OK, can I just stand up and be angry here for a minute?  Usually I bring up a personal anecdote or focus on a certain mental health topic relevant for families.  Today I’m just angry, angry at how mental illness and addiction bring pain into the lives of so many families today.

Obviously, mental health and addiction problems can be well managed for many years, bringing much needed stability in a person’s life.  But too often, they go untreated or poorly treated.  This leads to generations of people dealt a difficult hand, sometimes before they are even born.

I’m ticked that addiction makes people bad spouses and parents.  Impulse control and judgment are big problems for drug addicts and alcoholism.  Not only do they deal with the impulse to do drugs or drink, but they may have other impulses that aren’t managed well.  Sex, spending money, aggression, leaving spontaneously -  untreated addiction makes a person much more likely to shirk their parental and family duties.  They also have great difficult taking responsibility for any hurtful behavior, time spent being drunk or high, moodiness, unreliability, etc.

I’m mad that all forms of depression and bipolar disorder rob kids of stable parents.  It makes people lousy at being in nearly any kind of relationship.  They can’t be counted on, they take risks, they might kill
themselves, and they sometimes make really stupid decisions.  Bipolar also drives sexual intest up while simultaneously making them a difficult spouse or partner and a really unreliable parent.

I’m furious that excessive anxiety locks people up like prisoners.  Sometimes, they literally have trouble leaving their house or staying overnight anywhere.  They cause people to lock their mind and emotion together in endless circles of worry and shame.  They withdraw and close their world in smaller and smaller so they won’t get hurt.  But this usually serves to cause more pain because they start losing the very things and people that they need to feel better.

My main beef with mental health and addiction problems is that they make people blind to what’s healthy and good.  I mean, this doesn’t necessarily happen when you learn you have a tumor or when you break your arm, just when your emotions and mind are ill.   It makes personal emotional needs more important than the welfare of their partners and children.

People randomly having sex (because they are filling an emotional hole) and having babies who really have no solid family.  People moving forty eight times with their family because they aren’t comfortable getting emotionally attached to one place for long.  People dragging their kids through one messy dating relationship after another.  People spending money foolishly and creating havoc in their marriage.  All of this blindly done because of some factor of their emotional pain.  Mental illness and addiction just make people do some really stupid hurtful things, things you can’t necessarily fix sometimes.

Be clear – I’m mad at the disorders, not the people with them.  Well, everyone has personal responsibility.  But I have to believe if they didn’t have a history of mental and physical abuse, or two alcoholic parents, or have anxiety and abandonment from an early age, or postpartum depression, that these people would have had a better shot at making better choices and a good life for themselves.  They wouldn’t have holes in their lives where the pain took over for a long time.  I did some emotional and unwise things while I was depressed, stuff I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have done if I wasn’t in a constant tailspin with overflowing emotions.

I’m angry, angry that mental illness and addictions exist.  Granted, I wouldn’t have a day job and I wouldn’t have much to say on this blog.  But sometimes, I just can’t stand what those things do to families generation after generation.  I’m mad that depression robbed me of three and a half years of stability in my life and took at least two years to really recover from.  And even then, I occasionally have leftovers I need to deal with.  Guess that’s where I am today.  Nothing much to do about it, but I’m glad I shared it.

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    Last reviewed: 23 Jul 2009