I am just like you, maybe a little further along on my road to recovery then some or not so far as others. But in the end, I like you want to make living with my diagnosed psychological or neurological or addiction “condition” livable!
We fight, for years and decades, an unseen battle that many never even fathom. Whether it’s through depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety, borderline personality disorder or other mood disorders.
Many times we are undiagnosed or worse–people live in denial and they suffer for years as I suffered due to fear of ridicule, fear of this stigma (discrimination) of a mental illness label. For example, when I was in my 20’s and newly married, my wife Joan Winifred and I knew there was something wrong with me. Something was very OFF! We were so ignorant and uninformed about mental illness. The discrimination (mental illness stigma) kept me silent about what the real terrors that in my head, they day-in-day with suicidal ideation the sleepless weeks the depression and manic work days… It all seem normal after, normal chaos.
Without knowledge of what to look for as a basic guide to the stages of mental health conditions. There was basically on 2 bad and really bad! Instead of getting help, I suffered years of self-hate, emotional tsunamis till it almost swept me away. I was fortunate, my wife stuck with me and supported me even when I was at my deepest depths of despair.
Joan and I did not have the tools that we have today. If we did have early warning signs or awareness, may be I would have walking my road of recovery sooner.
In May it was National Mental Health Awareness culminating locally Charlotte Behavioral Health Care (CBHC) walk.
“Charlotte County community raised awareness of mental health as they walked in the Healthy Minds. Healthy Community Mental Health Awareness Walk on Saturday, May 30th.”
This year theme was for #b4stage4-get-informed. This got me thinking, it would be a great time to review the 4 stages. So I drew a chart for the next post based on the 4 stages of mental health conditions.