Monique Colver's Open Salon Blog

I Don't Want To, and You Can't Make Me

Wed, 30 May 2012 12:05:48 -0400

When Stew was suffering with massive anxiety issues and the thought of going anywhere, or doing anything, was so overwhelming he would shake at the thought of it (and not a good sort of shake), I would ask him to make an effort.

That doesn’t sound particularly helpful, does it?

I would also tell him that it was his choice, and that if he didn't attend (fill in the blank), the world would not come to an end. "But I do want you to make an effort," I'd say, "Even if it's only to get dressed and get in the car. Then, if you still don't feel up to it, you can stop and come back in."

I'd break it into tasks for him. Shower. Check. Get dressed. Check. Go out to car. Check. Get in car. If the world hadn't fallen to pieces around him by then, there was a better than even chance that he would make it at least partway to his destination, if not all the way.

A better than even chance may not sound like much, but it's certainly better than making no effort at all.

This doesn't work for everyone, of course -- everyone operates differently. All I can tell you is what worked for us. And your partner has to be willing to make the painful effort of trying.

Make no mistake -- it is very painful. If the thought of leaving the house can cause one to break out in hives, make their heart race and breathing become difficult, the act of leaving the house can make all that even worse.

I find anti-anxiety meds help with that. But as much as they help, they don't relieve the problem. They don't make it go away and they don't make life suddenly easy. But they can calm the physical symptoms enough so we can consider the possibility of taking that next step.

Some of our loved ones don't have the motivation to take that next step, they're comfortable being who they are, and aren't interested in making that extra effort to get past it. "You just don't understand," they might say, as if your understanding would make all the difference.

"If only you would understand."

And so we try. We reassure them, we tell them we understand, we make allowances because they're ill, and we keep trying to understand.

But they still refuse to leave the house, because all of our understanding isn't what they need. All of our attention, our time, and our devotion to their illness aren't what they need.

I don't know what they do need. I'm not an expert. I'm just experienced with a few individual situations. But I do know that external measures aren't going to be enough. They need to want to do better for themselves, not just because you say they need to.

With Stew it was easy. He wasn't likely to use the "You just don't understand" line with me because he knew that it didn't matter if I understood or not. I was there to help him through it, and relating to it wasn't as necessary as listening to what he needed. He had the internal motivation to get better -- he was driven by his own vision of what he wanted his future to look like, and it did not include being a shut-in.

Even when it seemed as if being a recluse was the most attractive option.

I don't believe in the coddle theory of helping, which is when we say, "It's okay, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do," as if a little more time and rest will solve the issue, as if by magic. I believe in the sort of pushy theory of helping, which goes more like this: "Try it, make an effort, because if you at least make an effort, you'll feel better about it, even if you don't make it all the way. Trying is an accomplishment."

And that's the point to emphasize. Trying is an accomplishment. Not trying at all is giving up before we even try. Sometimes that's appropriate, but mostly it's not, not if we want to make progress.

Some days, the best we can hope for is just a bit of effort. It can make the world look just a little bit more attainable, and it can make the next effort just a little bit easier. But without that first step, well, the first step is the hardest, isn't it? And if we never take it, how can we get to the next one?

Kennedy Curse? Try Human Curse.

Sat, 19 May 2012 13:05:55 -0400

It's not that I want to take anything away from the Kennedys -- I'm sure their suffering is great and suicide is such a difficult thing to wrap your head around, unless you're the one who's suicidal, of course, and then it makes all the sense in the world.

But what happened to Mary Richardson Kennedy was not because she had married into the Kennedy clan. Oh sure, it's plastered all over the news as if being a Kennedy is a death sentence, but let's get real. Suicide happens every day, to many people who aren't Kennedys, or know Kennedys, or have ever met a Kennedy.

Suicide is far too common to have it reduced to one family's curse. Don't I wish. If only we could restrict it to one family. Think of how many lives would be saved!

Suicide is everywhere. And whoever it happens to, it's a tragedy, whether they're married into a famous family or they're run-of-the-mill people like the rest of us. (I don't really know what run-of-the-mill means, so take that with a grain of salt.)

