A lot of people are going to feed you lines about how you can deal with mental illness through therapy, prayer, meditation, and by taking various herbs, vitamins, supplements and amino acids, and by practicing Yoga or similar arts, by changing your diet and various lifestyle changes, and so forth. Well all of those things are really good. I do a lot of those things. Hell, I do most of those things. They are all part of a balanced mental health diet. For some types of mental illness for a lot of people those things alone may be the answer. I'm talking about mild to moderate depression, slight anxiety, moderate compulsions, stuff like that. Not being seriously sick in the head.
Not bipolar disorder.
Not epilepsy.
Not schizophrenia.
Not clinical depression that keeps you in bed staring at the ceiling for weeks at a time.
Not obsessive-compulsive disorder where you're checking to see that the door is locked for half an hour before you can leave your house.
Not anxiety/panic disorder so bad that the physical symptoms are obvious to another person. Or agoraphobia so bad you can't leave your house. Ever.
Not ADD/ADHD where you can't hold a consistent train of thought for longer than 10 seconds and are a serious threat to yourself and others when trying to do anything involving, oh, I don't know, heavy objects or machinery.
Having brain cooties is just like having a visible boo-boo. Bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, epilepsy and the like are the psychic equivalents of having a broken leg from a car crash. If you broke your leg would anyone expect you to go jogging with a broken leg? Would they expect you to even try to carry on with your life before you had a cast put on it? OK, some of us have had some really sadistic and messed-up people in our lives who might make those demands, but let's not bring them into it.
So, what happens when you break your leg?
You need to get x-rays.
You need to have the bones set.
You need to have a cast put on the leg .
You'll need crutches and/or one of those little carts to get around.
OK, now let's compare that with the psychiatric/neurological process:
Your initial diagnosis is the x-ray (although getting a fancy brain scan, even an EEG, is the true analog to an x-ray).
Getting your bones set is the painful coming to terms with your illness yourself along with any initial crisis medications and interventions.
The cast, crutches and cart are your long-term meds.
Casts itch, you can't move your leg, and trying to get around on crutches or in one of those carts is a pain in the ass until you master it; and that's side effects and the adjustment periods to meds.
Sometimes the break is so bad that your leg needs to be re-broken (ow! owwww!!! ouch!!!!) and reset and put in a new cast, that's the process of having to try other medications if the ones you try first don't do it for you.
Sometimes you need metal pins put in your legs that mean you'll never run another marathon again and you'll always set off metal detectors in airports and government office buildings and have to explain things to strangers; that's the maintenance prescription you'll be taking the rest of your life.
This is the beginning of the 21st century, we can't yet cure these illnesses, but we can control and manage them. How far out of the mental health closet you wish to come is up to you, because the stigma is still very real, but family, friends, coworkers, et al. need to know that some mental illnesses aren't just something you can cowboy up about and get over. Your brain is physically injured, and like any other part of the body that has received a physical injury, it needs the proper care to heal.
The problem that far too many people have is that they can't see the injury, therefore it is not a real injury. Well, you can show them similar injuries here. Sure, that's not your injury, unless you get one of those fancy brain scans yourself, but pictures help people understand that many mental illnesses are, in fact, physical illnesses as well. If you're the person with the mental illness and you're trying to get your family and friends to understand why you can't just deal with it and get over it, show them the difference between a normal brain and a brain with whatever it is you have. If you're the family or friends, get some understanding yourself.
So are we clear that mental illness is an injury? Good.
What do you do when you're injured? You treat the injury. Life can get better, you just have to put the work in to do it. If you have insurance, consider yourself lucky. Just contact your life insurance company and ask them for their mental health services department. You can explain to them you have addictions and would like to find a rehabilitation service covered by your insurance. If you want to quit cold turkey, good for you because that's hard to do. Otherwise, you can get on a suboxone or methadone program depending on what your insurance covers.
Or you could ask for a referral to a psychiatrist and a psychologist to deal with your underlying mental illness. It can take a long time to get better, especially after you've trained yourself that any kind of situation or scenario where you're under intense stress, you can turn right back to drugs and quit taking your meds.
So, if you have a mental illness you are self medicating with drugs, tell your psychiatrist that. They will assess you and determine what mental illness you have, and you will have to try a lot of different combinations of drugs to find the right one(s) that work for you and your particular condition. You're also going to have to work with a psychologist and do cognitive behavior therapy to change your habits around and learn how to make more positive choices in life.
Best of luck to you all!
