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Friday, August 9, 2013

Dealing with mental illness

I really enjoyed this interview between schizophrenic and author Eleanor Longden and author of The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry Jon Ronson, which is worth reading in its entirety. She talks about how the first voice in her head was just narrating what she happened to be doing, and in some ways she found it calming:

[W]hat research suggests is that voice-hearing (and other unusual experiences, including so-called delusional beliefs) are surprisingly common in the general population. This recognition has led to the popularity of 'continuum models' of mental health, which suggests different traits and experiences are all part of human variation – not strictly categorical in terms of "us and them", "sane and insane", "normal and abnormal". However, I do think life events play a vital role in determining who becomes distressed and overwhelmed and who doesn't. This might include experiences of abuse, trauma, inequality, powerlessness and so on, but it can also include the immediate reactions of the people around you. If you don't have people who will accommodate your experiences, support you, and help you make sense of what's happening, then you're probably much more likely to struggle.

And she wasn't supported or accommodated, instead her friend flipped out, followed by her psychiatrist, until she was institutionalized and the voices got much worse.

[My psychiatrist] really made me feel like a walking inventory of symptoms. This forensic-like scrutiny grew to feel very frightening and de-stabilizing, and was basically sending the message that the only relevant thing about me was my deficits. Not my strengths, not my abilities or resources, just my Bad Brain. I was eventually admitted to hospital (voluntarily), and the impact of that was disastrous because it sealed my perception of myself from someone who was confused, unhappy and frightened into someone with an uncontrollable, carnivorous mental illness. Eventually, I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The voices (which by this time had multiplied and become much more aggressive) were witheringly contemptuous about this: "You can't even SPELL schizophrenia," one of them said, "So what the hell are you going to do about having it?!"

How did she find her way back?

I don't think there was a single, defining turning point, more an accumulation and fusion of positive changes. Primarily, I was very fortunate to have people who never gave up on me – relationships that really honoured my resilience, my worth and humanity, and my capacity to heal. I used to say that these people saved me, but what I now know is that they did something even more important: they empowered me to save myself. My mum, for example, had an unconditional belief that I was going to come back to her and was willing to wait for me for as long as it took. I also met an amazing psychiatrist, who absolutely didn't subscribe to the idea of me as 'schizophrenic' – or any other label for that matter. "Don't tell me what other people have told you about yourself," he would say, "Tell me about you." 

This led her to a period of profound self-acceptance:

For the first time, I had an opportunity to try and see my voices as meaningful – messages and metaphors about emotional problems in my life – and in turn begin to relate to them more peacefully and productively. I began to understand the voices (as well as my other experiences, like self-injury, anxiety, and paranoid beliefs) in a more compassionate way. Not as symptoms, rather as adaptations and survival strategies: sane reactions to insane circumstances. The voices took the place of overwhelming pain and gave words to it – memories of sexual trauma and abuse, rage, shame, loss, guilt and low self-worth. Probably the most important insight was when I realised that the most menacing, aggressive voices actually represented the parts of me that had been hurt the most – and as such, it was these voices that needed to be shown the greatest compassion and care. Which of course ultimately represented learning to show compassion, love, and acceptance towards myself.
***
But primarily it was when I stopped attacking and arguing with them, and began to try and understand them, and relate to them more peacefully. It was about putting an end to the internal civil war I mentioned earlier, because each of them was part of a whole – me! I would thank them for drawing my attention to conflicts I needed to deal with. I remember one very powerful moment, several years down the line, when I said something like, "You represent awful things that have happened to me, and have carried all the memories and emotion because I couldn't bear to acknowledge them myself. All I've done in return is criticize and attack you. It must have been really hard to be so vilified and misunderstood." There was an immensely long pause before one of them finally responded: "Yes. Thank you."

I found myself relating a lot to this last part -- part of learning to deal with any mental issues is a self-acceptance of yourself, your strengths, and your weaknesses. We all have what Carl Jung called the Shadow, parts of our personality that we would rather not acknowledge about ourselves. But in order for us to become whole, self-actualized human beings, we must not only acknowledge these aspects, but embrace them (see The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower--and Inspire You to Live Life in Forward Motion for some help on how).