Suicide takes our loved ones prematurely and then we can never ask "why?" But even if we could ask, the answer might not make any sense to us. How could it? It's not our experience.

Those of us who have been close to the concept can understand, and those who have not, cannot.

When we call a suicide one family's curse we're negating the widespread tragedy that is suicide, we're reducing it to one situation, one cause and effect, one tragedy that is somehow different out of hundreds, thousands. But it's not any different from the suicides that happen every day. The result is the same: one person is gone, and the people left behind are grieving and wondering why.

And just for the record, don't give me any of that "Suicide is a selfish act, they're thinking only of themselves . . . " We don't know what they're thinking, but I can guarantee that some are thinking, "My family, my friends, the world, will be better off without me in it." Sometimes they think they're doing everyone a favor. I have thought that, which is why I'm so good at telling people not to assume they know what's going on in anyone's head. We don't know.

Your reality is not my reality.

Instead of calling one suicide one family's curse, as if there's nothing that can be done to stop it because, after all, it's a curse, and everyone knows curses aren't easily lifted, let's think about what we can do about reducing suicides. There's not enough help for the people who are suicidal, and not enough understanding of what they need. This is partly because we don't take it seriously -- we tell them to cheer up, to look at the bright side, that things will get better (as if we possess some sort of magical powers to see into the future), and when the pain is great that suicide is starting to look like an option, platitudes don't work.

We tell them to think of the others who will be hurt if they leave us, and then they wonder who's being selfish now?

There are people who use the threat of suicide as emotional blackmail, as a means to get attention, as a way to make themselves important as people scurry around to save them. I'm not talking about those people today. Today I'm talking about the people who are in pain, right now, and who are considering suicide as an option, and who are in so much pain they can't see another way out.

There's no curse, and there's no easy fix. I wish there were. It would be so much easier that way, wouldn't there?

We need to help those people find the light, the light that is sometimes hiding behind all the chaos and that makes living just one more day worthwhile. It might be just a little bit of light, but there's more where that came from. I'm not an expert in psychiatric issues, but I know how to find just a bit of light and hang onto it. Sometimes that's the best we can do for the short term, while we work on the long term.

I'm long term now. There's light most of the time, and it's a great place to be.

There's No One Size Fits All

Wed, 16 May 2012 18:05:53 -0400

Here’s the thing about mental illness. (Yes, you heard that correctly. There is only one thing, and one thing only, and if you believe that, I have a bridge for sale.)

The thing about mental illness is that everyone is different. We can’t diagnose people and put them in a box, and then apply solutions and assume it will work. We also can’t go around diagnosing people from a distance, though we do like to do that. But every single person who has a mental illness is different from every other person who has a mental illness. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions.

And just like every person with mental illness, every relationship between two people is different.

See where I’m going here? Since everyone is different, and every relationship is different . . . there is no one solution for everyone.

When I wrote my book, “An Uncommon Friendship: a memoir of love, mental illness, and friendship,” it was not my intention to say, “This is what I did, and so this is what everyone should do.”

I have met people who have been in relationships with people with mental illness. I have friends who have been in relationships with people who have mental illness. I have seen relationships held together with nothing more than determination and stubbornness, and I have seen relationships fall apart despite the two parties loving each other.

I have one rule for relationships: Make sure you’re safe. Make sure you’re protected, because if you’re in danger there’s no way you can help anyone else. I don’t mean just physical danger, but also emotional danger. If this relationship causes you so much emotional pain that it’s affecting your daily life, you need to look at what needs to happen to change that.

My lessons were learned the hard way. While taking care of my mentally ill person I allowed myself to sink into a morass of depression and irrational thinking. I too became isolated, just as he did. At the time I would have said it was because I didn’t have time to do anything else. My days were filled with working and taking care of him, and the stigma of being married to someone with a mental illness so severe that he had taken to cutting himself and speaking to demons made me want to hide from the world.

We separated, my mentally ill husband and I, because I could not be a caretaker and a wife. This was partly because he was having emotional entanglements with . . . any other women he ran into on a daily basis, in person, online, in his head. This was part of his illness, but it was one part I couldn’t keep dealing with. But I continued to take care of him for years, which is where the friendship part came in. That I could do.

