also suffer in silence, is gigantic. To people who don’t understand though it seems like something that should just happen.
I want to be able to share my accomplishments with my family and friends. I want to live in a world where I don’t have to be embarrassed about something that came to me through genetics through no fault of my own. Until we live in that world, I’m going to force myself to be vocal about this.
In the end, we need to do better.