Like most people, I used to ignore my shadow +90% of the time and the other part of the time I became the monster I was afraid I truly was. When I finally cared enough to get better, I knew I couldn't keep doing this, flipping back and forth between the projected-ideal-me and the indulging-every-bad-impulse me. The truth was that both those versions of myself were a distortion, and until I could acknowledge and accept the real me, any changes that I made would be superficial and not-lasting. I saw this same transition in the last season of Dexter, where he finally acknowledges that the "dark passenger" he always blamed for his killing impulse was really just a part of him that he had long ago alienated, and later personified as an external entity. People want me to feel shame for who I am, I can tell. But I'm not going to, because it would make me a much worse person (see also Ted Bundy).

Nobody chooses to be who they are. We make choices and we can define ourselves by our choices if we choose, but there will always be people defining us by other things, including things that we didn't ask for and cannot help. We can't do anything about that either. We just do the best we can and that has to be good enough. As Longden said:

I last heard voices yesterday. They were repeating something I'd read on the internet. The comment was: "I'm going to spoil the ending for you. The ending is – everything's going to be great!"

12 comments:

  1. what a great post.

    "Like most people, I used to ignore my shadow +90% of the time and the other part of the time I became the monster I was afraid I truly was. When I finally cared enough to get better, I knew I couldn't keep doing this, flipping back and forth between the projected-ideal-me and the indulging-every-bad-impulse me. The truth was that both those versions of myself were a distortion, and until I could acknowledge and accept the real me, any changes that I made would be superficial and not-lasting."

    i've been coming to terms with this very recently. it's so hard to find the stable middle ground.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In my experience finding the stable middle ground is often perceived as "threading the extremes" by the outside observers.
      Finding one's identity is a life long journey witnessed by many, but perceived only by one person.

      Delete
  2. Amazing post. I particularly relate to this:

    I knew I couldn't keep doing this, flipping back and forth between the projected-ideal-me and the indulging-every-bad-impulse me. The truth was that both those versions of myself were a distortion, and until I could acknowledge and accept the real me, any changes that I made would be superficial and not-lasting.

    I have a hard time with this, because they're both *me*.

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    Replies
    1. Because you "WANT" them to be you? :)

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    2. Did you want to be born with brown hair? When you dye it, does it stay brown underneath?

      Delete
  3. What you're saying is that "repression" doesn't work. It only saps your
    energy, and ties you into knots.
    You can't fight the voices with suppression, backtalk and "rationality."
    Only disspassionate observation.
    You see that the voices are a trick that you've been playing on yourself.
    They are not "out there" but "in here." Just that realization causes them
    to stop.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Why are you complaining that people want you to feel shame if you aren't actually capable of doing so?

    And why are people supposed to have empathy for you when you have none for them? Did you not put together that people don't give others the benefit of the doubt when they demonstrate antisocial behavior? I'm pretty sure you know that, so why the surprise? Really, I don't understand. If you don't want to be called an asshole and you don't want to be treated like an asshole, just stop being an asshole.

    Nobody chooses who they are, but we do have choices about what we do, even sociopaths (unless you're also arguing that you really don't, in which case segregating antisocials would be prudent). Maybe you could try to make good choices like not choking your lover and not stalking transit workers, because that really isn't good enough. Or maybe you could write about strategies to help sociopaths to play to their strengths instead of complaining about a non-existant smear campaign.

    Incidentally, guilt and shame are not the same. Shame is the root of the narcissistic injury (and probably your own pathology). It's never a helpful or prosocial emotion. Guilt is the appropriate reaction to causing others harm. People want you to feel *guilty* because you've violated others' rights and caused them harm. That's a normal reaction to antisocial behavior and in no way makes you a scapegoat.

    By the way, that Ted Bundy quote doesn't support your assertion that shame would make you a "worse person".

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    Replies
    1. You do realise that many perfectly normal people engage in rough sex, and are not only none the worse for it, but seem quite contented? Guilt in such a circumstance would be the pathological state!

      As for the transit worker episode, nothing actually happened to the man. Some of the nicest, most mentally stable individuals I've known are frighteningly aggressive whilst driving, for example. I'd posit that we've all talked ourselves down from a state of murderous rage at some point; simply because life can be so stressful. The episode you describe hardly reached the level of 'stalking.'

      Delete
  5. Wow, thank you, ME. The link on the Shadow is so good!

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete

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