Denial v. Acceptance: On Not Fucking Around

During the past few years, I have been in fairly regular contact with hundreds of bipolars, schizophrenics and depressives. Lots of them, especially the newly-diagnosed, have trouble accepting that they have a mental illness. It's been so long since I was diagnosed that it is hard for me to summon the anxiety, shock, fear, shame, self-loathing and so on that comes with getting pegged with a mental illness. What I gather is that I was a rather unusual case--I accepted my diagnosis out of the chute, didn't dilly-dally about "oh I am really this other thing over here," and got busy trying to make my life work. Sure, it was scary and shame-filled, but that was more the world than the illness itself biting on me. OK, it was both, but...

I mention this because I know several people who are currently fighting their diagnoses, refusing treatment of any kind and making their lives a living hell in the meantime. I can understand the impulse, of course. But the evidence, both anecdotal and scientific, is that people who go into denial--"my perfect life is shattered! Poor me!"--end up losing big time in the long run. Hell, in the short run, too. They are the ones who end up with broken lives, shattered families, ruined careers and all the other social fallout of untreated mental illness. They also end up dead or staring at the ceiling of a psych unit more than any of us would like.

This kind of fucking around is stupid in the short-term and life-reducing in the long-term. I am seriously tired of seeing bipolars and schizophrenics go flying off their meds as if they were somehow immune from reality. Bad things happen when they do. And, yes, we all know that meds can suck and beat the hell out of you. So what? Accepting the bad business that you've got is a far better option than fighting it and ending up on the slab. The stakes are far too high to not be serious about tackling mental illness head-on.

Life will work a lot better--says me!--if you accept your diagnosis and actually get some treatment. And, yes, meds of some kind are part of the package deal. If the ones you get prescribed don't work too well, a high probability, then go try something else. Just don't expect it to make you immune from relapses and what the docs like to call symptom breakthroughs. Meds are far from perfect, but are essential for setting the baseline for recovery--ie, living a decent life. But enough of meds.

What often gets lost in the clinical picture and American society's reliance on meds is that good old-fashioned self-awareness and determination play a huge role in patients getting better and getting ahead. I have seen more examples of the right "mindset" having positive outcomes to believe that it is essential to making mental illness work for you. I cannot teach you how to be self-aware and determined. But I know that it starts with acceptance of your DX and acceptance of how that changes your life. And that's OK. That kind of self-acceptance is actually quite freeing and can feel damn revolutionary in your own life. And it's the best option you've got.

So stop fighting it--and welcome to the show.