Well hello again and welcome back to my blog. Every time I think I'm finished and have said all I could possibly say, something comes up and I need to write another post. Just one more... again. This time, I wanted to talk about some of the emotions that might be with us at times relating to mental illness: before diagnosis, after diagnosis, and after recovery. Since I last posted, I have had ups and downs. Changes to medication, and changes in my life. I am always reminded that mental illness is a growing and constantly changing beast. What once was true (maybe a medication that worked in the past no longer works in the present) or that your symptoms have subsided or flared up, change seems to be the only constant.
Now, back to the difficult subject of emotions. Let's start with the BEFORE. For me, before I was diagnosed and spoke publicly about schizophrenia, I felt the need to hide this part of me. There was a lot of shame and uncertainty. If people knew, would they treat me the same way? Would I lose my job? Would I be labeled as a "weirdo" because I talk to spirits? Better just keep it on the D.L.
After things got to a point that they could no longer be ignored, I decided to get help once and for all. If you have read the previous posts, you'll know that I had tried to reach out to get help a few times in my life, but never followed through. The shame and uncertainty won. After seeking therapy, I learned a lot about my condition and about myself. One thing was certain, was that I was awful at identifying emotions and acknowledging them in myself. I was ok with positive emotions like "happy", but recognizing anything negative was trickier. I couldn't recall a time that I had ever felt "mad" or "sad" because I was always happy or just "ok" or my favourite "fine". I'm fine. You're fine. Everything is fine.
Through therapy, I learned a new powerful emotion that I didn't realize I felt, but that I felt a lot: GUILT. I remember telling my parents that I had started to see a psychiatrist and therapist and was taking medication. And not only that, but that I had been diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder. It is like a combination of bi-polar and schizophrenia (best of both worlds, eh?). My parents were unbelievably supportive, but I still felt like I had done something wrong. That I had worried them, that I had upset them, I was weak and needed them in a way I had not needed them since childhood. It was an inconvenience. I was an inconvenience. Of course that wasn't true, but I still felt guilt.
Now, 5 years later, through good times and bad... I still feel that guilt. But I also feel a lot of other things that can now be identified other than just "fine". I have felt happiness, I have felt sadness, I have felt anger and frustration. I have felt love. SO much love that I feel my broken self isn't deserving of it. But then I am reminded that I am not broken. Mental illness may be a part of me, but it doesn't make me broken. I am proud of who I am, and although I still hear "voices", have hallucinations, and suffer from anxiety, the good days make the bad ones a little less dark.
