More than one in five adults live with a mental illness and one in five youths ages thirteen to eighteen in America either currently or at some point during their lives have had a serious mental illness.* That means tens of millions in the US alone suffer from some form of mental illness. For most of us, the forms are mild, meaning diagnoses like anxiety, depression, loneliness, or ADHD present a small or manageable number of symptoms that don’t totally paralyze us. We live, love, laugh, cry, and perform at home, on the job, or in the classroom daily, along with many so-called normal others, pretending we are the same. But we are not.
We are the grade-school teacher who makes it to the classroom every morning despite the periodic depression that makes them want to shut off the alarm and go back to bed. We are the married parent who loves their children and spouse who nonetheless becomes so anxious under the weight of it all that they fight the strongest desire to run away and never return. We are the thriving professional, polished and always on time, because we can’t allow ourselves anything less than such perfection, because that is disorder in action. We are the organized parent who seems to have it all together except when they regurgitate meals soon after eating because they feel it’s the only thing they can control. We are the young adult, adored by friends and family, who feels ever so lonely.
We are CEOs, bus drivers, grandmothers and grandfathers, doctors and nurses, and patients. Some of us outwardly laugh but inwardly cry, muting our authentic voice with substance or substances. Others brush their teeth six times a day, not for hygiene but for order in the day, and feel shame for the habit and the continuous lie that covers it.
We are tagged with labels—depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)—dispensed appropriate medications, and told that everything will be okay, go on out there and act normal, be normal.
We are not normal.
We are this. We are that. And many, like me, are some of this and that, and we are growing in numbers throughout the United States. And, while we are not the one in twenty-five US adults who battle the more severe or debilitating mental illnesses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression, the truth is, our afflictions can become quite weighty as well, to ourselves and to those we live and work with, because they are there, pounding like a jackhammer in the distance. Many days, we seem to inhabit the status quo while we are in fact residing on the fringe. Sometimes we lose footing, with little warning, and despite best efforts, slip into a negative vortex, inflicting pain upon ourselves and others.
For me, it’s a battle with ADHD, its impulsivity, depression, and the strong, persuasive inner voices that I hear, which, combined with low self-esteem, pushed me where I didn’t want to go. I don’t have a schizophrenic or bipolar diagnosis or symptoms. My voices are considered a mild affliction, officially. My onetime battle with persistent depressive disorder, not as severe as major depression, still caused periodic low self-esteem and an inability to get things done.
For most of my life, these afflictions won, substantially, nothing mild about that, though most days, everything looked normal—me, the successful, happy-go-lucky professional family man who had bylined books in stores and libraries, a wife and three children as Christmas card models, and two country club memberships. I thought how I lived was the only way: pretend you are normal and self-medicate.
I was so busy building a facade of normalcy that I overlooked having and executing a purpose, a critical element that connects us to others, to community, and to ourselves. Without a purpose, we suffer from dissatisfaction at work, which carries into our home—we feel hollow, unfilled, and empty. That was me, suffocating in that void, until the air was nearly gone.
By middle age, I had lost nearly everything, including my marriage, career, and self-respect, as I medicated into addiction and my three children battled substance misuse (sons) and an eating disorder (daughter).
I had little self-worth, no purpose, and, therefore, no joy. I wanted to end my life, until I decided to live, working to better manage myself. It’s about turning weakness into strength. It’s about finding the joy we want and deserve. If managed and channeled, our little crazy becomes an asset, carrying us forward instead of holding us back.
So, here’s to all who are a little crazy, if not more than a little, and the management of that, making it our superpower of progress, of change, and of hope and purpose. May we find all the joy that’s wanted, and all the joy that’s deserved, bringing it to many others along the way, making a tough old world a little bit better.
* According to “Lifetime Prevalence of Mental Disorders in US Adolescents: Results from the National Comorbidity Study-Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A),” published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Volume 49, Issue 10, October 2010, Pages 980–989.