How to help someone with a mental health concern.
I especially agree with the first rule, “Offer your Friendship and Support”. You’d be surprised how effective you can be just by being available to listen. It may not seem like much, but it is so infrequent that someone actually takes the time to really stop their lives and listen, that it is a huge help!
Yesterday was the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US, which of course makes today the biggest shopping day of the year as everyone gets the jump on Christmas shopping. (Well not everyone, I haven’t even left the house today, though I do have some plans with a friend for dinner, so I’m not a complete hermit!)
Anyway, traditionally this has been a time to stop and consider all the things that we are thankful for in our lives, which for abuse survivors, or depression sufferers, can be quite an unpleasant task. Taking stock of a life filled with pain, and suffering, might not be as pleasant as most people think it is. Sometimes it very difficult to put things in perspective and find the things you are truly thankful for.
That’s ok. Sometimes, it’s simply enough to be thankful for ice cream. I’ve gotten in the habit every year and stopping to consider all the things I’m thankful for, the love of my wife, the good friendships I have, my nieces and nephews, work that I find interesting, the ability to communicate with all of you, and on and on. I cannot express to you how thankful I am for all those things, and all the people who make my life better.
On the other hand, there was a time, not that long ago, where I was really only thankful for the small things in life that I could manage to enjoy. Life had become such a struggle and so exhausting, that if you asked me what I was truly thankful for, I might have told you a cold can of Dr. Pepper. That was something I could enjoy! It wasn’t much, but it was something. Having something I enjoyed, right there in the midst of all that pain, at least hinted at the possibility that there would be other enjoyment in my life. That I could find, and revel in, the things I truly enjoyed, eventually. That hope meant a lot.
So, if nothing else this holiday weekend, treat yourself to your version of the “cold Dr. Pepper”, and look forward to the future, and all the things, small and large, that future will bring for you to enjoy.
Psych Central has posted the 2007 Best of the Web -Depression Blogs.
There are a number of blogs in there I haven’t read before, I’ll definitely be taking a look. Perhaps while I sit at JFK tonight waiting for my delayed flight home. At least there’s wifi!!
Over the weekend, while we were taking a bit of a break to celebrate our anniversary, one of the stops Angela wanted to make was to The Ridges, in Athens, Ohio. It’s the site of a former insane asylum, most of which is now part of Ohio University. There is one building that is still completely abandoned, parts of the main asylum building that are in some disrepair, and, of course, the cemetery.
In preparation for the trip, I did a little reading on the history of the place, which, of course also read like a history of mental health treatment. On the cemetary page, naturally, we learn why most of the gravestones bear only a number and no name. The vast majority of the patients were simply brought here by their families, and left to die. Only the graves of those patients whose families claimed them, and bore the cost of the headstone, have names.
The lack of names on the tombstones here bears witness to how little mental illness has been understood, and how poorly it has been treated in our past.
Tags: MentalIllness, Asylum, The Ridges, AthensOhio, Cemetery
A friend sent me a link to the YouTube versions of a UK documentary named Stephen Fry’s Secret Life Of The Manic Depressive. I’ve gotten through part 4 thus far and it’s quite good. If you have an interest in learning about Manic Depression, or Bi-Polarity this would be an interesting series to watch.
The link takes you to part 1, the other parts are in the related list along the side.
Tags: ManicDepression, Bi-Polar, StephenFry
I had made a note last week to write about this, and am finally getting around to it. The wife and I were watching an episode of House, where a kid was brought in with the usual bizarre symptoms that the show specializes in. He was also violent, and anti-social. His mother was hopeful that the sickness he had, whatever it was, was the reason for his behavior.
At the end of the show, however, when they figure out what was wrong with him, House lets the Mother know that, unfortunately, the illness wasn’t causing his behavior. He tells her, in so many words, that her son is just a jerk. That’s why he behaves that way.
It got me thinking about depression, because depression is an illness that can, and usually does, have a deep impact on how you behave toward other people. But it doesn’t define everything you do. As much as I tend to give anyone the benefit of the doubt when they are dealing with depression, I’ve learned that sometimes, that doesn’t explain all their poor behavior.
Sometimes, people are just annoying, self-centered and/or mean. Suffering from depression or healing from depression doesn’t really change that.
If you’re currently undergoing treatment for depression, that doesn’t give you carte blanche to be self-centered and annoying either. Most people will give you the benefit of the doubt, but not for too long.
