How hard it must be...

It's no secret. I work with adults with mental illness. In any given day, I see people fighting the good fight and surviving with severe and persistent mental illness. Best case scenario, I've seen people come to some degree of acceptance that they are living with a chronic, life long illness that will always need medications to control. Those people find a way to live with it and get on with life, forging relationships, having families and whatnot. The stuff we all do in our own way.

I've seen others who trod into our agency on a daily basis, consigned to a life of taking medications and seeing themselves beat down by life. They walk with their heads down, their life-spirit gone, and never regain the belief that they really are someone.

The hardest people I work with are those that are young, newly diagnosed, and defying the diagnosis at every turn. You see, with a mental health diagnosis, a trip to a psychiatrist or counselor, a prescription for psychotropic medications comes a terribly stigma placed upon them by friends, family, society as a whole, and themselves. Think about it. How many times have you said "That guy is crazy!" when someone has said or done something out of the ordinary. With the medications come the side affects. There are no psychotropic meds out there that don't offer some side affects. Some are worse than others but overall one can expect drowsiness or sleeplessness, or a foggy feeling, or intense weight gain as much as 20 - 50 pounds, hair loss, impotence. Sounds fun, doesn't it? What 29 year old male wants to feel that way? Or a 20 year old female for that matter. Oh, and there can also be drooling, blurred vision and a general apathetic attitude. Try taking a college entrance exam like that. Or interviewing for a job. Often the choice to not take medication is the difference between choosing to hear voices and "feel" relatively normal or not hear voices and "feel" like a load of useless crap. And try explaining to a girl you meet or a boy you like that you are schizophrenic. Most people hear that word and think "serial killer" or "rapist".

I try to equate mental illness with other chronic disorders, like diabetes for example. If you are diabetic, you have to take insulin or the results are horrible and can be fatal. The same is true with mental illness. But we rarely hear of a stigma attached to someone with diabetes.

I don't have a diagnosed mental illness so I can only imagine, from what I have learned over the years, how hard it must be to come to terms with having one. My heroes are those who pull through, after years of hospitalizations, jail time, evictions, and losing everyone around them to manage to create a life for themselves in spite of it all. I can only hope those young people I work with will find a way to do just that.

In the meantime, I urge you all to do some research. Contact your local National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) and open your mind to the possibilities of what treasures each of us, even those with mental illness, have to offer.