World Mental Health Day

So today, Oct.10, is World Mental Halth Day. (Curiously juxtaposed with National Coming Out Day tomorrow). My last 8? years are a tale of mental health. The previous 50+ years were an exercise in denying mental health.

The Mental Health system in America is nigh non-existant. It's certainly a misnomer to call it a 'system'. There is no integration. There are a variety of caring therapeutic professionals trying to help people. Recent legislation makes mental health treatment the same as physical health treatment; I fear the Republicans will try to take that away in their depravity. (sorry. not sorry)

At the height of my problems, at the nadir of my experience, I was seeing four professionals for 4 or 5 hours each week. They were all great and they were all compatible with me. I am forever greatful for their efforts. There's no way a full-time employee or a single parent could participate in that sort of activity.

If America is really "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" you'd think that mental health would have a higher priority.

America doesn't care about my mental health, or your mental health. Now if I were to develop cancer, that's an opportunity for a profit center and they're here for me. But not mental health, which generally doesn't involve capital like imaging systems and robot knives. There is some support for profitable medications, but they're highly stigmatized; if you take psych meds you're likely to be described as 'mentally unstable' if you're in a car crash and the autopsy reveals their presence.

For the record, I've got Complex PTSD, major depression, anxiety, sexual confusion as a result of long-term trauma (violence, rapes). I am just all fucked up.

In so many ways, having a mental health diagnosis (which is a euphemism for having a mental health problem) is a shamed, stigmatized thing that we tend to keep in the closet. We are all wrong about this.

Now, if I take psych meds I'm on lists of Troubled People. Police reporting to my home may know about it. I'm not allowed to own a firearm. But I'm not disturbed, I'm just wounded.

I think I'll always be wounded. I think I'll die unresolved. But I'm working with it, and generally not telling people about it.

I like the image above because I believe it presents my mind: bifurcated, black-and-white on one side, rainbows and ribbons on the other. I was stuck in the black-and-white for a long time; it was actually good for my career. A treatment called EMDR helped me re-introduce and re-integrate the rainbow hemisphere and I am glad for it. I think it's been quite a change for the people who knew me Before.

I would like to say: if you're considering seeking mental health treatment, even with everything I've said above, I urge you to go for it. Make an appointment. Go see a person. If they don't click for you, go see a different person.