I may be paranoid, but not an android

Wednesday, 03/02/16, 7:41am

Sometimes it can be hard to blog again after sharing with additional people. After Monday's post I decided to send an email to people I've already shared with as well as some new ones, and I was quite surprised after adding names to the bcc list to see how many there were. And then, of course, I got overwhelmed with the stats of my blog. Watching the pageviews go up can be super exciting yet also quite daunting. I've received a number of support emails since although I haven't felt comfortable responding to all of them yet. Yeah that's right, despite how brutally honest I get in my blog, I don't feel comfortable responding to emails always. But that's me.

I think I've had a little of what Brené Brown calls a "vulnerability hangover". It really hasn't been too bad, but I definitely felt too scared to blog yesterday.

Vulnerability hangovers can happen after a long talk with a friend about depression, after opening up to someone new, after an emotionally heavy therapy or psychiatrist appointment. At least that's how it happens with me. I question whether I should have talked about certain things, I wonder if people are judging me, and I also feel excited that I dared greatly. It tends to be a bit of a rollercoaster. The vulnerability hangover is probably the main reason therapy can be so hard and not always feel like it's helping. The first appointment (or more) with a new therapist comes with heavy vulnerability hangovers. It is such an emotional toll to spill out your story to someone new, especially someone you don't really know yet and you're not even sure you want to know. Therapy is one of those things where it often gets worse before it gets better. I think a big reason people who "don't like" therapy (beyond the stigma people have) don't benefit because they never get past that first appointment or first few appointments. I once went just one time to a new therapist. I was in the process of "trying out" new therapists, and saw someone who was on my insurance list but I really didn't know more about her. The experience was not super pleasant. I had the emotional rollercoaster of going through my story with someone new, but then I additionally felt a lot of judgement from her on certain things. I think the good therapists try to limit any judgement or at least, don't let it show.

Let's talk about stigma again though. I never back away from talking about it. Because we need to. The stigma around mental illness makes it difficult for people to get support because it becomes this thing that we are just completely unable to talk about. Even though I get brutally honest in my blog, it doesn't mean that I talk about depression openly and honestly with people in my life. I talk about it with some people sometimes. And it's usually an uncomfortable conversation, we get shifty eyed, and we wait and hope for the conversation to end. That's not always true, but that tends to be how it's talked about in person. And seriously, what. the. hell. Mental illness is disease of the brain, which as researchers are increasingly learning, can strongly be related to biological processes in the brain or the weakness/strength of certain neurological pathways. The most recent evidence in schizophrenia research suggest that a specific gene is contributing to excessive "synaptic pruning," which is the elimination of connections between neurons.

Despite all this, the stigma equates mental illness to psychological weakness. Doesn't that suck? So many people suffer from mental illness, about 1 in 5 in any given year according to the Mayo Clinic. And yet, all these people are "weak"???? Why can't we treat mental illness like we do with any illness? Why do we have to be embarrassed to be on anti-depressants, anxiety medication, or anti-psychotics? Why, when someone could really benefit from one of these medications, do they refuse treatment? It would be considered abnormal to refuse treatment for a thyroid condition, for diabetes, for stage 1 cancer. And yet, we do for mental illness.

Now granted, I've come a long way in fighting my own stigmas. I am on medications and no longer feel the need to wean myself from them, although I used to feel that way. I go to therapy, although I still look for ways to spread my appointments out more because I think I shouldn't need to go as often or I feel guilty about the cost. I still have to overcome the stigma a little to share these things about myself. But I know others who have never had professional treatment. Maybe they can manage it well enough on their own, and some people can depending on the severity, but I hope these people aren't refusing treatment because of the stigma. And if so, I hope I can help dispel the fears a little. Because treatment is worth it. Taking the edge off the illness with medication, taking yourself out of the cloud is worth it. Talking through coping mechanisms with a therapist and practicing ways to strengthen the positive neurological pathways is worth it.

I hope to someday live in a world where mental illness is simply treated as it comes up. I hope to someday live in a world where we have accessibility to better treatments with fewer side effects. I hope to someday live in a world where we can talk about mental illness as a society, focusing on making things better for those with mental illness as well as for those caring for loved ones with mental illness. This isn't something we can hide under the carpet anymore.