My best friend Sheera was telling me the story of going to a friends birthday party...I'll spare you the details, but the punch line was "People! Can we stop embracing our mental illness, please?" And I will add to that, "physical, mental, or emotional illness."
See, the dilemna comes in when we (here we go again) embrace our label. When we start defining ourselves by what is 'wrong' with us, we're just in for a world of hurt. And lets face it, if all we are is what is 'wrong' with us, there is no room for the good stuff. When we become our illness/disorder/dysfunction, we cease to be present for ourselves and for our loved ones...this is what the self-help movement has done for us. It has taught us that we are our problems, and that is all that really matters...does anyone besides me and Sheera think that this is fucked up???
It has also perpetuated another phenomenon. The phenomenon of 'my pain is worse than yours and because I am empowered now, I can say and do anything to you that I want without regard to your feelings, because I'm not going to be hurt anymore.' Ok, so being empowered has nothing to do with trampling all over everyone else. Empowerment is about being strong enough that you don't have to attack another person before they attack you. Empowerment is about having respect for yourself, AND YES, respect for others. Empowerment is an inner strength that doesn't lash out, but instead it is a quiet calm energy that exudes stability and maybe even a bit of kindness.
When I hear someone take ownership of their diagnosis, I just want to shake them, and yell at them, "Don't you see? You are killing yourself?" And I have watched people literally kill themselves by their attachments to their illness...one friend in particular who seems to be haunting Sheera, had "my fibro" and "my depression" and "and my PTSD", and she had "my cabinet full of meds". The last year of her life, she had a very strong need to show everyone just how much pain and suffering she was enduring, and of course she had to medicate all of that pain and suffering. And that last year she had ceased being a person, and as a result I could not be around her. My only consolation is that she died peacefully at her writing desk with her coffee cup in hand.
And before anyone gets too excited, let me just say that I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and PTSD, and Bipolar II, and I had a very fucked up childhood (think; Sybil-lite); so I don't make these statements as an outsider. I make them from a place of having wallowed in the mire of victim-hood. Fortunately I had a very big pain-in-the-ass therapist point out to me that I was embracing victim hood...and it has been a long climb, but I have gotten myself out of that pit...and yes, every now and then, I do dive back in head-long, but these days I spend much more time out of it, than in it. And more importantly, I AM more than the sum of my 'issues'.
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