Rabbit-Hearted Guy

No Shame Day was last week and I completely missed it, so I thought I would take a bit of time to open up further about my mental health issues. I believe that the more we discuss these things openly, the more people understand the nature of mental illness and the more we destigmatize those suffering from them.

I manage chronic depression, and I’m pretty sure I’ve had it all my life. Depressive episodes have been really bad a few times, and it was only recently (when I moved to California) that I finally got the help I needed. Now, I cope with a mixture of medication, cognitive behavioral therapy, and Zen meditation. For the most part this does the trick — my thoughts don’t run away from me nearly as often because I can recognize when something is being driven by depression and have tools to engage that.

However, things aren’t perfect. One of the reasons I identify with rabbit so strongly is because it’s a creature whose life is ruled by wariness. They’re constantly on guard for potential threats, and so much of their communication is about worry and the lack of it. The less they worry, the more their personality comes through; it can be hard to “get to know” a rabbit, but it’s a delight when you do.

I’m a high-strung person; most of my effort goes towards the managing and alleviating of stress — in myself and others. At work, I sweat the small stuff as much as I can, though it gets exhausting to do so and I end up dropping a lot of the details because I just don’t have the capacity to deal with them. THAT can stress me out, knowing that I’m inconsistent with my attention to detail or the ability to get things done. And since I’m stressing about that, I have a reduced capacity for new stressors in my life.

The cycle completes when I get overwhelmed. It becomes impossible to concentrate on the things I need to do. The more I try, the more my brain just seems to slide off the task and I look for anything that can provide a distraction. Sometimes I’ll end up just clicking on the same three websites over and over for distraction’s sake, not taking in anything, just doing something so I don’t have to think.

But that’s no way to live your life, much less spend your career. I’m trying to move into a position of more responsibility at work, but it’s difficult when you struggle to manage the responsibilities you have. This obviously isn’t something I can talk about my superiors with; I’m not a bad worker, I just have trouble dealing with certain aspects of my work. Still, something had to be done.

So I went to a psychologist to see if I had ADHD; the lack of concentration and focus, the excitability, the tension all seemed to point to that. After a test and a consultation, she determined that yes, that was a likely possibility as well as Generalized Anxiety Disorder. GAD is characterized by excessive worrying about various aspects of daily life (in my case, writing and work) with physical symptoms that include fatigue (yes), muscle tension (yes), twitching (yes), difficulty concentrating (yes), irritability (also yes).

So now I’m embarking on a new front for my treatment: group therapy classes for GAD and ADHD, with a round of medication possibly starting up today. I’m hoping that the coping mechanisms learned in these group therapy classes can help me cope with anxiety, and the medication at least puts me on an even keel for long enough to make those mechanisms habit. We’ll see how the rest of the year goes, but I’m optimistic that it’ll at least help me deal with my reactions to stress.

I know that mental health issues are difficult to speak about. You have celebrities and various seminars and self-improvement courses trying to tell you that it’s “all in your mind” and medication is never a good idea. You have the media promoting the idea that when something terrible happens (like say, Dylan Roof) it’s because the perpetrator was mentally ill. Well-meaning friends and associates tell you to suck it up or get over it without properly understanding just how difficult (and sometimes impossible) that is — like people who suffer haven’t tried that already.

But mental illness is a real thing with real causes; sometimes those causes need medication to be resolved, and sometimes developing a mindfulness program is enough. Sometimes the condition is transient, brought out by extraordinary stimuli. Sometimes it’s chronic, without any cause but chemical, and you’ll have to work to manage it for the rest of your life.

All of this is OK. We each have our own burdens, and sometimes we need the help and wisdom of people better equipped to deal with them. It takes a while to find a therapist we feel understood by; it takes a while to find the medication that makes us feel even without feeling emotionally restricted. Learning just how to handle mental illness is a journey that can be long, lonely and frustrating. But like getting to know a rabbit, the end result is very much worth it.

It’s important to me that people know mental illness is a real affliction, and that it can be managed. People who have them can live productive and meaningful lives. And most importantly, that there’s help out there. If you feel there’s an issue that you can’t manage on your own and need help, mentalhealth.gov is a good place to start. Reach out to friends and/or family you trust; a support network can be tremendously helpful. And know that you’re not alone. There are those of us who are fighting the fight with you, all the time, every day. We see you, we understand you, we love you.