Mar 28


When self-help isn’t

by Terry 28 March 2009


Helpful, that is.  As I often do when I’m teetering on the edge of the darkness, I’ve been exploring mental health bulletin boards and support groups this week.  I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking for, but I can’t seem to find it, no matter where I seek.

What I’m discovering is a lot of groups that do little beyond compare scars, trading stories of the horrible things they did to themselves and others when they were cycling, and recounting the step by painful step course of their self-destruction before being Saved.  I call this the Religious Revival type of self-help, casting BPD as a sin to be repented.  I’ll admit it’s an attractive prospect, that by confessing the horrors of my illness I can be forgiven for it and welcomed into the holy fold of the normal.  But BPD doesn’t work that way.  We’re never Cured.  We learn to cope and minimize the damage to ourselves and others, but, like alcoholics, we’re never over it.  We’re in recovery for the rest of our lives.  No amount of confession will change that.

A close relative of the Revival is the Miracle group, pushing the idea that by just following the right diet, taking a specific medication, joining the right church everything will be all better.  Guilt-inducing, that, because if we’re experiencing symptoms and suffering it’s our own fault for thinking negative thoughts, not being able to tolerate a certain drug, or eating that candy bar instead of another serving of broccoli.  These groups encourage us to engage in magical thinking, which feeds into psychosis and mania, as well as to buy into the idea that symptoms are a sign of personal failing, which can drive us deeper into the well of self-blame and depression.  Neither is healthy.

But most upsetting are the partner/family boards endorsing the idea of “tough love,” of recognizing when and how to sever relationships and withdraw support from the bipolar person.   I call these the 12 Step plans, geared toward making sure that a disordered person hits bottom hard enough and fast enough to guarantee she will comply with whatever program is laid out by the ones in authority.    This is my own private nightmare, particularly when I’m on the edge as I am right now.  If I screw up by being depressed, those I love will walk away from me and leave me alone to suffocate in the darkness.   Intellectually I can recognize that there may come a point where being with me is so toxic that I must be put aside to protect someone else’s mental health.  But that kind of fear isn’t conductive to healthy living and I can’t let myself focus on it.

So what would a positive support model look like?  It would focus more on living than on disability, for one thing.  I don’t think supporting each other needs to be limited to mental health issues — I’d like to see a community where BP is not the dominant theme, but rather just a thing we have in common, like a love of basketball or knitting.  Sharing would not be confessional but instead be off-hand trading of tips, such as in a thread about travel, hints from someone who has done it on how to keep up a med and sleep schedule when changing time zones.  It would be ok to talk about pets, children, hobbies without needing to relate everything to our shared disorder.  It would be ok to just BE and feel accepted.

Or maybe I’m just not a person who could benefit from an online support group.  I’ve got you all, and I can talk about my illness as much or as little as I want.  It doesn’t define me here;  it’s just another facet of who I am.  That’s what I wish everyone could have.  But can that be recreated on a larger scale?  I don’t know.  If it’s out there, I haven’t found it yet.

Are true support groups, as I envision them, possible?  Are they even desireable?

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3 Comments

3 Responses to “When self-help isn’t”

  1. Ahistoricality on March 28th, 2009 4:44 pm

    Intellectually I can recognize that there may come a point where being with me is so toxic that I must be put aside to protect someone else’s mental health.

    Funny, but when I read that line I flashed on some of the people I had relationships with — emotional, professional, on-line — earlier in my life, and the sometimes toxic effects these “sane” and “normal” people had on my well-being…..

    I understand the desire for a community of like-minded folks, one that goes beyond a kind of one-dimensional desparation. But that has to be balanced against the need to live in the world, without self-imposed ghettos and the stigma that could come from the majority believing that we can’t really coexist with them comfortably.

    What I’ve said in the past, and still believe, is that we need to see ability as a continuum, a multi-dimensional one at that, and that nobody is fully abled in all dimensions. We all have our limitations: the sooner we recognize that and begin to treat each other as fully human anyway, the better off we’ll be.  (Quote)

  2. Terry on March 29th, 2009 3:40 pm

    Thanks for linking to your post! I hope everyone will take a moment to read it.

    I think mental health in general is still in the medical model. From my perspective, this is an improvement over the charity model, or one that you don’t mention, the threat/danger/freak model. I think we’re beginning to see it move into the spectrum of social, as more people open up about their experiences with depression. That, at least, has become less stigmatized.

    The thought in my mind as I was writing this, though, is on safe spaces, though you make a good point about ghettoization. It’s not an issue for me here, surrounded as I am by allies, but in my off-line life I’m often placed unwillingly into the role of educator. I’m a lot better than I was 5 years ago, but I still have symptoms frequently enough that I sometimes need to explain or make excuses for myself. The closest I’ve come to a safe space is 2 different writers’ workshops I’ve attended over the years, in which there were numerous people with chronic depression and BPD. Those who didn’t have it were natural allies because they’d been educated by acquaintance with someone local. I was comfortable enough to get up and leave a class to walk up and down the hallway if my anxiety got too high, then go back in and sit down when I felt better and have no one comment on it. That was very freeing. But in both those situations I had a very close friend there for support and to run interference if needed. A friend like that can make anyplace a safe space.

    Your point on separation feeding stigmatization is well taken. I need to think more about that.

    This has turned into another blog post rather than a comment. :) I don’t mean to take it over here – I’m enjoying the conversation!  (Quote)

  3. Ahistoricality on March 29th, 2009 5:30 pm

    I think mental health in general is still in the medical model…. the threat/danger/freak model.

    I think you’re right about depression being largely destigmatized at this point, but most of the rest of what can go wrong with mental health really is in that pre-modern “threat/danger/freak model.” That’s going to continue as long as the dominant media images are psychopathic serial killers and schizophrenic homeless; The show ER did do some bipolar stuff, but it was (as you’d expect from a medical show) highly medicalized (take your medicine or else) and the people involved were seen as a burden to their families, a tragedy in progress, more than anything else.

    The safe spaces thing is something that comes up a lot in academic environments, especially as regards our students. (As you can see from the comments, mental health qualifies as an “invisible disability” which is still pretty highly stigmatized among my colleagues, though we tolerate each other’s undiagnosed quirks to a degree unheard of in corporate life)  (Quote)

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