World Mental Health Day: My road to recovery and getting help

How often have you said to someone, “Oh you know me, I’m crazy,” when you do something unexpected? How often have you heard someone else be quirky and call it being mad? Being mad is glamorous, being mad is fun, being mad gets you awe, admiration and the label of being exciting. Till you are actually mad, that is. The label, of course, will never be just mad. And nor will you be walking the streets in torn clothes and yammering to yourself -- not unless you actively want to, of course. Your madness will be called many complex things: bipolar disorder, borderline personality syndrome, clinical depression, and many other things. But essentially, it’s all under the wonderful umbrella of madness, and wonderful it is, once you know how to manage your madness. 

I found when I crossed over from being 'entertaining mad' to labelled 'mad', a beast called recovery appeared. You see, when you cutely call yourself crazy, you never think you need to recover from it; because it’s cute, fun and quirky – what’s to recover from? But when you have a label, and I have come to accept labels are important if you want to reclaim your life, you suddenly have to commit wholeheartedly to something. You have to be consistent, you have to be disciplined and you have to humbly accept that something about you needs fixing. All three things are exactly those that your illness does not allow you to be. This is my poignant paradox. 

A little over three years ago, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD), and a little later, bipolar disorder. Both these disorders came together to powerfully take away any semblance of normalcy or happiness in my life. Without getting into details, I’ll just say that I wasn’t a loving, productive, peaceful person three years ago; everything had come to such a head that the fact there was a problem couldn’t be ignored. 

If I thought that was difficult, boy, was I in for a surprise. When you commit to recovery, it is then that you start to understand what tough really means. Everything that you are screams in protest when you start your recovery journey. Your brain, wired differently as it is, rejects all forms of it. Some reasons that I came up with (and still occasionally employ) are: meditation is too boring, I can’t get out of bed, how do you expect me to exercise; therapy is too much effort, therapist is too empathic, therapist is too cold, medication makes me feel groggy, no thanks, I can help myself. They were all valid reasons, mind you. I really couldn’t get out of bed for days, I barely managed to brush my teeth; on some days I skipped it altogether. I would eat one meal a day or none at all. The different reasons the brains offers in resistance of recovery are enough to be the size of a novella. 

I talk about mental health as often as I can. Over a year ago, when I wrote my first piece on the issue, I sat in wonder and humbled awe at the number of people who wrote to me, sharing their experiences with their own mental health or that of their family and friends. They wrote asking for where they could seek help, how they could make a resisting loved one seek help, how they identified with my story, and some just wrote to share thoughts and feel less lonely. In the process, I started to feel less alone and confused, just a little less of an outsider. I realised then that my road to recovery had begun even though I had started to seek help 18 months before. I understood that recovery is a lot of things – medication, therapists, exercise, self-awareness – but it mostly starts with finding a feeling of hope, finding solidarity. The source of that could well be your therapist, a community or with a family that stands by you.

Here are some things about recovery I wish someone had told me when I started to seek help.

1. Therapy is for the long haul. It takes a long, long time and you don’t get to back out, you don’t get to flake out, you don’t get to say, “I think I am better now.” You’ve got to stick with it like you’d stick with a loved one if they were ill. 

2. Now that you know that, also know that you will still do all the three things that I said you don’t get to do. You will miss your appointments, discontinue your therapy, and you will tell yourself you are better. You’ll do this till the next crisis hits and you are unable to deal with it. Start again. Go back. Get help. 

3. There will be days you will not achieve anything: none of the exercises your therapist has asked you to do, your daily walk/swim/workout, a shower. This doesn’t mean you aren’t recovering. It only means you had one bad day, you took one step back. Persevere. 

4. A few months into regular therapy you will start to doubt if you are really ill. You will start to wonder if you are using illness as an excuse to counter many things. You will start to believe you are fine. Remember this, then - your illness, your depression, specifically, is lying to you. Unless your therapist (and perhaps your family) agrees with you, you probably should go right back and keep that appointment. 

5. Be open, be vulnerable, be honest. Telling chosen people I was ill, asking for help and saying that some things are beyond me has brought me mostly acceptance. I’ve had my share of insensitivity and ignorance, but the love and support I’ve received have more than made up for it. 

6. Surround yourself with a support system, a safety web of friends and family. I cannot stress or express the importance of this enough. This will be your lifeline. 

Sandhya Menon is a writer, a lover of people, notebooks and the sea. In her latest role, she is the editor of an online parenting magazine and lives in Bangalore.