April 2008 /

The Archives

04.13.08 /
Things Could Be Different, But They’re Not
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Yesterday Kristy and I were having a really interesting discussion with one of her coworkers and that coworker’s partner about campus shootings and the appropriate response to them. My contention was that campus violence is simply a manifestation of our national inability to respond to mental illness in a mature fashion, and that the correct responses were to increase the availability of mental health treatment and to, most importantly, combat the stigma attached to mental illness that keeps so many people from seeking the treatment that they need. Perhaps the vehemence of my argument would surprise people who are not aware that I have an iron in this fire…

I was thinking about the stigma and silence surrounding mental illness, and decided that while I can’t do much individually about the stigma, I can at least break my own personal silence on the topic and hope that in some way it will do some good. So, because I don’t know how to do things halfway, I’m going to use my blog to “come out” as someone who is mentally ill. I have been in treatment for some time now for what I would vaguely describe as a major depressive disorder. This problem has been a daily fact for most of my conscious life; this is my second stint in psychotherapy, and the first one that shows any sign of sticking. In the time between round one and round two, I spent the better part of a decade self-diagnosing as anything from bipolar to borderline personality disorder to seasonal affective disorder, all because I was too intimidated by the prospect of therapy to actually get help.

But putting a label on a set of symptoms is not treatment, and many problems are simply impossible to sort out on your own, without the aid of an objective voice. In my new treatment, I have not even asked for a clinical description of my set of symptoms. The only lay use for a label is to help pigeonhole a person’s unique, unsharable, unreproducible, indescribable psychic distress, a game that I’m no longer interested in.

While the events that finally led me to re-enter therapy late last year are of a personal nature that I won’t discuss, suffice it to say that therapy has so dramatically changed my inner life that I had to write this post. And that I had to use it to make this point: if you are wavering, wondering if feeling sad almost every minute of every day is just normal (it isn’t), doubting if your problems are “bad enough” or “matter enough” (they are and they do, if you ever think so–it isn’t a contest), afraid to go into therapy because of what people will say or think when they find out, please please do yourself and the world a favor and go anyways. And if you need someone to talk to about it, please email me.

I’m in therapy and it’s ok. I have a mental illness, and it’s not great, but it’s not my fault and it doesn’t make me less of a person. And now I’m taking a very deep breath, counting to ten, and pressing “publish”…

04.07.08 /
One Year is Not Enough
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…in which I pick up the title theme from my last post to wish Kristy and I a happy first anniversary. As Kristy says at her place, it’s been an interesting year, but we’re both still here and happier than ever. Here’s to many many more. *mwah*!

We have fun things planned, as she says, and we had a great weekend, thanks in part to Kristy surprising me with Cubs tickets for us. Thank you! Tonight we get to find out how year-old unfrozen cake tastes

Aside from the game, some tasty sukiyaki tonight, and a new purse I bought Kristy that should arrive this week, we’ve booked a vacation in the beautiful Dominican Republic at the beginning of next month, and are finally replacing a 9-year old TV in our living room. Huzzah!

Anyways, I have a lot of practice remembering our anniversary, because we’ve been celebrating it together for seven years (for varying reasons). Those seven years have been some of the best of my life. I love you Kristy!