****TRIGGER WARNING****
This post will talk about mental health, mental illness and the symptoms of personality disorders and other mental illnesses. Although there is no unnecessary detail, there are some descriptions of stigmatic comments that might be triggering, so please only read on if you feel able to. For help and support with anything mental health related, please visit the mental health and suicide prevention support lines page of this website.
****TRIGGER WARNING****
We all have elements of our lives we want to keep private…some more salacious than others 😉, but when it comes to personality traits and habits that are a direct result of mental illness, keeping them a secret can feel much more critical.
Misunderstandings about the reality of living with any mental illness are the bane of most of our lives. While the narrative about mental health has widened hugely thanks to social media and the press as a whole, the same old incorrect stereotypes are still being attached to the mental illnesses being publicised. Instead of repeating the different names of MI’s out there, I think it’s time to hear more honesty about what the lived experience truly means, and normalise the challenges we all face each day. Lets face it, if people know you have a mental illness right now, there are still stereotypical expectations that are unconsciously placed on you and your actions. We’ve all heard them at some point…
Got depression? You should be crying, sad and desperate all the time. Got a personality disorder? There must be more than one person in your head so how will we know who we’re talking to? Got social anxiety? You’ll be cowering in a corner every time you go to a party. Got Agoraphobia? You’ll never go to a concert or nightclub again.
If these mental illnesses were celebrities, their agent would be telling them they are popular, but their brand image desperately needs to be updated.
We claim to be so much further forward, but how many times do we STILL hear the phrase ‘nervous breakdown’? I remember the image in my mind the first time I heard these words as a child. I imagined someone who could no longer speak or think for themselves had been found shivering in a ball in the corner of an empty room. Obviously my imagination was wrong, but the image was conjured mainly by what I was hearing and the hushed tones used to discuss it. Even knowing what I know now I’m still not sure of the point at which we classify the symptoms of a mental illness as having reached the heights of a good, old-fashioned ‘breakdown’. I don’t think people in the 80’s did either though. It’s now well understood that this negative, triggering term does nothing to help the person who’s suffering, and yet we still hear it.
The fact is, while the symptoms I’ve mentioned are all possible, we’re talking about MENTAL illness, and the symptoms on the outside are a biproduct of activity in our heads and represent only a fraction of what’s happening on the inside.
For example, the stigma still being faced by those living with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) just because of age-old mis-information and biases seems unstoppable, so the decision of many to struggle by hiding their symptoms is totally understandable, but still incredibly unfair. OCD is much more than constant cleaning and turning switches on and off – some people living with the illness have the urge to self harm, they experience memory problems, they can ruminate and become paranoid, and even have difficulty making and maintaining relationships. Using this illness as the standard quip towards anyone asking you to tidy your mess is harmful to the OCD brand, but even more harmful to the people living with it. Sadly, masking their symptoms can reduce the chances of recovery, and makes life with the illness even more difficult.
Live your truth, be yourself, you are enough…but only if the person in front of you believes your behaviour is ‘normal’, hey?
What’s it like to hide my mental illness symptoms?
I’m pretty open about my health on here because I’d like to be part of the change we clearly need to see, however insignificant my input is. But in real life, when I’m being faced with people at home or on my computer, the temptation to hide it all takes over. I’m real on here, but in life I’m hiding in plain sight because I don’t want these biases impacting my fragile emotions.
Coping with this problem became a hell of a lot easier when I was forced to shrink my safe zone, and ended up indoors for years. Suffice to say, when you don’t see any strangers outside, there aren’t many symptoms you need to hide from them. But even this ‘solution’ has serious issues, most of which can’t be hidden from or ignored.
Our daughter now finds socialising important, and has a friendship group that she talks about a lot. We’re proud of her for starting to understand relationships and realising their value, especially as she’s a child on the spectrum who has difficulty translating feelings and managing communication. Obviously we want to support her in cultivating long-lasting, healthy relationships with her peers that will hopefully continue through her life. She’s only seven, but as I’m a child who lost both parents quite early, I want to make sure I’ve started the groundwork as soon as I can. So what’s the problem?
Playdates in my bloody safe zone.
That’s right, I’ve finally been forced to internally ask myself how I manage a child and their parent visiting my home, the place I haven’t left for nearly 3 years, and appear ‘normal’ to them without panicking, so I don’t let our daughter down.
This problem comes with added pressure. It’s not a social situation that’s critical for me, it’s for my kid. It’s not just any kid from her school that’s coming over, it’s someone she loves. It’s not just a new kid and parent for me to meet, it’s the ONLY friend of hers I’ve ever met, and the only parent too. One step wrong and the playground gossip will surround my instability for months, maybe years. I can’t imagine the idea of embarrassing our daughter, so I don’t just want to get it right, I HAVE to get it right.
