Punching through...

There is a young man I work with who struggles everyday to reconcile the fact that he has a mental illness. He doesn't want it. Who would? He watches other people thinking they are "normal" and asks why he cannot be like them. I struggle each day trying to get him to see and understand that he is like them. We are they. They are us.

I give shoddy examples of how people live with chronic illnesses all the time - diabetes, painful arthritis, and others - and he answers, "Yes, but people don't think you're crazy when you have arthritis." And he's right.

He wonders how he will ever have a serious relationship with anyone because, though he wants that more than anything, his illness makes him paranoid and doubtful of everyone. Even those who love him. So he stays alone, purposefully isolating himself from others which, he says, makes him look even "crazier".

He wants a job but his illness has caused him to do things in the past that have tarnished his record so he cannot find an employer willing or able to take the time to give him a chance. He wants friendships but pulls away after a while because they become too taxing to maintain. The daily inner dialogue reassuring himself that his friends are not out to get him or harm him is exhausting.

He doesn't like his medications. Who would? There is no magic pill that makes the illness go away. Only pills that make the illness bearable and that is to varying degrees. The pills come with side affects - weight gain, hair loss, slow or slurred speech, sleeplessness, or too much sleep, no motivation, low libido, and sometimes Tardive Dyskonesia - involuntary muscle movements in the limbs or face that cannot be reversed, only masked by more pills.

He doesn't like not taking his pill though he hates them. Not taking them means the illness wins. It takes over. No one is to be trusted. No thought is real. No sound is true. Everyone, everywhere is out to get him. So he strikes back. He becomes "crazy".

How do you reach someone to let them know that they can have some quality of life once they can target their triggers and understand their symptoms? Even if that quality of life is altered in someway? How can I show a young man, with his whole life ahead of him, that he can handle this, that he is not crazy, that he is worth the fight and I am willing to fight with him? It's a lot to think about.