I'm an avid Seahawks fan. So much so that I follow them intently even during the offseason. This last week the Seahawks signed a veteran wide receiver, Brandon Marshall. Brandon has had a checkered past, with many off field issues. He has revealed that he has and is being treated for Borderline Personality Disorder. This knowledge and the treatment he has received has resulted in a transformation in his life. He, like me, has been open about it and seeks to remove the stigma of living with mental illness. His story stimulated some thoughts and observations.
When one finally has a diagnosis it goes a long way to explaining, but not excusing behavior. In other words, I'm not much on a mental health defense, claiming one is not responsible for actions because one is mentally ill. At the same time, there is a degree to which one is out of control and hence absolved to a degree from personal responsibility. It's a fine line.
Case in point: As a bipolar person I experienced both the highs of mania and the lows of depression. These were not in anyway choices. They did, however, affect day to day choices. One of the difficulties of dealing with mental illness prior to diagnosis and treatment is that "normal" is defined as one's own experience. I could not recognize the wide swings in mood as anything other than normal, in that it was "my" normal. I believe that one of the most crucial things a friend or family member can do to assist a person with mental illness is to help them identify and recognize that certain behaviors are not "normal".
Expect resistance. Admitting one is no longer "normal" is difficult. One blatant example of this in my life was my alcohol consumption. I was self medicating with alcohol, using it as a sleep aid and to control my moods. I had thoroughly convinced myself that having a "couple of drinks" in the evening was normal. Now, define "drink". The standard "drink" of hard liquor is 1 to 1 1/2 fluid ounces. A shot. My definition was "whatever I could fit in a glass". And my scotch glasses got larger as time went on. My "couple of drinks" was in the end, over ten fluid ounces per day, on average. So, that's 7 to 10 "drinks" per night. Given the opportunity I could drink a fifth of scotch in a sitting. I needed help to recognize that this was not, in fact, normal. But recognizing this was not easy, even as my wife was crying out about it. Denial is a major factor.
Nor were my experiences of mania and depression easy to recognize as not normal. Everyone has their highs and lows, right? Well, within reason. The problem is that even now, five years into treatment, I am just discovering what "normal" is. Today, I no longer fall off a cliff into deep depression. Stability is the new norm. I'm learning that. But it takes time.
With recognition comes responsibility. No excuses. Grandiose schemes are symptoms of mania. I have a responsibility to accept this, and be responsible for managing this. There is no excuse for my spending our life savings on a risky business venture, no matter how reasonable it may seem to me. For me one of the most difficult things has been to realize that I need other people's perspective. Another example. I have family members who struggle with being OCD. Now being OCD offers a good explanation why one feels it necessary to have a specific number of ice cubes in a drink, not four, not six, but five. However, it is not an excuse for going ballistic if someone serves you a drink with the wrong number of ice cubes in it.
A second observation is that altering unhealthy behaviors requires intentional choices that go against what has become "normal". Regarding the ice cube example, I wonder if it wouldn't be a good adaptation to intentionally choose to have a random number of ice cubes in a drink. In my own case, the tendency to make risky business decisions is probably best served by not putting myself in the position to be making those decisions in the first place. Maybe being a self employed person is not in my own best interest. Adapting to life as a bipolar person may necessitate making intentional choices to live differently than before.
One of the hardest things to accept is that chemistry plays a huge part in mental health. To me there is a deep desire to believe that my thoughts are independent and stand on their own. It's hard to admit that my mood on a particular day may be entirely the result of the chemical balance in my brain. Likewise, that my new experience of "normal" is chemically assisted through medication. I guess what I'm saying is that western thought has often focused on a mind/body distinction. More and more what we are discovering is that the two can not be separated. Brain chemistry is intricately intertwined with mood and thought patterns. And I'm not sure anyone understands which comes first.
Finally, I believe that we need to come to a new recognition that mental health issues are as universal as physical health issues. That's essential to removing some of the stigma surrounding mental health. It is as "normal" to experience varying degrees of mental health, as it is to experience varying degrees of physical health. That some of us have a specific diagnosis does not separate us as a class from the rest of humanity. Depression to one degree or another, is a universal human experience. That some must be diagnosed and treated is a matter of degree not type. Everyone experiences highs and lows. For some that becomes extreme enough to be debilitating. It's like cholesterol. We've all got it. It's just that for some, the specific level and type of cholesterol may be problematic.
A second part of this is that I believe we would do well as a society to pay as much attention to mental health issues as we do to physical health issues. Mental health screenings should be a regular part of our health maintenance. Physicals should be more than "physicals". I wonder if at some point the medical field will advance to the point where chemical analysis of the brain will enable not only diagnosis but also prevention. Wouldn't it be wonderful if one could identify tendencies and take corrective action before mental health is compromised, again, just like we do with cholesterol levels.
Enough for tonight. I'll see what dreams the night has left for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment