So, as I’ve said, I’ve been diagnosed with
Clinical Depression
Bi Polar Disorder
and
PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)
Thank you for asking Questions. I am honored by your interest and am grateful to those who are trying to understand my journey.
The first Question that I would like to try and answer is
What are practical ways to support someone with these diagnoses?
As I’ve previously explained, I am much more emotional than I am practical, so these suggestions may not be any help AT ALL, but let’s try and help, shall we?
—Thing One—
MAKE SURE and search your mind, heart, soul, time, compassion, stamina, finances, future, liver, spleen, stomach and everything else that is a part of you before you even ATTEMPT to enter a long term relationship (and yes, I am including friendship in this category) with someone who is mentally ill, especially someone who has a diagnosis that they will be living with untold years in the future.
(Interruption here: As I understand it, there is a type of depression that is “circumstantial”. This type can be
triggered by a move, a job loss and other things that people tend to refer to as “temporary”. I have read and heard that “circumstantial” depression is something that can be walked through in time. Therefore, the opinions that I am providing in —Thing One— do not apply to people with this particular diagnosis…as I understand it. Thank you.)
Loving someone (in whatever form love that love takes) with Depression, Bi Polar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and/or any number of diagnoses, disorders and syndromes can be rough.
-It takes time…and work
If you are attempting to reach someone who, like me, has been diagnosed with an illness that directly impacts a person’s ability and/or willingness to leave the house and actually interact with others, please be aware that you are probably going to be engaging in some sort of yo-yo process.
If the person with whom you are attempting to form a relationship thinks like I do, he or she may prefer to remain at home not only because of the possibility of being hurt or misunderstood by those in the “outside world” but also because he or she has convinced themselves that they are protecting the outside world from THEM. Low self esteem is a HUGE issue in the lives of those with many forms of depression and the very real fear of negatively impacting social gatherings (of all types) with abnormality and misunderstandings often keeps people who are depressed at home.
The fact that many in the throes of a depressive episode don’t wash their faces, brush their teeth or attempt to do ANYTHING with their hair also factors into such reluctance.
-It takes patience
Loving someone with a mental illness can be, or so I’ve been told, a bit like babysitting a toddler.
Tears are easily shed.
Stories are rehashed.
Beds are often taken to.
And certain words and phrases are repeated ever and often.
There can be, again this is based on what I’ve been told, a certain childishness in the mentally ill people whom you encounter. This childishness will become more and more evident the more and more that you get to know them.
Unintentional egotism, for example, is one of the things you may notice about those whom you observe. This is NOT, as the dictionary suggests, because of “an undue sense of self importance”. It IS, in my experience because of an overly active lack of self esteem leading to a constant need (real OR perceived) for assurance.
-It takes perseverance and sacrifice
Fully loving someone who is mentally ill (again, I am referring to love in whatever form that it may manifest itself in your particular relationship or ships) is a long term proposition. Emphasis on the word long.
It will require (as, indeed, many loving relationships do) sacrifices of your time. Of your energy. It will bleed into your priorities. It will cut short your sleep.
Some mentally ill people keep what I refer to as “vampire hours”. We are abed during the day and awake (or, sometimes, what passes for awake) at night.
To really bond with someone who might be living this way, you might find yourself needing to stay awake at night as well.
See, if you are seeking to build a relationship with someone who exhibits the traits that I do, you might begin to notice that they can talk about relatively inconsequential things for hours (literally HOURS) before enough trust is built up to strip away the protections surrounding their wounds and scars and fully open themselves to your scrutiny.
Fear has a lot to do with this of course and, should you attempt to forge this kind of bond, BE VERY CAREFUL not to either say something that implies rushing the conversation along or to cut off communication just as the person with whom you are talking is taking the leap into trust.
You are, of course, under no obligation to form such relationships.
You may be one of the people in the life of someone who is mentally ill who drops in with an offer of help and becomes a story about the kindness of near strangers in this crazy world.
If you DO, however, chose to display such love, be very very VERY careful about walking away.
Should they be the slightest bit like me, mentally ill people are acutely aware of the imbalance that put out into their circles.
We live for messages, yet, due to being overwhelmed by too many feelings or too much stimuli, do not reply to the ones that WE are sent for days.
We “pre-worry” about how events might unfold and, despite knowing how to rehearse every possible combination of conversations and scenarios which we might encounter, end up backing out for the night. We do this over and over, often to the risk to our personal reputation.
Sometimes we ARE lazy and unreliable. Sometimes, we are just jerky jerks from Jerksylvania.
Sometimes, we’re trying to protect ourselves from pain and panic.
Sometimes, we’re trying to protect the people we love from our own selves.
And sometimes, we’re just afraid.
And our biggest fear is often that of being left.
We (again, I am referring to people who are walking through the same diagnoses as I am and who have similar enough experiences to mine to feel emotions close enough to my own for this to apply–please keep in mind that not every one of us with a mental illness is even remotely the same, even when it comes to the things we feel) tend to form attachments very quickly. To find a “friend” (in quotes here because of the intensity of the relationship, not the insincerity of the person to whom we have been opening ourselves) only to have them stop replying,obviously distance themselves or cut off all contact whatsoever is a nightmare to us.
It is also one of the reasons why many of us are so isolated. Fear can be a very powerful enemy of ours.
The fear of finding a friend and then losing them is one of our biggest.
This is why I have posted this part of my answer.
Again, thank you for your interest.
I am honored to be answering your questions.