How I overcame my own internal stigma about having a mental illness
For as long as I can remember, I had a terrible, paralyzing fear that I was “crazy”. I kept this fear locked deep inside me. I never saw the world as a safe, hospitable place – I saw it as a place where awful things happened, and where no one was ever, really safe. I think the place where I felt safest was school, and that probably kept me sane throughout my abusive childhood.
The thing that kept me terrified was my terror. It was like being stuck in an awful circle, chasing itself around and around. I became paralyzed with fear daily, and it took a whole lot of pretending to hide the fear, year after year after year. I believed that if people knew how afraid I was, then that would “prove” my “craziness”. At the age of 54, I know why I was so afraid, and I had every reason in the world to be that afraid. But at the time, my family life looked like everyone else’s – aside from the fact that my mother was an alcoholic, a rageaholic and mentally ill. But there were secrets way deeper than that ugly scenario. I had to become very dissociative to deal with what was happening to me. I had to keep the truth secret even from myself. In a way, my constant preoccupation with my fear probably kept me away from the “secret”.
In his later life, we found out my father also had a mental illness. His doctor speculated that he had had it since childhood, but both my parents were exceptionally intelligent and talented people. They were successful people. Aside from my mother’s alcoholism, our life appeared like most other people.
For years, I would mentally touch on the thought,” Where is my fear coming from?” I didn’t know. Just thinking about the fear terrified me, and back to hiding it I went. I would get a break in its intensity, and then it would return. It seemed to be cyclical, like my symptoms for so many years after I was diagnosed with a dissociative disorder.
Drugs were the only way I could live. When I found heroin, I thought I had discovered “the secret to life.” For me, it was, because it medicated the fear. Then I found methadone, a legal alternative that also kept the fear and the memories hidden. But after a while, that didn’t work, and I became a decade’s long valium addict, in addition to the other drugs I still took.
After the secret of the abuse itself came up, I still had four years while I watched myself get worse and worse. I was cut off from everyone except my therapist, who did not know how to help me and came up with stranger and stranger (and all re-traumatizing) ideas on how to help me. I felt like I was in a trap. I lived alone, and had almost no friends. I was clean, but getting sicker and sicker. I still worked and went to school. Eventually, I had two very serious suicide attempts. The second one almost killed me. I spent 8 days being kept barely alive on life support.
I had a life-changing experience in the hospital. I know I was close to dying, and I did not want to! When I finally left, I knew I had to do anything to save my own life. I could not live alone. I moved into DMH housing for 18 months, for which I’ll always be grateful. I spent 15 months in MMHC’s DBT partial hospital treatment, learning skills to handle my symptoms. That’s another thing I’ll always be grateful for. Through DBT, I learned to act opposite to my emotions, especially depression and helplessness. I learned many ways of distracting myself when I wanted to curl up in the foetal position. And, possibly most helpful, I learned to distinguish between my emotions, instead of having a “big ball of yech,” as my doctor called it. And then I ventured back into the world again. I was full of shame and self-loathing. I felt less than everyone, like I was a defective human being. I got my own apartment, and went to the B.U. Center for Psych Rehab’s Training for the Future program. Somehow, in the positive, recovery-oriented atmosphere at the BU Center, I began to lose that self-hatred and shame. From there, I applied for a job at the place where I most wanted to work. Maybe it was the name, M-Power at the time (now it’s the Transformation Center), but I knew there was something there that I needed. And I got it – acceptance, positive energy and great compassion for all people with mental illness. Working in an environment surrounded by people who, like me, struggle with illness and wellness and trauma and life in general has been an incredibly enriching, empowering experience. It hasn’t always been easy, but it’s always been rewarding.
Two months following my near-successful suicide attempt, I began to practice Nichiren Buddhism, which involves chanting twice a day and many activities with other Buddhists. My recovery has more to do with my Buddhist practice than with anything else. Through practicing and studying, I have changed inside very deeply. In fact, I did an “experience” where I shared with my fellow Buddhists at a meeting how chanting had helped me to stay out of the hospital. I was feeling very vulnerable, as most of my fellow Buddhists are not consumers, although many are. But talking about my experience was the last time I have ever felt shame about having a diagnosis.
I no longer fear everything and everyone; in fact, there area very few people I do fear. I used to be pathologically afraid of everyone. No more. Once I understood where my fear came from, after several years, I stopped blaming myself.
I am still dealing with the fear my childhood experiences left behind. Now it is fear of myself, fear of the memories, and fear of the “junk in my head”. That’s my new name for it. Some days it does seem like a never-ending story, but I don’t believe that. Someday, I will completely overcome the fear and the junk in my head will finally have lost its power to hurt me.