Before I begin this little essay let me offer my readers a full disclosure: I used to have a mental illness. Still want to read my blog? Of course you do, what can make for more interesting and during this Christmas season more inspiring reading than a tale of personal triumph over adversity? Except this is not exactly what this article is going to be about, but for those who would like to know, I was diagnosed in 2002 with post traumatic stress disorder from childhood abuse and have since fully recovered through the support of a great psychiatrist and even more so my own hard work and the grace and love of God. I was treated through talk therapy and cognitive behaviour therapy, no medications and no hospitalizations. My recovery is complete, so complete in fact that it has taken me a few years to believe it. And this brings us to the crux of this essay.
The mental health community has been working like a union of coal miners to conquer stigma and this is a tall order, given how many people have all kinds of irrational fears and ridiculous assumptions about mental illness and people who suffer from mental illness. We are making an impact but the progress is slow, and the reason I think that this is taking so long is because many of us who have a mental health diagnosis are still so laden down with self stigma. What also hasn't helped is being greeted with skepticism or bewilderment when we tell mental health professionals that we are fully recovered. They almost never believe us. To top it off, when I tell them that I have never taken a pill or received an injection nor have I ever been hospitalized their eyes glaze over and they suddenly look stupider than someone waking up at three in the afternoon on New Year's Day.
Believe in yourself. This advice is more important than ever for people who have recovered or are recovering from a mental illness. I am always saddened when I hear any of my colleagues who work in peer support pathologize themselves and it happens often. For those of you who aren't familiar with mental health peer support (my profession) let me explain a thing or two. We are people who have survived mental illness and have done well in recovery. Following a careful and meticulous screening process we were accepted to receive special training to work in positions of trust and support with others who are struggling with mental health issues. Recovery does mean different things to different people. I think almost all peer support workers remain on some form of medication and in close therapeutic contact with providers of mental health services. For many recovery means that they are able to maintain themselves in a state of wellness and carry on with their lives unassisted by therapeutic or clinical interventions. Some still experience periodic relapses and likely will always require some level of care or support, but on the whole they are sufficiently recovered and independent to function well in trusted positions as peers working professionally with others who are working through issues of illness and recovery.
With this in mind it is small wonder that during a recent meeting with co-workers I was disappointed to hear some of them use their mental health diagnosis as an explanation and perhaps even an excuse for the way they react in some situations. We were talking about border security and the elevated climate of fear and paranoia that has informed and influenced the many new security measures that are being implemented in U S customs and of how intimidating this can be. My good co-workers, wonderful people said that their inclination while travelling in the U S would be to explain to the customs officials that having a mental illness they would be more prone to feeling paranoid and anxious towards all these heightened
security measures. Fair enough. I said nothing and struggled to understand where they were coming from.
Then I remembered some of my own issues around travel five years ago. My psychiatric treatment had ended two years earlier and in some ways I was still struggling to function well without supports. I had been through already several triggers and even a couple of near relapses. I say near-relapses because each time I snapped out of it within less than a week and each time it happened I was able to deal with it more quickly and effectively than the last time and the triggers themselves were becoming more widely spaced. I was still persuading myself about my recovery and the build up to prepare for my flight to Costa Rica (my first plane ride since three years before I first became ill fourteen years before in 1994. The fall out from 9-11 left me feeling anxious and fearful about air travel, so fearful that I was sure for a while that I would never fly again, and indeed I was still so poor that I didn't expect that I would ever be able to fly again. The stress and anxiety of the build up to my first flight in nearly one and a half decades was such that at times I even thought of backing out. I also came down with psychosomatic symptoms in the last week. I was absolutely convinced that my fear was based on mental illness, but looking back, I would say now that nothing could have been further from the truth. I had a very natural and normal anxiety largely fed and fueled by the climate of fear we have all been forced to endure since the fall of the Twin Towers.
I have had to go through nearly five more years of post-recovery and almost annual air travel in order to convince myself that I am well, that there is nothing wrong with me, that there remains absolutely nothing of PTSD or its fallout to inform what I have come to accept as very normal and natural emotional responses to stress and uncertainty. To my coworkers I have these words: It is only natural to feel a little bit insecure about one's level of recovery especially when you think of all the set backs that occur on the road to mental health recovery. Sooner or later you will come to believe in your wellness. Tempered by the humility that we have learned through our experience of illness and journey toward recovery we will eventually find ourselves standing and walking tall and proud among peers, colleagues, family friends, and the world. We will come to see that a diagnosis is sometimes just a diagnosis, that humanity is divided not between those who are well and those who are ill but between those who have been diagnosed and those who have yet to be diagnosed.
And now, another recipe:
Lentejas de Mole
one and one quarter cups dry red lentils
four-five large handfuls semi-sweet chocolate chips
four heaping tablespoons natural peanut butter
up to 300 grams extra old cheddar cheese, chopped
quarter cup miso
one-two tablespoons red wine vinegar
three tablespoons chili powder
two tablespoons cinnamon
one tablespoon garlic powder
half teaspoon allspice
half teaspoon nutmeg
Cook red lentils in water, add garlic, miso, cinnamon, allspice, chili powder, nutmeg. Mix ingredients thoroughly. Add chocolate chips, peanut butter, cheese, vinegar, continue to mix thoroughly then allow to simmer for thirty minutes. Great served over baked potato.
And all Mexicans reading this and especially la gente poblana, please forgive me if I have misrepresented your legendary mole poblano. I won't even assume to be able to imitate it in this recipe which I hope you will accept as a homage.
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