Of course, when the idea was floated I said ‘yes, absolutely, I’ll text her mum and we’ll invite her over for playtime and McDonalds‘ but my head said ‘How on earth do I manage this then?‘ or words to that effect…
Masking is something that anyone living with mental illness is familiar with, and I knew I’d have to engage my skills for the first time in years. But kids are clever, they see through any dishonesty or weirdness and cut straight through the crap. Realising I was weird, and was likely to be called out on it, I started worrying about the thoughts of a 6-year-old as much as those of her mother, and the problem started to grow. I had one week to prepare.
First I thought about how I’d say hello, the most concerning part of the meeting, and decided to let our daughter take the lead. She was the host after all. I introduced myself to the little one while sitting down and had a chat with her mum about the kids and how they’re doing at school. On the outside I thought I was doing OK, until I started to profusely sweat, and once I noticed the sweating got worse, it got worse some more, then I started to stutter. These are some of my most embarrassing, visible MI symptoms, and the narrative in my head was just as difficult to manage.
This spiral isn’t unusual for any of us, but however self aware we are, it’s incredibly difficult to control once it’s started. Was I embarrassed? Yes. Was my daughter bothered? No. Were the guests bothered? I don’t think so, although the kid did tell me I was weird several times (I am, so I tried not to absorb that comment too negatively).
After hello was over I spent an unexpected few minutes in the bedroom trying to save my make-up from melting down my face. At this point, just 5 minutes in, I was ready to cry. My partner came to check on me, but not wanting to ruin something so important for our daughter, we agreed to park how I was feeling until she was asleep later. I was determined not to let my mental instability destroy the playdate, however fragile I felt.
I spent time with the girls setting up some craft activities then left them to play, ignoring the trail of destruction being created as they went. I sat in the bedroom on this laptop trying (and mostly failing) to keep busy, but this was still better than panic setting in, and the pit of my stomach was already unsteady.
After 3 hours fatigue kicked in. Three hours! I was done, and my admiration for parents with more than one child suddenly skyrocketed. But caring for two rather than one wasn’t the only draining factor, masking for all that time was incredibly uncomfortable. I thought I had no idea how to manage any kid besides my own, but it turns out that talking to her like an adult (with expletives removed) worked quite well. Her confidence with me grew, and she said…
‘Why do you walk with that hockey stick?’
‘It’s not a hockey stick sweetheart, it’s a walking stick. These two call it my “granny stick”‘. She laughed and my brain relaxed a bit more – I knew there was no vindictiveness there – she’s 6!
So my forced experiences socialising for the sake of my daughter turned out to be good and bad, but still better than expected. The clearest lesson was that young, untrained minds don’t apply biases to what’s in front of them, because they know nothing about difficult subjects such as mental illness. Their innocence makes them less confronting, and their observations (however direct) come from a personal opinion rather than contracted stigma.
Parents, on the other hand, know too much. That unspoken gossip passed around the playground during drop off is dangerous just because it exists, and I know that people have been questioning my whereabouts at my daughters school for years now. But I had no idea what this parent had heard or thought so I was applying an unconfirmed thought to her too – that she’s hiding what was being said about me and believes I’m crazy too.
She didn’t seem to care though, even when I stupidly mentioned that I don’t get to have much of a social life, and signalled visually that this was because of having a kid. Obviously it was another was of masking to save my own skin. When I started sweating I made myself uncomfortable, even though she didn’t say a word. Even so, my internal narrative was constantly preparing for a comment and trying to compensate for incoming panic in advance.
In both cases, these interactions went better than expected, but this was a situation that didn’t have a reason to become anxious, confronting or aggressive (all things I fear).
If I’m working this hard to mask my symptoms in a non-confronting situation, imagine how much worse it gets when the situation has the potential to become the polar opposite. The mental load will probably become unbearable.
How do we make it easier?
If we could just adopt a less judgemental, less gossipy attitude towards each other, whether unbalanced or not, and allow ourselves to unlearn the biases we’ve inherited, then be open to relearn the lived experience in a more empathetic way, the need for those living with mental illness to mask their symptoms would undoubtedly reduce as the world starts to feel like a safer place for us all.
Remember, just like many physical illnesses, mental illness can come for anyone at any time. One day the person making incorrect judgements could become the one receiving them. Being part of the changing narrative might make the MI journey easier for you or someone you love, and that seems worthwhile.
If you are looking for help with symptoms of mental illness then my mental health and suicide prevention support lines page has a list of places you can go for support, including charitable organisations, your GP and the NHS 111 service.
Take care and, as always, thanks for visiting.
Creative Steph 