The Impact of Mental Illness

Thursday, September 18, 2014

What toll does mental illness take on the American population each year?  What is the frequency of mental illness in the general population?  What is the current state of knowledge within the field of medicine in regards to mental health?  These and many, many other questions have been on my mind these past fifteen months as I have written this blog and sought to simultaneously transform my own life into one that will no longer be marked by the burden of trauma of my early life history.  The second half of my writing today will focus on these questions.  But first I will share an update on me.

Clearing out the impact of past trauma requires skill, dedication, creativity, tenacity and a willingness to welcome all the darkness to arise in your psyche so you can deal with it once and for all.  Some deeply traumatized people may ultimately benefit from and even truly need decades of therapy.  Others who enjoy the great gift of a strong and reliable network of supportive family, friends and community resources may be able to transcend the harm of their individual trauma in a relatively short amount of time.  I believe there is no magical recipe for healing.  There are any number of ways a person can embark on a journey of healing.

I am pleased to report that my own personal journey of healing reached another significant milestone yesterday.  I had my latest visit to my therapist last night.  Before arriving for the appointment I had reviewed my personal calendar as a result of making an appointment for a volunteer training session next Tuesday night.  Scheduling this training session on Tuesday evening created a conflict with my existing scheduled therapy appointment.  As there were essentially no other open evening spots in my calendar next week it appeared I wouldn’t be able to go to therapy.  So on my way to my appointment last night I pondered the state of my life and how much I personally need therapy now.  And I came to the gratifying conclusion that I am so healthy now (compared to June, 2013) that I feel quite comfortable forgoing a therapy session for one week.  In the entire calendar year of 2014 there was only one week thus far in which I didn’t have a session.

It put a warm smile on my face to recognize how much progress I have made as reflected in my decision to forego a therapy appointment next week.  My life is finally (relatively) stable.  I have remained committed to my daily writing discipline for over a year now.  I work with a personal trainer on a weekly basis at the downtown YMCA.  I reach out to people with a confidence and enthusiasm that truly shows something is deeply changing inside me.  The deeply held core beliefs I developed early in my childhood are now beginning to crumble.  This is a time of Verwandlung (German for transformation).

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I am writing about the issue of mental health in the United States today due in part to the recent publication of some important research on the subject of schizophrenia.  You can find some reference to this research here.  As I have noted in my blog this issue personally affected me when my biological mother developed schizophrenia as a young woman. 

My mother was (and still is I believe) a deeply talented woman.  In her early adulthood she worked as a nurse.  She also painted, had skill in playing the flute and could even make some of her own clothes.  Losing her to illness wasn’t just a loss to me but to the whole world.  By the time my mother’s twenties ended and she had turned thirty years old (1978) my mother’s life had dramatically changed.  Her marriage to my father had effectively ended.  What followed the dissolution of her marriage was a protracted period of a number of years in which she moved around but never created a new and stable life for herself.  At one point in time she lived and worked in El Paso, Texas.  Whatever motivated her to choose that particular location as a place to create a life (if ever so briefly) is still unclear to me.  In 1982 she ultimately, and permanently, returned to Germany after suffering a second serve episode of debilitating illness.

As part of my own process of healing I have attempted to reconstruct the chronology of my mother’s life so I can better understand the person she was (and now is) as well as better understand how her life influenced my own development.  This very issue of parental influence came up in my therapy session last night when my therapist and I engaged in a dialogue to answer questions necessary to make use of a developmental script.  This script will likely feature prominently in my upcoming work with my therapist.

  

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) offers an extensive variety of resources to support those directly affected by mental illness as well as their families, friends and communities at large. Examples of resources include research, advocacy, publications and discussion groups.  To learn more visit the NAMI website here.

According to NAMI schizophrenia affects approximately 2.4 million American adults over the age of 18.  Schizophrenia tends to manifest in women later than in men.  Despite improved understanding of the etiology of and treatments for schizophrenia the illness is still not infrequently stigmatized.  The NAMI website makes note this unfortunate reality:

"Schizophrenia is often mischaracterized as an untreatable disease associated with violent behavior and many untrue and unfortunate stereotypes have developed.  Most individuals living with schizophrenia are not violent (my emphasis); risk of violence is associated primarily with factors such as psychotic symptoms or substance abuse.  Even then, violent behavior is generally uncommon and the overall contribution of schizophrenia to violence in a community is small."

Though many people who have schizophrenia are not violent my earliest impression of the disease ran contrary to this.  I can recall my mother being violent in both actions and words.  I can recall the fear I felt when her behavior would turn volatile.  It's thus critical that organizations like NAMI exist to counteract prejudice and ignorance with education and much more.

I am tentatively planning to go on a NAMI walk on Saturday, September 27th.  I hope to take advantage of the event to learn more about the organization and meet some great people!