Breaking news: there’s meaning in madness
How do I know? Because it’s my madness, and I say so…
A few weeks ago, I spent the evening with a group of strangers. We’d been brought together because we’d all experienced one or more episodes of what the medical community would term ‘psychosis’, but which we identified as a sort of ‘spiritual emergency’.
I had only recently come across the term, but it immediately struck a chord with me. I’ve been through several episodes of deep depression, and more than one episode of mania that bordered on psychosis (yes, I have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder), but I’ve always viewed my unwellness within the context of the life experiences that sparked it off.
(Of course, I respect others may see their own mental health in a different way: this is what works for me.)
So, I have a personal narrative that makes my unwellness make sense to me.
It starts with a legitimate depression due to general unfulfilment, which then trips into mania once heavy doses of antidepressants started to be added to the mix (a classic manic trigger and known side effect of this medication). I have always seen my journey into, and through, mental ill health as symptomatic of an existential crisis. And there’s some objective evidence for that — when the police arrested me during one manic episode, all I had on me was a book by existentialist philosopher Kierkegaard…
But to psychiatrists and the system, that was irrelevant. I was ill, the content of my concerns or conversation invalid. My irregular behaviour was all that mattered, and all that needed treating.
There are lots of problems with the biological model of mental illness that dominates society’s response to ‘madness’.
But one that has struck me as being particularly damaging — since being on the receiving end of it for so many years — is the fact designating someone as mentally ill, mad or crazy totally invalidates any meaning in what they’re experiencing.
Designating someone as mentally ill, mad or crazy totally invalidates any meaning in what they’re experiencing.
The implications of this were demonstrated in the Rosenhan experiment of 1973, in which a team of psychologists feigned symptoms to get themselves admitted to psychiatric hospitals. Even when they resumed normal behaviour they were still considered mentally ill and detained in hospital for weeks. So even when people are well, if we think they’re ill, then we will not listen to what they’re saying.
The problem with denying people who actually are experiencing mental ill health the opportunity to ascribe legitimate meaning to their experiences is that it prevents them from trusting their own understanding of their lives. This makes it difficult for people to come up with a narrative about the course of their lives that empowers them, as opposed to framing them as a victim of circumstances that they cannot understand or affect.
That’s why it’s always helped me to see my experience as an existential crisis, or a spiritual emergency. By choosing to identify some meaning in my madness, I’ve been able to recognise some lessons to take from it, like situations to avoid getting myself into in the future, or traumas I need to work through. It’s allowed me to be grateful for the ups and downs I’ve been through — something I never thought I’d say — because they’ve helped shape me into a better person and be kinder to myself.
I’ve read enough about mental illness to know that humanity’s collective knowledge about its causes and cures is still far from decisive — and many psychiatrists I’ve met admit it.
So I choose to take the view that puts me in the driving seat when it comes to understanding me — not a psychiatrist who’s met me for half an hour.
These are conclusions I’ve come to myself, after a long and lonely fight against being written into the textbooks as another bipolar statistic. So it was a joy and a privilege to spend that evening amongst other people with similar histories and approaches to their mental health. Each, like me, benefitted hugely from ascribing meaning to their madness — and have gone on to support others in their struggle towards better mental health.
Looking for meaning in our madness may not be for everyone — but it’s certainly something we all have the right to choose. And there may just be something in it.
