1. Baby us – I understand that I am sick and you are trying to help but by treating me like an infant reinforces my own thoughts that I am basically useless
2. Speak louder then normal – I have severe depression, post traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder and generalized anxiety disorder none of which effect my hearing or will get your advice/suggestion/support through quicker
3. Speak to me slower then normal – Again I have multiple of disorders that at time distorts my thinking or perception but none of which affected my intelligence level. Treat me like an idiot and I will make you look stupid.
4. Treat me like I am going to break – A wrong comment or a slight slip is not going to send me running for the deep end. Trust me the garbage I tell myself is a hundred times worse then anything you can say.
5. Use cliches – Telling me to pull up my boots and charge forward or to just focus on the positive reinforces the idea that I need to surround myself with smarter people who understand the difference between a case of the blues and severe depression. If it was that easy do you really think I would still be in the same position.
6. Forget who you are talking too – The person that you remember from five years ago is the same one standing in front of you. When the diagnosis was dropped on me with borderline personality disorder the only thing that changed is now I am fortunate enough to carry a suitcase full of stigma with me. Hate to break it to you but I have always been borderline and the only difference is the way you now look at me.
7. Leave me alone – When a person enters the dark world of depression the first thing they do is isolate themselves to simplify their own world. By giving me space to figure out things on my own reinforces the negative thoughts in my head saying I am alone fighting a battle that I am positive that I will lose. A simple phone call reminds me that there are reasons to keep fighting and that when I need it someone is there.
8. Focus on the disorders – The best part of dealing with other people means I can allow my attention to go elsewhere for a while and not the battle in my head. The story of your child’s trip to the library is as helpful to my recovery as any med.
9. Ignore the warning signs – If I am doing something that appears to be negative and on a path that leads to nothing good then be my friend and speak up. I spend so much time in a bad head space that at times I do not realize the danger that I am in as it all seems normal to me.
10. Believe the stigma – According to the borderline stigma I have no heart and I am incapable of appreciating the needs of another human being as I only care what effects me. If this is so then can you explain to me the reason behind this blog where I am literally exposing my soul in order to make life a little bit easier for someone else. I am not an exception to the rule when it comes to borderline but the portrait the stigma portrays is the exception. Always look for the human being and then the disorders not the other way around. Remember mental illness effects one out of five people so tomorrow someone you love could be in my shoes and how would you like people to treat them?
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This was really good. Thank you, my former roommate has bipolar disorder and had a pretty bad episode and ended up moving back home with his parents. I still call him every once in a while or go and hang out with him, he is doing better now and may move back in for the new school quarter, hopefully even though he is “crazy” or whatever labels he gives himself or other people give him I hope he still continues to go to school. He wants to become an engineer, he is definitely one of the brightest people I have met at my school, so hopefully it turns for the best.
Anyway, Your post was very helpful and informative. Its tough to deal with this stuff. Thank you.
Thank you for writing this… I have been in love for 2 years with someone who has BPD. At first I didn’t know what her problem was… I also have GAD, and occasionally depression. We seem to exasperate each others problems, however I have tried and tried to help her, or deal with her. She is in severe denial and won’t seek help in the forms of therapy, or meds… I know now that I can’t help her unless she wants it. Everyone is telling me to get as far away from her as possible. But, as you said, I love her, and want to see past the disorder, but it is so hard sometimes. She is doing the “I hate you, don’t leave me” thing to me now, dumped me 3 weeks ago, now is calling every day, telling me she misses me, and loves me… what do I do?
So very well said!!!
Brilliant, my deepest thanks. These are excellent reminders–even of ways to treat myself; not that I talk to loudly or slowly to myself, lol. But I do tend to ignore my own warning signs even when I know better, Mel
I love how when people are nervous they either speak louder or slower. Exactly like you said.
I’m depressed and anxious. But I hear you just fine.
This is an excellent post, I appreciated it.
Thank you for this post. I agree with everything you said. If I am very depressed, I should not be left alone too long, like you said. But sometimes when my depression is only mild, I need to be alone so I don’t flip out on everyone around me. It gives me time to think. If I don’t talk to anyone or get out the next day then people know I need them. But being introverted, it stresses me out to be around people all of the time. But I agree to never leave a depressed person alone for very long. I hope people who have loved ones with depression see this post and realize how they can help him/her.
Great post. I especially like #4 and 7. It has taken my husband a while to learn how to deal with my depression when it is at its most severe and he still has to fight the tendency to say nothing and leave me alone.
Very well said, and it illustrates that depressed people aren’t stupid or unaware of their situation, just unable to “right” themselves as quickly as the rest of the world.
I have been treated successfully for severe depression for 15 years, and my meds recently bottomed out on me, plunging me back into a depression I hadn’t experienced since my 20′s. It’s a frightening and hopeless feeling.
Another good thing to remember is that depression is a disease/illness and usually treatable. If you are myopic, you can’t “talk youself” into better vision, or just try and “focus more” and have your eyesight improve. If you are diabetic, all the therapy in the world won’t make your body start producing insulin.
As an aside, people who suffer from depression, anxiety, BiPolar disorder, etc are usually of higher intellect and extremely creative. There’s meaning to the term Happy Idiot.
Good Post.
Very well said! I suffer from depression and anxiety and I think this is good information for those who have never gone through any sort of mental illness.
This could not be more true or better said.
i think i needed these. Thank you..
This was helpful to me. I’ve been battling depression for as long as I can remember. Reading your comments helped me realize again that I need to be watchful and advocate for ourselves–which is something many of us find difficult.
