Mental Illness destroys the bonds required to heal the trauma
So much of good mental health depends on having a good support network. Unfortunately, mental illness can mean you are ostracised by your peers and family.
The topic of mental illness and friendships has been difficult for me to write about for many years owing to my intimate experience with it. I don’t mean to report that in a sad way (like I once would) but more in a clinical way. One piece of advice you will almost always receive from counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists is to have a good support network. Unfortunately, I think they also know that deep down many people with mental illnesses are not accepted in the broader community as being unwell. Rather, they are simply “crazy people” and a nuisance.
Mental illness had me become a nuisance to my friends and family on a variety of occasions and some relations are now strained or non-existent. It’s like the illness is designed to destroy friendships and family which undoubtedly causes a great deal of trauma for those suffering from mental illness and those around them. It’s very easy to discount and disconnect from someone with a mental illness. Nobody would judge you for it. “Oh they’re crazy” is a fine excuse.
I don’t blame people for that. Bipolar 1 in particular can be very difficult to be around sometimes. The good news is most sufferers like myself know this and generally just avoid people. When I first started losing friends to my mental illness it was in a very pivotal part of my life in my vulnerable 20s. So I learnt to live with the fact people didn’t want to be friends with me, or that I was just a very difficult friend to be around.
The thing that is so hard to shake is the negative view people must have of you if, by chance, they have observed or experienced the symptoms of mental illness. Your identity gets replaced with the mental illness. You no longer exist as an individual just as a diagnosis. Nobody wants to hang out with a diagnosis, especially if it is a particularly bad one like bipolar.
The other thing that made being around me so horrible when I was unwell was also my psychosis and the religiosity that accompanied it. I have since found a way to turn these thoughts and feelings into art (in my music video-based series Faith Restored) and that has also made me more resilient to losing most of my friendships over the years. I basically really got into writing and art the more I lost contact or simply pissed off various friends.
Now, I get to write about it in a wholesome way when years ago it would have hurt me to do so. I really don’t know what I could have done to keep the friendships that I cherished in my life. I didn’t choose to have bipolar and I lived with it undiagnosed and untreated for 20-odd years. That’s not an excuse that’s just a fact. I can sit here calmly writing about it because I have the love and support of my wife and children. Most importantly, I now have the support of myself.
A support network is no replacement for self esteem, but it sure helps. Here’s hoping that you have an intact support network, and if you don’t always feel free to comment and say hi! Welcome to my Substack to new readers, and I hope you can subscribe for more.