mentally yours

Do you ever have those moments when a thought becomes a mission?

I have to be mellow right now — post hysterectomy issues that I aggravated by feeling like I was ready to tackle life again (just a little too soon). Essentially too much time to think.

I recalled a conversation I had with someone I am not at all tight with except that both of us shared our deepest, maybe (depending on how you look at all of this) darkest secret with each other. We both acknowledged the pain that mental illness causes in life (our stories shared by happenstance one day on the sidewalk in front of my house). We both agreed that being straight forward with others about mental illness struggles would help everyone, because it is prevalent, yet still unspeakable.

A therapist (my own and my daughter’s) and I had a frank discussion one day as I told him about a conversation I once had with her, who at the time, was struggling on several levels. She came down to our laundry room where I was heatedly folding towels after she and I had exchanged words, a verbal tussle of some sort, and said, “I’m sorry you are dealing with all of this (meaning my 2 daughters who were both struggling with emotional issues). I know it must be hard to have two kids with mental illness.” My immediate reaction was to assure her that she wasn’t mentally ill. When I told my therapist this, he stopped me and asked why was it an issue that it was a mental health illness. That comment has stayed with me — at the forefront of my mind — for over four years and I have found myself, over and over, trying to remember not to feel shame about something that affects so many things in my life. We are all responsible for our behavior — so please don’t think that I am at all condoning mental illness as an excuse for behavior. Yet, when there are issues in our life, being able to be okay to say we are struggling, would be so nice and so much more productive for everyone.

If we had an honest, real conversation about treating mental illness early, we would probably have less of the consequences we now see happening over and over again. I’m guessing prison populations would drop significantly, suicides, self harm, divorce, cheating, seemingly impulsive acts would all dip. If you think of all of the money that goes into treating the consequences of unattended mental illness — the symptoms instead of the disease, we would have a much larger purse to draw from for things that would better our world — infrastructure, health care (the crossover between physical symptoms and mental health is incredibly strong), education (kids who seem unteachable suddenly are available and present to be a part of a constructive society) as well as every other role we each play that contributes to either the good or detriment of our lives. Just something to think about.