*Content Warning: This piece contains a reference to suicide, which may be triggering to some.*
Someone asked me recently what advice would I give to a person newly diagnosed with mental illness. That question has stuck with me since. It’s a tough one. Takes a lot of thought to answer.
I think about what I wished someone had told me when I first was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. But I’m not sure I cared at the time. No matter how good the advice, I’m sure I wouldn’t have listened. I was off in my own chaotic world. No matter how much external input I got, I wasn’t receptive. I was reaching out to my psychiatrist, but it was only because life had become intensely overbearing and I had no other options. But even then I wasn’t being open and transparent to my doctors, I wasn’t truly investing in getting help.
Then I think about the things I wished I did at that time, and the things I wished I hadn’t done. And I think about how I wasn’t being receptive to external advice and what I might have been open to. What was I capable of doing in those moments that could have made a difference?
In times of depression I sought out support more readily because deep down I didn’t want to have to resort to suicide to escape the weight. Before I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I only talked to my psychiatrist about the depression. But what would’ve happened if I talked about my moods in those therapy sessions that my depression wasn’t ruling my life?
What if I had voiced more of the feelings and emotions trapped inside my head? I really had no understanding for what I was going through and maybe my psychiatrist could have intervened more if I had said something. Maybe if I hadn’t disregarded the shifting moods, I would’ve gotten my bipolar diagnoses sooner. Maybe I wouldn’t have made some of the mistakes I made or maybe I would have received better help from my support.
I never mentioned the racing thoughts and the early episodes of mania. I never understood that the internal chaos I was experiencing was not normal until it exploded and impacted my external life. Because I didn’t express what was going on with in me, other than life feeling devastatingly dark, my mania built up and leaked out into the world. The anger, the discontent, the rush of moods overpowered me until everything and everyone around me were engulfed in my psychosis.
Maybe if I had said or even written about feeling endless amounts of energy and riding high above the clouds, someone would’ve recognized my instability. If I had just voiced that my mind was filled with so many racing thoughts that I had trouble processing basic tasks. If I had expressed the immense amount of anger that controlled everything I did. If I had told someone I felt like rebelling against everything good and stable in life and running away to the moon, maybe someone would have changed my diagnosis sooner. Maybe if I had talked more about my experiences in the times without depression, it would have prevented the life altering decisions I made during mania.
But maybe not. I can’t change the past. But these thoughts lead me to the answer to the question.
If you are newly diagnosed with mental illness, do your best to speak up and get help. When talking to your therapist or psychiatrist, tell them about all the things in your head and all the moods you experience even when it seems like overkill. Just because depression may be the underlying reason you’re reaching out, doesn’t mean there aren’t other things you need help with. Just because you don’t recognize the instability in your life, doesn’t mean someone else won’t. Talk about all of your struggles, maybe it will prevent future heart ache. Maybe voicing your experiences will get you the type of help you need sooner and more effectively.
Have hope. Speak up. Pursue help.
