disclosure

At work today, I was talking to one of the doctors I know about her teenaged son, who is, at the moment, giving her no end of agita. "How old is he? Sixteen? Yeah, they're obnoxious at that age," I said. "But they outgrow that and eventually become sweet and decent human beings again."

So that led her to asking about how D is doing. She was one of the people who, when he was in the hospital, was an incredible source of emotional support, care, and concern for me, which really, I cherish all the more because we weren't close, close friends. She's just a kind and gentle person. Anyway, I was filling her in on how well he's doing and we were discussing the plethora of meds he takes, some to prevent side effects and others to deal with the side effects he's got, along with, y'know, the ones he needs for his brain. And she laughed and said, "Well, if it makes you feel any better, I'm on five (psych) meds now," and named them. I really had no idea. She said, "I realized I'd been depressed for twenty years. Functional, but severely depressed. I don't know how I did it." That segued into a conversation about how she, and at times I, had done it because we had to: when you're a single parent, you get up and take care of the kid even if you feel like staying in bed and crying for a month; when you have a job where people are depending on you, you get up and go to it. You can function, not optimally, but certainly okay--especially if your baseline is bright and capable--for long periods of time when internally you are absolute crap. And it also segued into a conversation about fleeting suicidal ideation and how, similarly (and luckily) you can reject it totally because your sense of obligation to other people is so strong.

But my point isn't really to tell you all that, because we've covered that all before in here, but to say how I felt really good that she chose to disclose all that to me. Much in the same way that I've told those of you who've opened up in here, or in the old blog, about your own experiences with the crazee, how honored I feel that you chose to do so in the Adventures. It can be a deeply private thing, and when people feel comfortable sharing private things in your space because they're comfortable with you, that does feel great.

On the other hand, it bothers me just a little that I feel that way, because--and I hope this shows through--one of the big reasons why I talk openly about the crazee in here, D's and my own, why I tell you stories about having had suicidal thoughts or hypomanic reactions to SSRIs, isn't because I have loose boundaries or something, it's because if I could do one good thing in my life, it would be to make people realize that things like that, while they may be private in that you have every right to share or not share them with whomever you choose, shouldn't be private in a shameful way. If I could wave a magic wand and make the societal stigma about psychiatric illness go away, I would. It's none of my business if any of you, my blog readers, have diabetes or asthma or a seizure disorder unless you choose to make it my business, and the same with any chronic psychiatric illness you may or may not have. But I realize that I wouldn't feel honored if you told me you had diabetes in the same way I'm honored if you tell me you have a mood disorder, and that kind of bothers me. It bothers me because it points out the stigma is still so societally strong and it points out that I probably have internalized it to some degree, despite my own glibness in talking about it.

Huh.

xoxo