rage the second
Where it took place: in my home.
What set me off: my mom's continued refusal to acknowledge my suffering as a person with mental illness.
Mom,
You know, I really love you. I don't always show it, and sometimes I'm mad at you and wish that things were different, but I do love you. You're my mom, of course I love you.
But sometimes you have been known to say and do things that are hurtful, confusing, and invalidating. Not just not realizing/remembering that I spent a significant portion of my life chronically depressed and desperately unhappy, but also claiming that I am not actually sick. Saying that I've only been given certain diagnoses because a psychologist was doing a study on a certain disorder. (Yes, you did. At Aunt Donna's house earlier this year, you told me that I did not have and never had any symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder. You did say that, Mom.) Saying that any person could go to a psychologist and be diagnosed with anything, regardless of their actual mental health.
I don't know how to tell you face to face how angry and upset that makes me. I don't know how to explain that your invalidation of my actual experiences make me feel like I'm a liar, and that maybe I'm crazier than anyone thought. That maybe I really am just making it all up, and that makes me delusional and living in a reality that doesn't mesh with "actual" reality--which makes me schizophrenic, by the way.
It's not that I want you to treat me with kid gloves or anything, Mom. I've survived depression since I was nine years old, I can handle a little rough treatment. But I don't want to feel like, in order to talk about my mental health, I constantly have to justify myself for feeling the way that I do. I don't want to feel like I'm on trial, having to present enough evidence that you cannot possibly doubt me before I can be treated as someone who has a right to her feelings. I don't want to constantly have to refute whatever prejudice it is that you have against the institution of psychology/psychiatry. I would almost rather be questioned about how I'm sure about my sexual orientation, because at least then I've got arguments ready to refute the prejudice there. I know how to argue that I'm not sick. I don't know how to argue that I am. And I shouldn't have to.
Some people have been misdiagnosed with depression, some people do say that they are depressed when they're only sad, or grieving. But I would think that after 20 years you know me and trust me enough to know that I'm not one of those people.
A friend of mine said this about suffering with depression:
"Yes, this is indeed the joy of depression. Depression, which is sort of the AIDS of mental illness in that it largely destroys your ability to cope with the depression itself. And because it's a disease that affects your ability to think clearly and overrides your mental agenda with its own, it's very difficult (even if one knows one is depressed) to separate out what are one's actual feelings and motivations and what is, essentially, the Voice of Depression.
So, one tends to blame oneself for one's inability to cope with depression. And because the voice of depression uses our own intellectual tools against us, while preventing us full access to them, it can be very convincing when it tells us we are bad, bad people who are just using depression as an excuse for being miserable."
The Voice of Depression, as she calls it, only gets stronger when a person has to constantly argue against the prejudices of people who won't believe us. It makes us feel even guiltier that, not only can we not control our own psyche, but we're treated as liars when we admit that we have a problem. We feel worse, because we have to fight against people who treat us as inferior, who treat us as liars, who treat us as idiots, before they believe in our sickness because we try to kill ourselves. We don't do this for attention. We do this because we cannot stand to live another day in a world where we are not only in pain from depression, but in pain from the weight of the doubt of others.
Imagine this world, Mom. Imagine a world for yourself where this is the case:
Your own physical pain fascinates you, until there are nights when you sit on your hands and stare at your computer screen, just to stop yourself from painting your flesh with your blood.
The therapists you see help you a little--Lori gives you Abilify to stabilize your moods, thinking that perhaps you're bipolar, and Colby tries to convince you that some things aren't your fault, and you deserve forgiveness and love. (She's the first one to tell you this in so many words; deep down, you tend to think she's a liar.)
And because you can't stop fantasizing about swallowing all of your pills--not to die, just to not feel--you stop taking them. The chemicals make you feel so much better, that surely it wouldn't hurt to take all of them? Imagine how wonderful you'd feel if you took them all! Just a little sleepy, and then your emotions couldn't dictate your life (but the chemicals would, and that's not how you want to live. Chemicals make you weak, because you need a pill to tell you what to feel).
Your second year at college, you think that maybe you're better enough to get through the day. It won't be great, but at least it'll be something like survival. Until the feelings of worthlessness and despair come back, and you start to believe that you're failing at life. You feel like a failure because you want to hurt yourself again, and you know that if you don't go back for counseling, you'll only spiral down even further.
So you go to the Counseling and Testing Center, and the psychologist you see there changes your diagnosis: not Bipolar II, like Lori thought, but Borderline Personality Disorder. It takes a little while for the reality to sink in--about a day and a half, all told--but when it does sink in, you begin to feel like your life makes more sense in context of that, but also that you're perhaps more damaged than even the professionals can fix.
