Cries for Help

 Life is so strange. The twists and turns can take you places and change you in ways you never imagined possible. 

And so it is for me and my family.

Right now I feel sad. Tears are starting to well. And though it is nice that this is a greatly reduced occurrence and these tears are appropriate, I wish they didn't need to be...

The thing about having been insane and back, is that it makes medically relevant mental health problems a lot easier to spot and identify in others. It also makes it easier to understand their plights and whys. 

And the thing that is tearing at me now is seeing and knowing what happens to people whose illnesses go undiagnosed and untreated. Their distorted thinking only grows worse with age and ostracism and they end of up being so "crazy" and "weird" that they become intolerable, they can be scary to others and/or, depending on how they are treated and what is fed in their little head, some can become quite dangerous. 

But if they had received medical intervention and help and support early on this could have been prevented and they could be very healthy and valuable contributors to society. 

-"It's also a gift," says my sister-in-law who is nothing short of a saint and whom I admire and look up to in so many ways and for so many reasons -but this comment stirs a surprising anger in me. She is referring to bipolar and the highs associated. I have to quickly access my rising emotions. I have to identify why I am feeling this and what to do about it so I don't inadvertently injure another relationship with a reaction that is elevated beyond what is considered normal. Fortunately this sister-in-law has a lot of experience with people with mental illness and she still loves and cherishes those in her life with said "gifts" so I know I am relatively safe expressing my feelings on the matter. 

"It's not a gift, its a curse," I think although I recognize what she means and that there are elements that seem very gift like. But in truth and reality their is only a very brief magical moment when people are amazed and impressed by you and your gifts. Prior you are no one and insignificant and after you are crazy, intolerable, weird, scary, unreliable, and so many unfair labels that people do not easily remove from you or forgive you for if and when you are able to recover. And the "gift" of it is easily lost with and into the chaos and insanity you are progressing into. The only way "the gift" is utilizable is if the person is able to get help maintaining a more homeostatic sanity balance that is necessary to achieve anything. The "gift" is moot without stability. 

Although there is another way, but that requires the assistance of some other person, business, and/or entity exploiting it. Unfortunately that exploitation far too often comes at such a high cost to the tormented yet gifted creator who will be progressively abandoned and ostracized as the "gift" progressively becomes consumed by the reality of the their very real and very critical medical condition of the "gifted"...

... Do you understand where I am going with this and what I am saying? Do you understand where the anger is coming from? 

When a person has a mental illness they need treatment, they need help and they need to go through all of the phases of grief and acceptance that a person needs to go through when they are diagnosed with any serious illness. But rarely are they given this chance. 

When people are stigmatized, treated degradingly and punitively and discriminated against for having and treating an illness, they are less likely to accept they have the illness, less likely to get appropriate help for it and throughout it, and their illness is more likely to progress and cause more significant negative consequences. 

It breaks my heart to see so many sad situations, frustrated and hurting people who are now so lost in their altered reality that it is impossible to help them and get through to them all because they had to burry their story and will not accept the degradation they have received for having a "mental illness. " Ironically many would affected and their family members would rather accept that it is a character flaw that then a mental illness. 

It breaks my heart that so many were not diagnosed early because their parents did not want them to be "labelled" or they didn't want to be "labeled" for having a kid with such a label. Like my ex-bro-in-law who very likely has undiagnosed autism and has progressed so poorly that his own mom and siblings don't want to have anything to so with him and he is becoming an increasing danger and a threat to others. 

It is hurting my heart deeply right now because I know too many and I see too much suffering for it...

So, I'll let the tears fall for a minute and then get back to fighting for these things to change.