When is it OK for you to say you’re not OK?
Give it a minute. No need to answer right away. It’s an important question.
With searing accuracy I can pinpoint the times in my own life in which it is most definitely not OK to say I’m not OK. There are many. But I find I’ll just about trip over myself trying to avoid facing the fact that I have no real idea when it is OK to say I’m not OK.
There are some times at which you’d think it would be obvious, and perhaps that I’m not OK is obvious but that doesn’t mean it’s OK to talk about it.
Thing is I’m not sure I want other people to know how bad it can get. Would you? Better to skirt around the edges of madness, where you can. Sometimes the silence of it all hits too close to home. And it would feel peculiar to break that silence – the reality that sometimes I run out of hope seems like an awful thing to confront people with. It’s like kicking someone’s puppy then having to pretend you didn’t.
Of course, there are ways to do it gently, ways to say it without saying it. Ways to take the focus off the ‘not’ OK part, and to tell people you’re heading for total disaster but it really is being taken care of. Worrying might make things worse, and taking precipitous action might too. They probably wouldn’t, in fact but usually the fear that they could is enough to stay a hand, sometimes even a heart.
This is the trouble with mental illness. The absolute last thing you want to say is that it’s getting the better of you even when it’s obvious that it is. For very good and sound reasons, usually.
We don’t like to upset the apple cart, and we fear to tempt fate. Part of the problem is that it might make me even more vulnerable to the illness itself. This is the thing with depression – it’s not outside of yourself. You can’t point to a tumour on a scan and say that’s the culprit. That’s what’s making me so hellishly miserable today.
Yes, it’s the chemicals in my brain that are the trouble. But it’s also the way I think, my perceptions, the very essential light through which I see the world that is at issue. So it’s better to keep up with a vaguely positive outlook for as long as possible even if it includes a few sins of omission.
If I say I’m not OK then people around me don’t hear me talking anymore. They hear depression, they see depression and worst of all they feel it. And that’s where the buck stops.
Because you know what I really hate most about having a mood disorder? That look in someone’s eye when they’ve stopped looking at you like you know your own mind. The moment you turn invisible because, after all, you are crazy.
I like your last few lines. They were funny to me. When I get asked, “are you okay,” I almost always say yes and then if they ask again they get a real answer. Except with a few people like my therapist, psychiatrist and pastor (but that also depends on the circumstances. Sometimes, my husband gets the “yes, I’m okay.” I don’t really know what it means. I asked my therapist once and he said, “whatever it means to you.” I gave him a dirty look because the answer was not an okay one.
I hate that attitude too, where in some people’s eyes you suddenly become the disease rather than a person. Suddenly you don’t know your own mind any more, you are just a walking conglomerate of symptoms. It does make one want to bitch slap people.
They were funny to me too, CC. And yeah, your therapist’s answer would’ve gotten the same look from me. Heehee
LOL Cheesemeister – that it surely does.
*Hugs much*
For what it’s worth it’s *always* ok to say you’re not OK when talking to me. In fact I’d be upset if you didn’t feel you could be direct with me hun. I wish there was something I can do to help, but for now all I can do is send you virtual hugs and prayers.
~Shiv
I think I know how you feel…
Good bloody god.
“…upset the applecart…”
Do you know how many times I have said that regarding my childhood? I can not even count the number of times. I recently changed it to: “…upset the already broken down applecart…”
That is how I started to not let anyone know anything was wrong. Let’s not even get into the whole Mental Illness/Mood Disorder business. That came much later. Let’s just say I was well trained and/or primed–ready to go?
Yes, the “Sane Face.” Well practised there too. It’s taken me so many years to try and learn to ask for help. I still don’t do it very well and only with those I can really trust. Those folks are few and far between.
I have been somewhat lucky to have some people in my life that have “understood?” I don’t know. But to call on them in a crisis? Hmmm. Well, last time I just called 911 and did it myself! Yes, better to “trust myself?!”
I’m a Stigma Buster though. To the very end. I don’t know how far that really goes into sharing just how shitty I may feel but I certainly mouth off a lot about being as loony as all get out to anyone who will listen.
Hugs Sweetie,
PA
Your openness and honesty is wonderful. Thank you for it. It’s a service to your readers.
Cheers, Shiv. That’s cool to hear, of course =)
Samia, hun, if you did I wouldn’t be surprised though I’m sorry that you do. I wish nobody had to feel it. But I reckon it’s probably a pretty common feeling all the same. That look people get – if I just mention it sometimes there’s almost a gut reaction people seem to have, and I don’t need to say anything more because I know they know.
I like that one, PA – what you changed it to. But I get when you say already trained/primed. It happens but especially when, as I know you did, you ended up taking care of your parents and not the other way around. When that happens you learn these lessons well, too well unfortunately. *hugs*
That’s a bit neat that you ‘Stigma Bust’ to whatever extent. I’ll happily tell people I’m nuts but I’m not entirely sure that’s the same thing. Maybe it goes to the same cause though. I can hope.
Thank you, ghostfoot! =)