NO LAUGHING MATTER

Mental illness is a very serious illness, and if untreated, it can lead to death. It's not a game or a joke. It cannot be fixed by thinking happy thoughts or watching a funny movie. It cannot be cured, but recovery is possible only with intense therapy and medication. People often make jokes about mental illness and even television shows turn a serious illness into something to laugh at. The truth is it's no laughing matter.

When I returned to work after being hospitalized, a fellow employee said to me with a big smile, “I heard you were in the loony bin.” I told him I was in the hospital, and it wasn't funny. When you end up in the hospital it's very serious.

He continued to laugh. “So are you crazy? Do you have a few screws loose upstairs?”

I wanted to smack him and yell, “This isn't a joke. I have a serious illness.” Instead I just walked away.

A mental health hospital is not a looney bin. It is a place where a person with mental illness can get the treatment he or she needs. It is also a place to keep a person safe from harming him or herself.

One day at work, I was taking my anxiety medication and another employee teased, “Are you taking your happy pill? Now you can be happy.”

I replied, “That isn't funny. It's an important pill that keeps me from getting sick. Without it, you'd have to clean up after me.”

Antidepressants and anxiety pills balance the chemicals in a person's brain and make his or her illness manageable. It's not a happy pill that magically takes away your sadness. It doesn't erase internal pain. It takes a mixture of medication and therapy to help a person find the light.

How many times have you heard someone say, “I have OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) because I like things neat?”

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is very serious and reaches beyond liking things neat. My husband and I have a friend who has OCD, and he uncontrollably obsesses over small and big things to the point that it drives him deeper and deeper into his dark hole.

There are movies and television shows that turn mental illness into a joke. I watched one movie that had a character who went from one personality to the next. They had the character do hilarious things when he switched personalities. They made Multiple Personality Disorder into a joke, when it is a serious illness.

The truth is mental illness is no laughing matter. It's a real sickness and should not be joked about. It's our job as those who deal with mental illness to tell the world our illness is not a joke. It is real and as serious as cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, and many other diseases.

Do you hear people make jokes about cancer? I've never heard a joke about a person with cancer or any other illness, but yet we laugh about mental illness. No illness is a laughing matter especially mental illness.

When someone jests about mental illness, I tell them it's not funny. I inform them how serious this illness is. Standing up to prejudice and teaching the world around me about mental illness helps the light shine brighter on me and the world.

I will be going to a writers conference this week so there will not be a blog post next week.

DOES A SELF-INJURER LIKE PAIN?

A common misunderstanding is that self-injurers like pain. Yes, self-injures do inflict physical wounds upon themselves, but it is not because they enjoy pain. Remember, self-injury is like a high. Cutting stimulates pain killing hormones (endorphins), making the self-harmer feel like she or he is on a high. The person's emotions rise to a high, and for a brief moment he or she is free from the inner pain within him or her. The injurer becomes numb to all pain, physical and emotional.

When my ex-boyfriend packed my bags and told me I had to move out, I had a breakdown and to relieve my inner pain, I put my hand through a window. My hand had a big gash in it, but it did not hurt. The endorphins kicked in and I was free from all my pain. When my high wore off, I began to cry uncontrollably as my wound began to throb. I looked at my hand and suddenly realized what I had done and felt angry at myself for causing myself pain.

I was rushed by ambulance to the emergency room. The doctor announced I needed stitches. Once he found out my history of harming myself, he asked me, “Do I need to numb you while I stitch you up or do you enjoy pain?” I was angry. How could he think I enjoyed pain? Didn't he know how upset at myself I was for doing that to myself? Didn't he know what self-injury was? How could he think anyone would want to be stitched up without being numbed?

I choked, “I don't like pain. I need to be numbed.”

He numbed my hand and placed seven stitches along the side of my palm. I left feeling frustrated and angry. I thought that a doctor would at least know about self-injury and how to handle a patient who does it.

I never injured to feel physical pain. I hurt myself to feel relief from my inner pain. I injured to fly above my dark, miserable, and hopeless self to a place where I felt free or high. The high was short-lived and when I returned to my depressed mood, the pain screamed at me. It told me how stupid I was and it internally punished me. I injured for that rise in emotions, for those moments of relief from all pain. 

I injured because I didn't know any other way of relieving my inner agony. I am actually a wimp when it comes to pain. When I got a splinter in my foot and had to go to the emergency room to have it cut out, I cried like a baby and asked them to end the pain.

In therapy I learned healthy ways to relieve my inner pain. My therapist taught me coping techniques like journaling, sharing feelings with a friend, taking medication as prescribed, changing my thought patterns, keeping up with therapy appointments, finding hobbies to keep me busy and so on.

I learned that the brief high isn't worth the physical and emotional pain I felt afterwards. I found the new coping techniques my therapist taught me more effective. I can now handle my inner pain in healthy ways, and because of my new coping methods, I stand tall within the light.

You can find out more about endorphins and self-injury at the National Alliance on mental illness or Nami link on the side of my blog page.

A SUICIDE ATTEMPT OR NOT?

There is a lot of confusion on what self-injury is and why a person injures. Some people mistake self-injury for a suicide attempt. It's hard to understand why anyone would go to the extent of harming themselves unless the person wants to die, but harming himself has nothing to do with suicide. Self-injury is a coping technique for overwhelming emotions or a way to just feel when you become numb inside. It's not to say that the person hasn't struggled with thoughts of taking his or her life, but those thoughts having noting to do with why the person is harming him or herself.

At a former job, the manager found out I was deeply depressed and I was hurting myself on purpose. She became convinced I was attempting to take my life. She called crisis and they showed up to my department. Not only was I embarrassed that crisis came to my work place and all my fellow employees knew they were there for me, but I had to sit in a conference room and explain to them that I was not attempting to take my life.

The crisis worker questioned me for a half hour. She asked me why I wanted to die. She asked if I was to go home would I try to take my life again. She wanted to know if I needed to be hospitalized. I tried to explain to her I didn't want to die and I was working with a therapist to stop my injuring. I told her the injuring relieved my inner pain and I was not suicidal. After a while she let me go and gave me their number in case I became suicidal or needed to talk.

I can't say I never thought of taking my life while I was sick, but when I injured, my goal was to relieve the immense inner pain that burned within my body. When I thought about suicide, I was in a different frame of mind. I wanted to save my family from pain I was causing them and I wanted to end my own pain forever. When I hurt myself, I just wanted to relieve my inner agony for just a moment or longer, not forever.

I even left my former boss a pamphlet on self-injury, but she continued to think self-injury was an attempt at suicide. Because of people like her, I worked hard to hide my self-harming.

It's important for us who injure or who have recovered from self-injury to educate others about self-injury. The more we write about it and talk about it, the more educated our loved ones and others around us will become. I write this blog post to reach out to the world and tell them about mental illness and self-injury. It's important that teachers, managers, crisis workers, doctors, parents, friends and so on one are educated about how to handle self-injury and what self-injury is.

Step up with me and educate others about self-injury. I believe I struggled with mental illness and self-injury to share my story with all of you. Writing about it is also therapy and keeps me within the light.