OK first off, let me just say that if you haven’t seen, and are planning on going to see, Reign over Me, the new Adam Sandler/Don Cheadle movie, you might want to skip this post. I’ll be providing some details about the movie that you might not want to know going in. No, not the ending or anything like that, but still…..
OK, now if you are still reading, I assume you are ok with knowing this so here it goes.
There’s a scene in the movie that really rang true to me, because I’ve been there. Shortly after Charlie tries to commit “suicide by cop”, he goes from being released from jail to a 3 day stay at Roosevelt Island for a psych evaluation. During this time, he doesn’t really say anything, he just has the look of a defeated man, while everyone else talks around him about what to do with him. He has no input, nor does he offer any.
I recognized the feeling. There was a time, after a dissociative episode followed by a failed suicide attempt, when I was in a similar situation. I really didn’t have anything to say, I was defeated. To my mind, I couldn’t even kill myself correctly, I had nothing to offer in terms of how to take care of myself, it was up to other people to figure that out. I was resigned to the fact that these other people would decide what to do with me, all I could do was sit there. Just like Adam Sandler did in those scenes.
I don’t know how accurate his overall portrayal of a widower who lost his entire family on 9/11 is, and I don’t know if everyone will find it believable, but given the one part that I do have some experience with, I found it pretty true to life.
The rest of the movie is emotional, sad, touching, etc. Everything you’d expect given the plot. It’s pretty good, but probably a bit heavy for some people.
I was reminded of something rather important today. You see, I had made plans to meet up with a friend of mine for lunch Friday, her birthday had recently passed, and I took the opportunity to offer to buy her lunch and get to spend some time catching up.
Now, that’s not anything earth-shattering, but it was an hour of spending time with a friend, having a few laughs, and just generally enjoying ourselves. I was reminded that all too often in our lives, especially in the midst of a long healing journey, we forget to take a break. We go from work to home, some of us to school, some of us to our kid’s activities, some to therapy, some to volunteer work, that takes up more and more of our time, forgetting that sometimes the best healing is done in those times when you’re not focused on it.
I can remember, quite a few years ago, when after spending almost a year unemployed, in debt and still on anti-depressants, I was trying my darndest to piece together my life. I spent about $50 signing up to play in a roller hockey league. Now, many people saw me spending this money so soon after I started working again as sort of wasteful, and maybe in a financial sense it was, but the extra $50 put toward paying off debt wasn’t really going to change much of anything. On the other hand, knowing that one night during the week I was going to get some exercise, which was good for me, as well as do something that was a fun break from the intensity of dealing with everything else, helped me tremendously. When it came time to go to work, or do any of the million other little things I was dealing with at the time, I could do it with a fresh perspective because I was getting to take a break.
This week has been an especially intense one. There are a great many things weighing on my mind, some I’ve talked about here, some I’m not at liberty to talk about here yet, some I never will be able to. I can’t tell you how much better I feel about those things because I get to take a break every now and again. Sharing a few laughs with a friend as I did today, or my wife, which I get to do frequently, is a great way to let those things go for a little while and fight off mild depression.
Some heavy reading for tonight, courtesy of Psych Central. Newsweek put out a six page article about Men and Depression in which they suggest that the rate of depression in men is vastly under reported because of the weakness it suggests:
“Our definition of a successful man in this culture does not include being depressed, down or sad,” says Michael Addis, chair of psychology at Clark University in Massachusetts. “In many ways it’s the exact opposite. A successful man is always up, positive, in charge and in control of his emotions.”
There’s much more in the full article. I highly suggest reading it.
The other night I had what I can only describe as a semi-dream. I’m fairly sure I was asleep, and dreaming, but everything in my dream actually happened. It was like having one long, vivid, memory. It was a memory of the night I tried to commit suicide, more than 10 years ago.
Nothing earth-shattering in remembering that. Obviously, my feeble attempt at slicing my wrists didn’t get anywhere near deep enough, and the other options available to me mostly involved jumping or driving off a cliff along the Pacific Coast Highway, but I was very much afraid of failing in that and ending up paralyzed or something. One the other hand, I woke up with a real sense of fright. Not fright of making another attempt, but fright of what might have been. I can look back now and see that I was not solving anything, and the attempt was a huge mistake that I’ve since overcome. If I had been successful, I wouldn’t have what I have now, there would be no looking back.
That night would have been the end of my journey. How many journeys ended the same way, and how many people never got to look back? I was close to being one of them. I’m glad I wasn’t.
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