But you try. Because the idea of living your entire life in between nervous breakdowns, suicide attempts, and periods of self-loathing is more than you can bear, and there's a part of you that screams itself hoarse suggesting that life could be better, that life was meant to be more than just survival, and doing the next thing because you were too damned stubborn to lie down and die. Reminding you that maybe you could enjoy life, and feel like you were a cohesive whole that wouldn't fall apart and destroy itself at the first opportunity.
And there are still people out there who will tell you that you are wrong about your own thoughts and emotions, about your own mental health, as if you haven't lived this nightmare for the last eleven years.
Have you imagined that world thoroughly? Can you feel the despair that's crushing you? Can you sense the hopelessness that surrounds you every day when you wake up in the morning? Can you imagine how hard it is to get up and go out into a world that doesn't believe you, ignores your pain because it doesn't fit with their notion of who you are? Is it real to you now, Mom?
Would you want to live there?
Here's the last part of this little exercise:
Mom, that that is the world I live in every day of my life.
I've heard a lot of people tell me that I don't seem very depressed, or that I'm just being overly dramatic when I tell them about major depressive episodes. But if by my sharing this with you, you can reevaluate your beliefs about depression and mental illness, and I don't have to hear anyone tell me that I'm being overly-dramatic or acting out, or that I use my depression as a crutch because I'm too weak to deal with reality, then I have done something good that I will be proud of for the rest of my life. My psychology textbook said "depression is the common cold of mental disorders," because so many people suffer.
But if the book were going to be fully accurate about depression, then depression is the cancer, the heart attack, and HIV/AIDS of mental disorders because so many people suffer, and their suffering is at once profound, debilitating, and agonizing. And sometimes, far too often, their suffering is fatal.
Every day, I wake up to a world of despair and fear. Not because of any current events, or because of the terrorism of extremists, but because of the terrorism of my own mind. There is ALWAYS a part of me that is worried about suffering another period of intense depression. There is ALWAYS a part of me that wonders if I am strong enough to survive the next time (because I am not foolish and naive enough to believe that there won't be a next time). And there is ALWAYS a part of me that hopes and fears that maybe this time, you'll believe me (and there's always a part of me that doubts if you ever will).
Love,
Laura
This makes me sad, right now, more than it pisses me off.
What set me off: my mom's continued refusal to acknowledge my suffering as a person with mental illness.
Mom,
You know, I really love you. I don't always show it, and sometimes I'm mad at you and wish that things were different, but I do love you. You're my mom, of course I love you.
But sometimes you have been known to say and do things that are hurtful, confusing, and invalidating. Not just not realizing/remembering that I spent a significant portion of my life chronically depressed and desperately unhappy, but also claiming that I am not actually sick. Saying that I've only been given certain diagnoses because a psychologist was doing a study on a certain disorder. (Yes, you did. At Aunt Donna's house earlier this year, you told me that I did not have and never had any symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder. You did say that, Mom.) Saying that any person could go to a psychologist and be diagnosed with anything, regardless of their actual mental health.
I don't know how to tell you face to face how angry and upset that makes me. I don't know how to explain that your invalidation of my actual experiences make me feel like I'm a liar, and that maybe I'm crazier than anyone thought. That maybe I really am just making it all up, and that makes me delusional and living in a reality that doesn't mesh with "actual" reality--which makes me schizophrenic, by the way.
It's not that I want you to treat me with kid gloves or anything, Mom. I've survived depression since I was nine years old, I can handle a little rough treatment. But I don't want to feel like, in order to talk about my mental health, I constantly have to justify myself for feeling the way that I do. I don't want to feel like I'm on trial, having to present enough evidence that you cannot possibly doubt me before I can be treated as someone who has a right to her feelings. I don't want to constantly have to refute whatever prejudice it is that you have against the institution of psychology/psychiatry. I would almost rather be questioned about how I'm sure about my sexual orientation, because at least then I've got arguments ready to refute the prejudice there. I know how to argue that I'm not sick. I don't know how to argue that I am. And I shouldn't have to.
Some people have been misdiagnosed with depression, some people do say that they are depressed when they're only sad, or grieving. But I would think that after 20 years you know me and trust me enough to know that I'm not one of those people.
A friend of mine said this about suffering with depression:
"Yes, this is indeed the joy of depression. Depression, which is sort of the AIDS of mental illness in that it largely destroys your ability to cope with the depression itself. And because it's a disease that affects your ability to think clearly and overrides your mental agenda with its own, it's very difficult (even if one knows one is depressed) to separate out what are one's actual feelings and motivations and what is, essentially, the Voice of Depression.
