Wednesday, June 24, 2015

He's still just like someone without mental illness, only more so.

I wanted to share this wonderful essay with you.  It's by Mark Vonnegut, and you may remember the review I wrote and how I loved his memoir, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness, Only More So. 

This is an essay posted on KevinMD, "A doctor shares his story about overcoming mental illness"  and do surf over to read the whole thing. I promise you'll be moved.  

Here's a part of Dr. Vonnegut's writing: 

In my career as a mental patient, I started with schizophrenia, worked my way up through manic depression, and have now settled at bipolar disorder. I can joke about it because I recovered sufficiently to get into and through medical school, internship, and residency, and have had the enormous honor and privilege of being trusted by parents to help them and their children. I make no bones about it; I make mistakes just like everyone else, but am very proud of how well I do my job.

I’m also very aware of how easily I could have ended up otherwise — a suicide statistic or just another broken young man who never got well enough to have a life.

The diagnosis doesn’t matter much. What they think you have can give doctors a clue about what to do or not do, but for the person who is suffering, and for those who love him or her, wanting the pain and trouble to stop is enough. Knowing that others have recovered is very helpful; most patients, including myself, have diagnosed themselves as hopeless more than once.

He goes on: 

The reverse is also true; just because you don’t hear voices, doesn’t make you a model of mental health. One of the problems with mental health diagnosis is how reassuring the process is to “so-called normal” people. The sub-text to me having a thinking disorder is that your thinking is fine. I freely admit that I have an affective disorder, and find the idea that my feelings are more than a little off-base a huge relief — but to jump from my affective disorder to the conclusion that your feelings make perfect sense is just illogical.

There are all kinds of statistics, but the bottom line is that no one among us is 100 percent crazy, and no one is 100 percent sane. The chance that you or someone you love won’t need help at some point with what we broadly call “mental illness” is 0.

And finally:
There ain’t no difference between them and us. We’re all here to help each other through this, whatever it is.
There’s almost always something positive you can do; the problem is believing in that possibility, and letting others help you figure out what it is.


 

2 comments:

bluejonah said...

I love this. It's so true. Love!

Pulau harapan said...

He's still just like someone without mental illness, only more so.