
Thereâs a tendency, once youâve started to heal from the wounds that mental illness has left you with, to forget how bad it really was at the time. Itâs not that time heals all wounds. Itâs just the memories fade as they flow backward into the past.
You find yourself asking, was I really that miserable? That irrational? That out of control? Once therapy and medication â or whatever works for you â have gotten you past the crisis stage, it gets harder to remember what it all felt like at the time.
Nor do we want to. Going through an episode of serious mental illness is hard enough when you do it once. Reliving it is to be avoided, if possible.
Still, the memories get a little fuzzy around the edges. Now that you are mentally healthier, you know you would never tolerate the kind of treatment you used to, or be so self-destructive, or put yourself down so thoroughly. The times when you did those things, when you felt those ways, seem in some sense unreal.
I think thatâs one reason some people go off their meds. Itâs not just that they feel better or think theyâre cured. Itâs that on some level they canât remember how bad it really was back then. So why should they need psychotropics?
Well, Iâm here to tell you that, yes, itâs much better now, but yes, it was that bad back then. You may not remember the weeping and wailing and total despair. You may not remember that you were immobilized for months at a time. You may not recollect pushing away people who were trying to help you. But all that happened.
Perhaps you donât recall what it was that led you to consider self-harm or suicide. You wouldnât think that way now, of course â youâre so much more stable. Perhaps you think to yourself that an abusive partner wasnât really all that bad. After all, you got away from them. It was survivable, so it must have been not that big a deal.
But it was that big a deal. Denying the experiences youâve had and minimizing their effects on you make it harder to see the long way youâve come. Itâs hard for me to remember now the major bipolar depressive episode that lasted for literally years, when I wasnât able to work, or write, or read or be there for my husband or even myself. But it happened, and I canât deny it. Iâd be lying to myself if I tried.
Iâm not recommending that you wallow in the memories of the horrible times. Iâd rather think about it as keeping little bits of them in a box on a shelf. Every now and then, on a day when you feel particularly strong, you open the lid and peek in. It may be shocking to realize how bad off you were, but a positive relief when you consider how far youâve come. As the saying goes, the bad times make the good seem so much better.
Bad and good, your experiences have made you who you are today. Denying or minimizing the bad makes it seem like your journey was less long and hard than you know it was. In a way, mental illness is the yardstick by which we can measure mental health. Moving onward and upward are important, but so is being realistic about the past.
Yes, it was that bad. And yes, you made it through anyway!
source https://www.programage.com/news/When_You_re_Past_the_Crisis_Stage_of_Mental_Illness_1600261213315374.html
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