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Mental Illness and Therapy

I don’t like therapy. I don’t like people who think they know more about what’s going on inside my head than I do. I don’t like people who make me think about things I don’t want to think about. I don’t like having to talk about feelings and other stupid stuff that I’ve put a lot of effort into learning how to ignore. I don’t like having to admit that I have problems and that things that happened to me as a kid still bother me sometimes. I don’t like having to admit that sometimes I get so upset I have to resort to hurting myself and I really don’t like having someone to hold me accountable for my actions against myself.

I especially don’t like the stigma associated with having to see a psychologist or a councilor or a therapist of any kind. After all, if you have so see that kind of doctor, you’re not just feeling a little blue, you’re mentally ill, baby, and society tends to frown on that. I have an uncle who doesn’t trust me around his teenage daughters because of my struggles with depression and self injury. His daughters have issues of their own and could probably use the support of someone who has a chance of understanding a bit of what they're going through first hand, but that’s neither here nor there. In his mind, I’m mentally ill and that makes me unpredictable and dangerous.

Here’s what I tell myself every Monday afternoon at 4:00 on the way to my weekly therapy appointment. When you’re physically ill, you go to a doctor. If I get sick, I might try to diagnose it and treat it myself for a while because I’m stubborn that way and doctors make me nervous. Cough, stuffy nose, sore throat - it’s just a cold. Lots of Echinacea, Vitamin C and chicken noodle soup and it’ll go away in a couple of days. I might even be right. But if I still have a sore throat after a month, plus a fever and chills and green stuff dripping out of my nose and I’m coughing up stuff that looks like it needs to be in a toxic waste dump, then I have to admit that my initial self-diagnosis is probably wrong. That’s when it’s time to get over that old sense of dread, bite the bullet and traipse off to the doctor’s office so that he can tell me I have an upper respiratory infection and give me proper treatment before it snowballs into bronchitis or pneumonia.

Therapy works the same way. For a while, I could get by without. Things were going really well, my life was stable and I was happy and functional. But after a couple of pretty big changes in my life, not even bad changes, just lots of change in general, I started seeing signs of symptoms returning, like increased distraction and loss of focus at work, return to bad habits like self injury, lowering of self esteem (if that’s even possible), anxiety and occasional panic attacks. I knew it was time to swallow my pride and get my butt back into therapy ASAP before one self injury relapse and a touch of anxiety developed into another major depressive episode in which I’d end up sobbing hysterically half the night, sleeping for 16 hours a day and never leaving the house except for absolute necessities.

So far, I’m holding the depression at bay and I can deal with the anxiety and all of that other stuff in the meantime. As long as I’m having symptoms that aren’t going away, and that are threatening to get worse, I gotta stick with the therapy and put my care in the hands of a professional. I still don’t like it, but hey, I’m sure people with failing kidneys don’t especially like being tied to a dialysis machine a couple of times a week, either. It’s just something that has to be done so you can get the absolute most out of the life you have.

If you really don’t like your therapist and you’ve given him or her an honest chance, and you’ve talked to him or her about why you don’t think it’s working out and you’re still at a standstill, then you need to find another therapist. There are plenty of counselors and Licensed Clinical Social Workers and psychologists and even priests and pastors with training in psychology out there that not liking a few specific individuals is not a valid reason for giving up on therapy in general. Whatever your flavor of mental illness, if you’re experiencing symptoms, you need to be in the care of a professional. Heck, even if you’re not currently experiencing symptoms, stick with the therapy a little while longer. These things have a way of sneaking up and ambushing you when you least expect it.

Self Injury and Therapy

There are those who believe that self injury is not, in and of itself, a type of mental illness. Technically, they’re right. For something to be a legitimate mental illness, it needs to be in the DSM IV and the only place self injury is listed in the DSM IV is as a symptom of borderline personality disorder. The problem occurs when these people use this fact to justify not getting professional help for their self injury. Regardless of whether you believe it’s a disorder in its own right, or you believe it can only be a symptom of another disorder, you still need to get help for it. You might try to convince yourself that the cuts aren’t serious, so it’s not that big of a deal. Cutting isn't about the physical damage. If you're cutting yourself, it means that there's something big time going on below the surface. Normal, well adjusted, emotionally stable, happy people don't cut themselves. Most people, when they're stressed or upset, don't ever think that the way to feel better is to hurt themselves.

So if you're cutting, it means you have some sort of problem somewhere and that problem needs to be addressed. Maybe a good support group is enough. Maybe therapy will help. Maybe even medications. Cutting doesn't help. All it does is mask the symptoms so you can keep surviving day to day, but as long as you keep depending on cutting, you're never going to be able to learn any other way of coping with life. There are other ways of coping with life.

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After all, if you have so see that kind of doctor, then you’re not just feeling a little blue, you’re mentally ill, baby, and society tends to frown on that.