People would ask me why. “Why don’t you just leave him?”

“Well, I did,” I would say, “He lives in his own apartment.”

“But you take care of him, and he’s always at your apartment.”

“So?”

It didn’t matter that we were no longer in a marriage. He was still my friend, and he still needed lots of help, and I wasn’t going to . . . abandon him.

I hear that term a lot. “I feel like I’m abandoning him,” “I can’t just abandon her,” which makes it sound as if we’re leaving a puppy by the side of the road.

We’re not. Puppies can’t rip out our hearts and shred them if we try to keep them safe. They can’t hurt us like a mentally ill partner can. And yes, sometimes they’re too mentally ill to know what they’re doing, and they need all the help they can get. I’m all for that. But not at the cost of losing oneself. Sometimes the mentally ill person won’t take responsibility for themselves because there’s always someone to fall back on. I’ve seen that happen. And once they’re forced to take that responsibility, they become med compliant, and they work on themselves. Sometimes.

Living with a mental illness is very hard. I have days where I have to really fight the depression, and with experience I’ve become much better at dealing with it, at getting through those deep troughs that sometimes don’t seem to end. And that’s “only” depression. I say that because I’ve seen psychosis up close, and that’s certainly harder.

It’s really hard, and so is being in a relationship where one party has a mental illness. Some people will choose to stick it out and do the very best they can with what they’ve got, and some won’t. Some might choose a hybrid method like mine. Whether you stick it out or go out on your own, keep yourself safe. Keep yourself whole. That’s the best thing you can do for yourself, and for your partner.

Let's Diagnose a Mental Illness!

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 14:04:41 -0400

Haven’t you heard? It’s the new party game, fun for all ages and the fab part is, everyone wins! I do like a game where I get to win.

Look, I do a lot of reading around the web, and if there’s one thing I’ve noticed (hopefully it’s more than one thing, but I don’t want to have my expectations too high, do I?) it’s that we, meaning people, are quick to diagnose mental illness in anyone who isn’t us. Strangers, people mentioned by third parties, people in the news, people not in the news, our neighbors, our friends, our family, our enemies. We are more than eager to diagnose them with a mental illness. Or a mental disorder, if you will.

“She’s obviously a narcissist, he’s depressed, she’s psychotic, that person over there is bipolar, I bet she’s got borderline . . . “

And on and on it goes.

“But I’ve seen someone with exactly the same thing!” I hear, as if that means anything. I’ve been around a few people with cancer, but you don’t see me running around diagnosing random strangers with it. For one thing, it’s rude. For another thing, what the hell do I know about it?

For a third thing, mental disorders are complex and often difficult for professionals to diagnose. Yes! Get this: there are people trained to diagnose these things and even treat them!

But we live in an age of DIY, and it’s so much more entertaining for us if we can explain the world and people around us in simple terms.

“But I recognize the symptoms! I know a manic depressive when I see one!”

Yes. Occasionally I’m a little . . . manic, but I’m certainly not manic depressive. A psychiatrist once diagnosed me as manic depressive and gave me meds to treat it. Turns out she was wrong, and I and the drugs had an extreme disagreement and I ended up . . . not in very good shape. And she was a professional . . . and still made the mistake. Why? Perhaps because I was under considerable stress and was both depressed at my situation and running around like a madwoman to try to control the situation. Turns out what I really needed was some time off.

I do have depression. Not that I would diagnose anyone else with it, even being the expert I am just by living with it. So go ahead and diagnose me with that if you will, but please understand that even as a depressive, I’m not walking around under a black cloud and contemplating throwing myself off a building. I’m normally pretty freakin’ happy. That’s because I’m being treated for it, and I know the warning signs when I’m about to have a depressive episode, and I work really hard at not falling into the pit. I’ve had it for a very long time, and I’ve gotten much better at controlling it.

Which does not mean that everyone can deal with it as I have, or that I’m any sort of expert in how it works, or what one should do. I know how to deal with it for me, and mental illness and disorders (for those who say, “Eeek!” when hearing mental illness), can be very complex. What works for one person . . . works for that one person.