So, one tends to blame oneself for one's inability to cope with depression. And because the voice of depression uses our own intellectual tools against us, while preventing us full access to them, it can be very convincing when it tells us we are bad, bad people who are just using depression as an excuse for being miserable."
The Voice of Depression, as she calls it, only gets stronger when a person has to constantly argue against the prejudices of people who won't believe us. It makes us feel even guiltier that, not only can we not control our own psyche, but we're treated as liars when we admit that we have a problem. We feel worse, because we have to fight against people who treat us as inferior, who treat us as liars, who treat us as idiots, before they believe in our sickness because we try to kill ourselves. We don't do this for attention. We do this because we cannot stand to live another day in a world where we are not only in pain from depression, but in pain from the weight of the doubt of others.
Imagine this world, Mom. Imagine a world for yourself where this is the case:
Your own physical pain fascinates you, until there are nights when you sit on your hands and stare at your computer screen, just to stop yourself from painting your flesh with your blood.
The therapists you see help you a little--Lori gives you Abilify to stabilize your moods, thinking that perhaps you're bipolar, and Colby tries to convince you that some things aren't your fault, and you deserve forgiveness and love. (She's the first one to tell you this in so many words; deep down, you tend to think she's a liar.)
And because you can't stop fantasizing about swallowing all of your pills--not to die, just to not feel--you stop taking them. The chemicals make you feel so much better, that surely it wouldn't hurt to take all of them? Imagine how wonderful you'd feel if you took them all! Just a little sleepy, and then your emotions couldn't dictate your life (but the chemicals would, and that's not how you want to live. Chemicals make you weak, because you need a pill to tell you what to feel).
Your second year at college, you think that maybe you're better enough to get through the day. It won't be great, but at least it'll be something like survival. Until the feelings of worthlessness and despair come back, and you start to believe that you're failing at life. You feel like a failure because you want to hurt yourself again, and you know that if you don't go back for counseling, you'll only spiral down even further.
So you go to the Counseling and Testing Center, and the psychologist you see there changes your diagnosis: not Bipolar II, like Lori thought, but Borderline Personality Disorder. It takes a little while for the reality to sink in--about a day and a half, all told--but when it does sink in, you begin to feel like your life makes more sense in context of that, but also that you're perhaps more damaged than even the professionals can fix.
But you try. Because the idea of living your entire life in between nervous breakdowns, suicide attempts, and periods of self-loathing is more than you can bear, and there's a part of you that screams itself hoarse suggesting that life could be better, that life was meant to be more than just survival, and doing the next thing because you were too damned stubborn to lie down and die. Reminding you that maybe you could enjoy life, and feel like you were a cohesive whole that wouldn't fall apart and destroy itself at the first opportunity.
And there are still people out there who will tell you that you are wrong about your own thoughts and emotions, about your own mental health, as if you haven't lived this nightmare for the last eleven years.
Have you imagined that world thoroughly? Can you feel the despair that's crushing you? Can you sense the hopelessness that surrounds you every day when you wake up in the morning? Can you imagine how hard it is to get up and go out into a world that doesn't believe you, ignores your pain because it doesn't fit with their notion of who you are? Is it real to you now, Mom?
Would you want to live there?
Here's the last part of this little exercise:
Mom, that that is the world I live in every day of my life.
I've heard a lot of people tell me that I don't seem very depressed, or that I'm just being overly dramatic when I tell them about major depressive episodes. But if by my sharing this with you, you can reevaluate your beliefs about depression and mental illness, and I don't have to hear anyone tell me that I'm being overly-dramatic or acting out, or that I use my depression as a crutch because I'm too weak to deal with reality, then I have done something good that I will be proud of for the rest of my life. My psychology textbook said "depression is the common cold of mental disorders," because so many people suffer.
But if the book were going to be fully accurate about depression, then depression is the cancer, the heart attack, and HIV/AIDS of mental disorders because so many people suffer, and their suffering is at once profound, debilitating, and agonizing. And sometimes, far too often, their suffering is fatal.
Every day, I wake up to a world of despair and fear. Not because of any current events, or because of the terrorism of extremists, but because of the terrorism of my own mind. There is ALWAYS a part of me that is worried about suffering another period of intense depression. There is ALWAYS a part of me that wonders if I am strong enough to survive the next time (because I am not foolish and naive enough to believe that there won't be a next time). And there is ALWAYS a part of me that hopes and fears that maybe this time, you'll believe me (and there's always a part of me that doubts if you ever will).
Love,
Laura
This makes me sad, right now, more than it pisses me off.