Tag Archives: Emotions

Mental Illness and the Gulf Oil Spill

Posted in Depression by

We live far from the Gulf of Mexico, yet we’ve visited and spent a great deal of time in that area. Watching the news makes the tragedy of the BP oil spill feel close to home. While we want to know, we need to know, what is happening and why, the constant news coverage also leaves us with a feeling of hopelessness — what can we do, being so far away? How can we help? How can we prevent such tragedies? What lessons should we as a nation learn? Important questions without easy answers. And they leave us with a general feeling of malaise that we have started calling the August Angst. (Although we suspect it is not limited to the month of August, and it may evolve into a September Snit.) 

So naturally we found it interesting, but not surprising, that the mental health of people living in communities along the coast is affected. This story by Medical News Today outlines some of the findings of a study by Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness. Among not-so-surprising results: Over one-third of parents report that their children have experienced either physical symptoms or mental health distress as a consequence of the oil spill.

If we, who live at least a thousand miles away, are feeling mental health distress, it only makes sense that those who are so close (and whose livelihood may depend on the Gulf) are affected. We’re glad someone is studying this issue, and we’d like to send good thoughts out to you Gulf Coastal residents. Let us know how we can help.

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Help for Teenagers Affected by Suicide: Break Through the Static

Posted in Suicide, Survivor, Treatment by

My local paper ran a story about a new nonprofit organization dedicated to helping teenagers who are affected by suicide. This organization, called Break through the Static, defines its mission as creating “a caring community aimed at helping teenagers survive, heal and grow after losing a loved one to suicide. At Break Through the Static, teenagers will experience a safe and encouraging environment designed to strengthen their emotional and physical health through positive peer and adult relationships, and by joining with other teens to share and cultivate their unique talents and interests.”

Wow, I wish this group was around 20 years ago.

In fact, I find it a little disturbing that it took this long to develop such a group. It shows, yet again, the large hole in support services for people who are directly affected by mental illness.

If you are a teenager who is affected by suicide, or you know one, please check out Break through the Static. What an amazing resource for an under-served group of people. We are not alone.

Uncertainty: Emotions Involved When You Love Someone with a Mental Illness

Posted in Bipolar Disorder, Survivor by

This post is the first of an ongoing series where we discuss the emotions involved in loving someone with a mental illness.

When I look back over my mother’s struggle with bipolar disorder, the most enduring emotion is uncertainty. I never knew what lay beyond the door. Which way will the pendulum swing? Will I come home to the depressed person, unable to function, or the hyper energy of a mania phase?

Sometimes she was irritable as hell; other times she was in a state of terrible, manic happiness. The stages themselves also offer varying degrees of uncertainty—will the mania manifest in relatively minor levels of incessant talking or out-of-control surges of activity? When she talked about her ideas and plans in a manic phase, I couldn’t tell what was real and what was an illusion of her disease.

The uncertainty seemed to increase as my mother’s illness continued. On her good days, I wanted to believe that she was finally, “Fine,” as she promised. I wanted to believe we had found the right doctor, the right pill, the right diagnosis. I wanted, in essence, the uncertainty to finally become certainty.

Except that never happened.

Each time, I let myself believe we had found the answer. And each time, I let my guard down, and then after weeks, days or sometimes minutes, I somehow ended up in the same place I was before—full of uncertainly about my mother and her illness. I never knew where I stood with her. Instead I tiptoed around her or tried to avoid her altogether.

I had to learn to deal with the uncertainty, which remains even years after she died. I mourn for the lost innocence that let me believe I could somehow fix everything—if I only tried hard enough. I know better now.

I believe this particular emotion is not unique to this particular mental illness, although bipolar symptoms in themselves lend to a huge amount of uncertainty. Uncertainty is perhaps the cornerstone of dealing with mental illness. The uncertainty of the disease transfers across to more uncertainty about treating it, and to coping with its effects. Never knowing exactly what the right thing to do is. Never knowing if you did everything you could do.

Never knowing anything again with certainty.