Well said.
Keep it up, guy, and keep believing in everything but the bullshit in your head. A little too often lately, I have had to face the long, dark, cold corridor of my lack of belief that things will improve. Forgive me for being too forthcoming, but I feared I was going to off myself at some point; like there was a wall in front of me, and there was nothing beyond it, and beyond it was basically tomorrow. In other words, I could not see any future. I couldn’t see a reason to live, literally.
I assume you’re ex-mil, so I hope that’s helping. Me, I’m screwed. I went to do a review of my situation with a pre-screening counselor; thanks to the crap health care system, I cannot even see a real counselor without paying serious bucks. All I have available is group therapy one night per week, so that’s all I can do. Apparently having a good job and then being in this sad state with no money to borrow or earn is not worthy of the system’s charity. So, I decided the system could kiss my ass. I can’t even get my old doctor, who dumped me since I couldn’t pay him $239.00, to write me a script, even. What a joke – a cruel one.
It’s like this for me: I have suffered with depression for a while, but don’t recall the feeling noted above, quite. I think I just spiraled myself into it, with trying to work on old issues of abuse from childhood, grief, stress, then the job loss (this was frankly an insult in the midst of all the other), being angry about my career faltering, feeling it is hard to want to even interview for jobs, and a few other issues kicking me around a bit too hard.
To boot, I really have a hard time ignoring clowns who get on my nerves. I was worried that someone, like goofs who would leave a smart-ass comment here, would cross me at the wrong moment and not let up, and they would learn how far their foot would fit down their throat, and I would wind up in jail. And I would definitely be ashamed of it, making matters worse. I was a bit touchy, let’s say.
I am not struggling with personality disorder, I appreciate that that’s not easy. I have deep depression, though, with some serious anxiety problems. They had brewed up to a near nervous breakdown, before I lost the job. What hell. I am a writer, trying to write fiction, so I want to get around this clutter and write about it and other things, through characters. Not lately – trying to find work and settle problems with my dad’s estate, because I have to be the one to get that taken care of. It is all hard. And at times, I want to just see that my wife has a good life, and simply go away, myself. That is just how cruel one’s own mind can be. Sucks. Pretty much decide not to just go away because I can’t bear thinking my mother and wife would cry about it. Other’s pain is relevant; mine, somehow, is a nuisance. Sometimes I forget that absurdity, and other times I think: What the hell am I doing to myself?
That’s a long way around to saying your list is reliable, I am telling you, as someone else dealing with hardships right now. You ought to work it over, refine it, and consider getting it produced in some way. Publish it. My life has pretty much fallen apart since May 2008. Dad died, stressed over that, got depressed, lost my job, got more depressed, economy is loopy, got some more depressed.
You can dump this comment if you see fit. Don’t want to make my problems an issue here, just kinda letting it ride.
Keep the faith, my man. We are at least in a place where some of us can get control of the problem. Beats being alive 60 years ago, even 30 years ago, with this kind of problem. Here’s to people learning how to be better humans, more and more, every day.
Wow. I wish I could send this to everyone I know. This is a really could list. It’s amazing that you can think so clearly with so many mental disorders… I have mild depression and even that makes it hard to figure out exactly what would be helpful sometimes. You’re my hero.
~Mango
As I live with BPIID, I know full well the horrors of the barren shores of depression. There was a time in my life, when my best friend would make me get out of bed, for an hour each day.
I spend months at a time on psych wards due to suicidal depression. I have two very good friends who visit me regularly. Which speaks volumes about them.
Too many people in hospital for mental health reasons are simply avoided, forgotten. We are just as in need as people who are physically sick.
I think your list is spot on. But I would remind family and friends of those with a mental diagnoses, that we need cards and flowers and visits when we are so sick we need to be hospitalized. We need your love and support.
WOW!! The list is amazing and I have sent it to my family and friends. The comments are awe inspiring, too. A friend sent this because she has been the one to stick with me at horrible times; she knows how hard this is from an observer’s perch. She is the first to send me positive info, and thankfully, this list is spot on. Way to go to all of us for putting one foot in front of the other, and for this list which defines so much of what we need and want! Thanks!! Suz in Graham, NC
Good stuff here. Thanks!
Oops. I like this the best: "The story of your child's trip to the library is as helpful to my recovery as any med."
Social immersion has helped me the most. Good post.
Writing out what not to do is good, but as a mental health professional, I'd be more interested in what helps than what to avoid. There is a reason that many people, when interacting with those afflicted with borderline personality disorder, use the term "walking on eggshells." It is not a criticism, but a comment on the experience of the other side. I'd love to see a follow up of this.
This blog does nothing but show the positive ways to overcome mental illness. The purpose of this post was to do a little reverse psychology if you will and by the numbers and comments it seems to have done its job. take care
This is all true. I have suffered from depression since the early eighties. I used to be a self harmer but no longer, although it never really leaves you.
While I am medicated I appear to be a happy and cheerful person most of the time, and I do have a good if slightly weird sense of humour. But I don't need to tell other people what it's like inside my head!
Last night, in my head, I had my children dying of swine flu, my father from old age, he is 88, and my husband being institutionalised with Alzheimer's (there's nothing wrong with him), and me being left with only my sister and being a burden to her as I am quite severely disabled. Oh and all this was going to happen before the spring.
Today I have some perspective. But it is a dreadful thing.
One day at a time…
The things you said are very true, as someone who has only recently started telling someone about my depression and anxiety one thing that annoys me the most is people thinking I'll break from any comment. You said it exactly right, the things I say to myself are much worse.