Social stigma on Mental illness

A very good day to some might not be a good day to others. This is quite the scenery that I have been observing for two years and will continue to do so, in one psychiatric hospital that I attended every month for my follow-up appointments. I hope I did not scare you or find you dropping your jaw at this moment while reading this. This is exactly my reaction before I myself is sucked into the vacuum of mental illness. It took me huge amount of time to accept people’s reaction towards my personal case and definitely, both parties, in my opinion is not to be blamed and judged on. As a counselor, and to be a person who puts their heart to carve smiles on others’ faces, judging should not be held as a habit. So, every day when we meet people, knowing or not knowing them, we should not eager to place judgments on them. You’ll never know what life experiences that they have been through and much worse if that particular person is diagnosed with mental illness. 

source: Google

I would not say that my experience is of much worse or better than others for everyone have their own unique canvas to paint on. Here, I would like to share with all of you my experience of facing the daunting, depressed, and anxious self to be able to be motivated to clear some grey clouds that have been hovering those who are affected with mental illness. No one in this world deserves to live in darkness.

What comes to your mind when I mentioned depression and anxiety disorders? “Well, it’s just like normal days when you have bad days and not in the mood of talking to anyone”, “I’m worried for class presentation tomorrow”, these were honestly my own thoughts about how I had seen myself and everyone else pre-diagnosis. When my symptoms got worse a couple of years back during diagnosis, I had experienced social isolation, paranoid, anxiety, hallucination, delusions, impending sense of doom and even suicidal ideations. First let me talk about social isolation. A true story reaction from my previous course mates were like “What is wrong with you?! What is your next planning for our cases? What about your patients? What were you thinking? Why are you so irritable and ignorant?” “why won’t you answer my calls?”..Phew. Now, take a deep breath in. Relax, I’m cool with this J.

What happened to myself at that time was way beyond those superficial assumptions. I actually felt so much hatred and disgust at myself because of my delusional thoughts that formed around those quotes mentioned above, in addition to my overly harsh self-criticism. I felt intensely angry but I could not let it out. I want to scream and punch everyone in the face. If you could see my face at that time, it is expressionless. I walked like a zombie and felt like all the sense of life in me being sucked out of my being. But, of course on the outside we can easily judge those with mental illness as being ridiculous and they actually decided like, “Okay, I felt like being a zombie today, tomorrow and day after tomorrow”. Hmm, actually that is not the case, at all. For my case, it is because of neurobiological imbalance on my brain. I cannot decide how I would put on my face and how I should feel to others despite the extreme need to be cared for. Much like other symptoms that I listed above, there is no self-control over the life steering wheel, like I had last time.

                                             Source: Google

Hallucination is my worst ordeal against this battle. It is because of this piece of ‘cake’ that exaggerates the already crumbled ‘cookie’ (myself) into feeling of wanted to be burnt out in the oven and tossed into the dustbin. If you ever get to face clients with suicidal history, please do not talk about family commitments and religion straight away. If you do so, you are stepping on the burnt cookie! Hearing voices daily that criticizing yourself and often suggesting that you better wipe yourself off from the surface of the earth and let others live in peace without your existence. Plus, everything you wanted to do is threaten to be stabbed with a sharp knife if you ignore ‘its’ orders. It is painful and awful to feel like that. I love God and my family but sacrificing myself would actually transform their lives as if they had a won a lottery ticket (this is obviously irrational thinking). Do not worry. It never happened again now.

                                                Source: Google

Medication? I call them my M&M’s. I have switched to various SSRI and SNRI and of course its effects is inevitable. You will never know what is going to happen next but keeping positive about it through series of counseling sessions for about more than a year, I have made it. Hope the others made it too.

                                          Source: Google

So, enough with my ‘lecture’. One final question. How on earth should we treat those who are diagnosed as having psychiatric disorders?? This of course involves the collaboration between many helping professionals like counselors and psychiatrist. But of course, everyone would not be kind and friendly like their counselors and psychiatrist. The least that we can do as an individual is to not easily judging book by its cover and acknowledge that everyone has their own life stories. Pray for them for their well-being and our self to be more of help to others .As a counselor, we need to accept the client as who they are (as been said by Carl Rogers) and go hand in hand with psychiatrist and their family members to at least provide a little ease to ensure that they receive adequate love and care that they needed. Praise God, if all of these can be done, those affected would greatly and most undoubtedly appreciate your kind acts and live happily just like any other individuals. You never know the person next to you now might secretly affected with mental illness, directly or indirectly.

Love others like you love yourself.

Nyak ya, moh obuak . Thank you for your time and don’t forget to smile! J J J XOXO.

Yours truly,

Cynthia (45216).