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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Wow. I’m bipolar, and I would love to know if you believe everyone with mental illnesses such as bipolar or depression are “unstable”, or if the illnesses can hide behind what looks like normalcy.
I did none of the above things to my family, sorry. And yes, I am a flaming Bipolar II. And it’s not a lack of insight talking, it’s my husband and my therapist that tell me I have done a remarkable job of managing my life despite what Bipolar has done to me.
Maybe I’m just the lucky one???? All I know is it sure hurts to read things that say what a bad parent I was before I got treatment. Because I wasn’t.
Mom,
My post was more of a “hands thrown up in frustration” kind of expression rather than an accusation of everyone with mental illness ruining things for the people around them. I am very sorry that you took it more personally than I intended. When I had my postpartum depression, I put all of my energy that I had left into my kids, just didn’t leave any for me. So in that sense, perhaps you and I channeled our difficulties in similar ways - away from our children as much as possible. But I know that it still did damage to me which, if left untreated, would have eventually been damaging to my kids.
I think some lifestyle choices or situations can mask mental illness. I know I blamed my hectic job and new motherhood for my ups and downs for three years. I know I didn’t feel normal, but I think everyone else thought I was. I mean, sure - busy job and new baby - pretty easy to hide, even from myself. It was only after I quit to stay home with my kids that I even separated my situation from my symptoms.
I’m glad to hear what you have to say. You dealt with it but it didn’t get so bad that you really burned bridges. Some bouts with depression or anxiety don’t get that severe. Not that it’s a good thing, but it just doesn’t branch out quite as far. In many cases where all that stuff above happens, it goes unknown and untreated so no one’s even thinking it’s a problem to be addressed on it’s own. Or, it goes on for so long before getting treated that a lot of damage has been done by the time it’s discovered. Then you have long-term difficult issues to sort out.
Yet even with you - you didn’t do detrimental things to your family, but it has still affected you. I wish mental illness didn’t even exist. But yes, remarkable people do remarkable things with difficult circumstances - mental illness, cancer, car accidents, etc. So that’s great for you and your family that you have adapted and managed it. I wish you well, and thanks for writing in.
This was a rant not a clinical discussion, everything is not personally about you.
I would like to add my own, to the rant. I know I am better and learning live finally. But it is good to recognise lur loss.
No childhood, pdd-nos, aspy father, aspy bipolar mother.
don’t know how to play, or make, or keep friends.
Not able to do school, pdd-nos, adhd, depression.
couldn’t study, couldn’t play, couldn’t relate.
have been going to hunter on and off since 1987.
Not able to work well or consistently.
Idiot doctors who told me nothing was wrong, I was lazy.
Loosing 42 years, the time since I started showing symptoms at 4.
I would be happy to just get back the time I spent explaining to friends and family that I am not like this on purpose.
that has to be at least 5 years.
I’ll still say that the biggest issue with mental health is that there is still some sort of stigma attached to going to a therapist, particularly more in developing countries than developed ones.
Personally, I have bipolar, and really, its not as bad a disease as its often made out to be. Bipolar is manageable, so is depression. As far as mental diseases go, these two are the most common and also the most easily solvable. Only when you suffer from schizophrenia or autism can leading (or pretending to lead) a normal life become difficult.
In my case, I am not allowed to blame ANYTHING on bipolarity.
We must take full responsibility for all our actions, just like
alcoholics in AA. That’ll help you get better quickly:)!
Good Luck, everyone!
Erika:
I thought this was a good article. I don’t quite understand those getting upset over it…but to each their own.
I have had depression, anxiety, slight bi-polar and ADD problems for most of my life…I am pretty sure since I was a teenager, and it did not get diagnosed until I went for help after a bad car accident in 1990. It has taken years to persistently seek the correct doctors to prescribe & adjust medications to correct levels.
I self-medicated for many years with alcohol, pot, and amphetimines and I caused myself & others many heartaches. So, I can totally understand your ‘rant’ here. In fact, I was just speaking to my husband the other day about this exact thing. We were watching ‘Dr. Phil’ show, and I was saying at the time that I was somewhat ‘upset’ with a dear friend, because she would not seek help for her severe depression, as she did not believe in medication. (This seemed odd to me as she is on at least dozens of heart medications). The stigma is still out there against getting mental & emotional help.
I also commented that the person Dr. Phil was talking to seemed to really NEED meds from the things they were saying and the damage they had already done to themselves and their family. This led to my own ‘rant’, very similiar to yours here, about how damaging to lives and families mental health issues, and addiction problems are when left untreated. I was angry that people still feel the stigma against the whole issue of getting needed help/meds for these issues, and instead will just let their lives and those around them go to ruin, when it is totally unnecessary!
I can sympathize with the writer that said she did not do any damage before being treated for her bi-polar condition, and thus was somewhat ‘peeved’ with your article. I was a highly functioning depressive and alcoholic/drug abuser myself. But I can’t help thinking how much better my marriage, my friendships, my job, and my relationship with God would have been, if I had gotten the help I needed so many years sooner. Hind-site is 20/20.
Thank you for putting into words the things I was feeling myself.
I’am ungry, mad with myself. I’am a latin lady 58 years old who had a hart surgery 1988 and in 2007 go bag to the hospital for another intervention this time the put me 3 stand. always Ihave high blood pressure. But what I’am mad if that my husband and my dauthers dons’t care. no heath insurance no goverment helpme. just I want to die and every body happy. expecialy my family.
Yes, I’m one who had abusive, alcoholic parents. I am angry at with being misdiagnosed at the age of 15 with ODD. Instead of ADHD and Depression which was not diagnosed correctlly until the age of 23, and then diagnosed with BP II at the age of 43. I suffered most of my life with the holes created by my parent’s parenting techniques, and the Doctors who incorrectly diagnosed me.
Finally, someone who sees things our way.
I share your anger after all I was diagnosed with schizophrenia 6 years ago.
I had to take time off from my job because of this illness and my employers required me to submit a medical from my therapist.
My current boss views the illness as moral failing and is trying her best to ensure I have another meltdown.
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