These are some early morning thoughts, so bear with me if they don’t all congeal properly.
It hasn’t happened overnight, and it’s not at all unexpected, but after a few years’ experience with it, I can tell you that it’s true that people treat you much differently when you’re openly dealing with mental illness than they do when you’re in the closet about it like everyone else. There’s this weird mixture of kid gloves, pity, distance. and this weird, almost funereal reverence for your potential as a human being on the “good” days. On the bad ones, which usually happen when you piss someone off by still being strong enough to speak your mind and stand behind it, you get hit with demeaning comments usually having to do with medication or your state of mind. There really isn’t much in between.
Again, not shocked. I was told by plenty of folks beforehand that this would be the score. This isn’t an indictment of anyone specific, either, just a general observation about people and how they treat me differently now. I’m also developing a little more empathy as a result of this, or trying like hell to develop it, anyway. I’m not always fantastic at not being impulsive, especially not in situations involving things I believe in passionately, and sometimes, my compassion is a casualty of that. Workin’ on it, and in the process, developing an understanding of how some other people I’ve known have probably felt in situations that resemble mine in some way.
Maybe it’s that, because I have very little else going on in my life aside from mental illness at the moment (at least relative to times past for me, and relative to the people I know), my discussion of it is dominating my narrative and creating something of a self-fulfilling prophecy in these areas. I won’t deny that I talk about these things a lot, because truthfully, I’m not exactly knee deep in anything else. I’m not working, I’m not going to school, I’m not creating or raising a family, nor am I in any kind of a romantic relationship. While I have some things in the works that I’m picking at very slowly, I’m not even really in the middle of creating art, music or literature.
I’ve found, over the course of my time as a adult or a dumb kid pretending to be one, that there’s a sort of conversational inertia that exists in social situations when you don’t have something to brag about. That’s basically all that most people want to hear or can handle in day-to-day, less than intimate discussion, stories of our conquests. Discussions of our belief systems are disasters waiting to happen, and the only thing that seems to be worse than bad news in light conversation is no news at all. I’m in a cycle (assuming that these things are cyclic) where real, lasting “conquests” are few and far between, and the other stuff (beliefs, bad news or no news at all) kinda dominates when people ask me how I am or what I’m doing. I spend a great deal of time inside my own head these days, more than usual, so that’s naturally what I end up talking about, even when I’d like to just talk to you about how awesome things are in my world. I’d love it if they were, consistently, but for now, I’ve gotta play the hand I’ve been dealt, and I’m doing the best I can..
I’m not sure where I’m going with all of this, exactly (remember, early morning thoughts), but I’m going to extend an invitation while I’m thinking out loud. If you are someone who, in talking to me, dealing with me on any kind of a regular basis, or just in reading things like I’ve just written, finds yourself frustrated, disappointed, angry, sad, or just plain uncomfortable with any facet of who I am and what I’m going through, let’s talk about it, privately or publicly, whatever’s most comfortable for you. This offer is doubly extended to anyone reading this who has a strong gut feeling that I’ve control over these circumstances that I’m just not exercising. (I wish that I shared your confidence in my ability to do so, but we can discuss that further when we talk.) I know that I’m a pain in the ass sometimes, and have been for the entire time I’ve known any of you, whether I’ve been open about my mental illness, in denial about it, sober, drunk, high, clean, whatever. I’ve just felt lately that it’s all been very “elephant in the room”, even if the elephant isn’t my mental illness but rather an increasing discomfort with the amount of time I spend and detail I go into about it. If you feel that way, or if you’re leaving anything else unsaid because you don’t think anything good will come from telling me how you feel, I’d love for you to talk to me about it. Thanks in advance.
