If you’re not familiar with the story of Silver Linings Playbook, I highly recommend it. Mental disorders are on the rise in this country, particularly depression, and the chances are good that at some point in your life, whether you are aware of it or not, you will interact with someone who suffers from a mental/emotional disorder of some kind. When people find out about mine, I get a couple of different reactions. The first one, the awkward “not staring” stare that burns a hole in the object nearest to your hand, is the more common reaction that I get. While it used to bother me that people I was getting along with just fine a minute ago are now trying not to run away from me in fear, I’ve learned how to move past it and not take it personally. The second reaction I get is the “OhGodwillshebeoffendedifIlookawayIthinkI’mgonnabesickbuttrytolooknormal” stare, which is actually more awkward than the first one, and thankfully those people do look away after a second. It’s way worse to try to hold eye contact with someone who doesn’t want to be looking at you.
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When I first learned about what I have, I probably had that look, too. Not everyone wants to talk about having a mental disorder, and I’m not saying it’s my favorite subject, but if you want to ask me questions about it, I will give you an honest answer. I work in the medical field, and even though almost nobody has heard of my disorder, the people I interact with the most are open-minded and want to learn, so it’s not as difficult as it could be. I tried to keep it a secret in a few of my jobs, and that just made the odd things I sometimes do even odder because I couldn’t explain to my boss what was going on with me. I hated living that way, and I feel a deep, genuine empathy for those who do live that way. It’s definitely the harder road to walk with a mental disorder, but I get why people do it because even now, with the wide world of all disciplines of knowledge at our fingertips in a heartbeat, mental disorders still carry a heavy stigma.
But the benefit of knowing just how messed up your head is, and how messed up it could be down the road as you age, is having the opportunity to understand yourself in a way that a lot of people don’t take the time to do for themselves, much less others. The trick is to walk a thin line between understanding the limitations that your mental disorder places on you and using your mental disorder as a crutch to hold yourself back. I prefer to use meditation techniques I’ve learned over the years as a way to find insight into myself and understand when a setback is caused by limitation or by the crutch, but it’s not for everyone.
I see my coworkers and friends living hectic lives where they don’t sleep enough and don’t take time to really care for themselves. They get a headache, so they pop a pill and move on. My life gets hectic like that sometimes, too. It’s an unavoidable part of adulthood, unfortunately. But the difference between people who don’t have a mental disorder and those who do is that when my life gets hectic and stays that way for too long, I don’t “get used to it,” I crash and become so depressed that nothing and no one makes me feel better. Sometimes, rarely now that I’m older, but sometimes I think about hurting myself, or I think “Would it really be such a loss to the world if something bad did happen to me?” When I’m not depressed, when my mental state is balanced and I’m in a good place, I know that it would be a bad thing. I know that I have people who love me and would be deeply hurt if I did something to harm myself. But when I’m depressed all I feel is pain and darkness and sadness, and my depressed brain interprets every glance from every stranger as loathing, disgust and disappointment.
I try to take my mind off those depressing thoughts by learning to give to others. The only way to keep myself from spiraling down a metaphorical black hole and being crushed under the weight of its infinite gravity is to try to hold on to something that is still, steady, fixed. I’ve got a couple of those things in place to help me out of my depressions, and they are not people. I love the people in my life, but if there is one thing in this world that is never, ever steady, it is people. And it isn’t fair for me to try to put the responsibility of lifting me out of my depression on another person. People change, they move on, they disappoint, they leave, they come back, they surprise, but they are never steady. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t still try to love the people in your life, but you can’t rely on them to be your port in the storm. In fact, if you do try to put that on someone else, or if someone else tries to take that on on your behalf, you will wind up seeing the worst in each other, and very few relationships are strong enough to withstand it.
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The brightest, shiniest silver lining about having a mental disorder, or even just being at a low point in your life, is that you’re being given the opportunity to become your own hero. You have to learn how to save yourself. You find the thing that makes getting out of bed worthwhile, and you learn to forgive yourself for your imperfections and your failings. Most of the people I know who’ve had success with getting themselves out of depression or a low point or whatever they want to call it have managed to do so by finding an activity, an avocation, or forming some sort of new habit that takes you out of your mind for a little while. I’m not talking about drugs, though some people do go that route, I’m talking about going to a dance class, learning a new language, writing things down in a journal or even constructing a novel, painting, running, volunteering their time to a charity of some sort. Getting out of your head and looking around at just how messed up everyone else is really does help me to realize that things aren’t all that bad for me. So what if I’m not perfect? Neither is anybody else. So read Silver Linings and celebrate your imperfections and that life is messy and that crazy is not the worst thing you can ever be.
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Thalia Huntley 