Sometimes people are just . . . people. Even with odd things going on in our heads, or not. I might regard the sanest person in the world as a little off, just because they’re different from what I expect. Shall I assign them a diagnosis so it’s easily explained? It would make my life easier.

(However, just for the record, I live with the sanest person in the world, and if he’s off, it’s delightfully so.)

The problem with assigning diagnoses to random people because we think we know what’s going on with them, besides the fact that we’re not qualified, is that we’re not looking at the whole person. We’re all much more than a single component, and there are a whole lot of things going on with us that can’t be easily categorized by assigning a random diagnosis. Sure, we like to think we’re in control, and we know things, but sometimes . . . we’re not, and we don’t.

It’s okay to not know what’s “wrong” with someone. Personally, I have enough of a challenge figuring out what’s up with ME.

Crazy on Planes

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 17:03:51 -0400

Yesterday’s cursory review of the news was full of mental illness stories. If by full, I mean there were several. There were also the old standbys: War, famine, the economy, politics, but there were also stories of people lost in their own minds.

There was a video of a flight attendant losing it on a plane, before the plane was in the air. I clicked on the video, and watched several minutes of passengers holding up cell phones to capture the activity and the screaming as the flight attendant was restrained in the front of the plane. The passengers were avid to capture anything on their cell phones that they could, and occasionally they’d comment on what was going on. Also, occasionally, they’d laugh, as if something particularly amusing was happening.

Because there’s nothing funnier than witnessing a person losing their mind. I use the term “losing her mind” loosely, because I don’t know if she was, I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know what will happen to her. I do know, having witnessed such breaks myself, that for the person that it’s happening to, it’s pretty damn horrible. It’s frightening, it’s scary, and when it happens one can’t really imagine any other reality than the one that is happening right then, at that time, in that space. It is their reality, whether it bears any relation to reality as the rest of us would define it.

We are a wonderfully compassionate people.

We’re certain that sort of thing won’t happen to us because, after all, WE’RE not crazy. It only happens to crazies. Only other people. Is that why some of us laugh? Because we’re so safe in our own reality that we don’t need to consider those in pain as people just like us?

Sometimes when I’m in an uncomfortable situation I’ll laugh. If I’m nervous it relieves the tension, or it’s a nervous habit, or it’s one of the ways I cope with pain. Stew and I often laughed about his mental illness, but we were in the thick of it, not watching from a distance.

I don’t know why people laugh when someone else is in obvious pain. That’s what mental illness is, after all – it’s pain, and because it affects who we are, how we act, what we do, it scares us. It should scare us. it’s a scary thing. But it’s scariest for the person experiencing it, that much I’m sure of, as certain as I am that one should never end a sentence with a preposition.

I’d like to say we shouldn’t laugh at people in pain, but then I’d be accused of telling people how to act, and I don’t have that right. That’s true. But I would like to know why we laugh. As someone who has looked out over the precipice, I can’t imagine having the certainty that I would never have a loss of mental health. Maybe I’m missing something because of my brain chemistry (and here someone will tell me that there’s no such thing, but they can believe what they want and I’ll believe what I want), and maybe if I had that absolute certainty that crazy people are always someone else, then I would understand.

As long as I’m on the subject, as much as we pity the mentally ill and tell ourselves we’re not like that, why do so many then want to characterize themselves as crazy? We try to one-up each other with stories of how our family and friends are crazier than your family and friends . . . Maybe crazy is cool? As long as it doesn’t manifest itself as seeing things that aren’t there, magical thinking, major depressive episodes, mania, paranoia, psychosis . . .

We want to be crazy, but in a good way. But with crazy, you don’t get to choose, do you?

Should I ever have occasion to suspect I may become psychotic, I shall send out notices in advance in the hopes that everyone will gather round and capture the moment with their smart phones. So there’d be proof, because what fun is it being crazy if you can’t prove you really went there?

It’s like having your passport stamped when you’ve been to a country you didn’t really want to visit, but did anyway.

Do make sure I have your contact info on hand. You’d hate to miss it.