Sourced Exposure
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 9, 2015
Telling the unadulterated truth can be an intoxicating experience; revealing a dangerous secret can give extreme sport-levels of exhilaration, and the thrill of hearing a secret exposed is why most people watch any locale of The Real Housewives. Unfortunately, also like extreme sports, the adrenaline rush of secret-sharing is often followed by a painful, embarrassing crash. Sometimes you can be more helpful by keeping private information to yourself, and sometimes you can acknowledge a secret while being respectful. In any case, think carefully about consequences before you decide how much exposure is necessary and prepare to explain this necessity with respect. Then you’ll be a good judge of when to shut up and how to share and keep your friendships/bones/dinner party invitations intact.
–Dr. Lastname
I don’t know when my depression started, but the symptoms became pronounced when I was in high school. I started seeing a doctor and taking medication when I was in college, and twenty years later, that’s still what I do for treatment. I told my wife about my depression while we were dating, and my close family know about it, but I’m not very open about it besides…I’m a private person overall, and I don’t want to deal with being judged by others. Now that my son is in high school, exhibiting the same symptoms that made my adolescence so difficult, I’m worried that keeping quiet about my own illness wasn’t the right thing to do, and I’m not sure what advice to give my son, either. I think I should tell him about my own experiences, because I want him to know that he’s not alone or weird, and that he shouldn’t be ashamed of being sick, but I don’t want him to be totally open about his illness, given how the other kids might treat him. Then again, I worry that keeping quiet about our illness just perpetuates the stigma…one of my brothers is gay, so it reminds me of what he went through when he came out, if that makes sense. Then again, my brother didn’t want to be a poster child, and neither do I, but maybe, for my son’s sake, I should be? My goal is to figure out how to talk to my son about his depression, and how and if to talk to others about my depression, also.
Some people feel liberated by sharing all their secrets, but most people, especially those of us who came of age before Facebook, enjoy our privacy. If you’re an especially private person—you don’t feel compelled to tell the world what you ate for lunch, let alone what your prescriptions are—then sharing information about illness is an especially uncomfortable prospect.
Even when an illness is stigmatized, however, there are unique criteria for making your decision, with specific benefits to both disclosure and privacy. It’s your job to figure out which is more important given the unique facts of your situation and your son’s.
If you were a celebrity, then being totally open about your disease would give you the chance to reach out to and help others, but as a regular guy, the only person who will consider you a role model is your son. You can find the level of openness that works for you without having to be a poster child (which, for the depressive community, means being down-and-out and proud).
You’re right about the advantages of privacy; keeping medical information to yourself, whether it’s about depression or eczema, means less worry about people’s gossiping, misunderstanding and potentially discriminating against you when you’re applying for a job, insurance, country club membership, etc.
It stops well-meaning people from worrying about you when they shouldn’t and you don’t want to have to explain. It allows you to focus on living your life, rather than explaining your problems, and allows you define yourself without letting your illness do the job for you.
On the other hand, illnesses like depression can sometimes cause unavoidable pain that people may misinterpret as dislike, critical thoughts, or withdrawal. Other symptoms may cause you disability that people may think represents laziness or a lack of motivation. So you may benefit from support and understanding that you won’t receive unless you let people know that you’re sick.
As far as your son is concerned, discussing your experience with the symptoms of depression, particularly if you don’t seem too scared or overwhelmed, may protect him from interpreting his symptoms as a sign of weakness or failure. Together, you can decide whether his friendships would benefit from disclosure and whether his teachers and coaches need to know. You may decide that it is sufficient to let them know that he’s ill, or you may decide that it’s necessary for some people to know the nature of his illness. In any case, don’t let reticence, shyness, or suspiciousness control your decision.
Rely on your own observations about the impact of depressive symptoms on relationships and performance, then teach your son how to become a good manager of one of the hard, unfair conditions of life. The whole world doesn’t have to know what you two are going through, but it will help your son a lot to know he’s not going through it alone.
STATEMENT:
“I’ve never liked to talk about pain and illness, but I know depression can be crippling and I’m ready to share my expertise and strength with my son as I teach him how to manage it.”
I don’t know how to respond to a call I recently received from my sister-in-law, telling me things I didn’t know about my youngest brother and their marriage. He was in a bad car accident last year, and she said she was worried that he might be abusing the prescription pain medications he’s had to take since then; she said he’s become distant, self-absorbed, and paranoid, and that she got a call from their pharmacy that he was trying to re-order his prescriptions too quickly. She didn’t want to get our parents’ involved and upset them, but I’m not that close to my brother—I barely remembered that he’d been in an accident, and certainly had no idea the accident was that bad—but I know she’s really concerned, and I do feel a duty to help. My goal is to help my brother if I can, and do so without getting in the middle, interfering, or driving him away.
You’re right to worry about your brother’s response if you express his wife’s concerns about behaviors you haven’t directly observed yourself. He may be angry at your over-willingness to accept her views or for interfering in his marriage, and she may be afraid to tell him what she’s told you. Your efforts to help may do nothing but enrage everyone involved.
On the other hand, you have every reason to want to help him and support his marriage, and, as a relative outsider to your brother’s situation, you actually have an advantage. You just have to be ready to proceed cautiously and with respect for the facts.
Begin by encouraging your sister-in-law to record what she believes to be the negative impact of his drug use, cataloging objective facts, like lapsed bills and pharmacy calls, and excluding subjective observations that reflect her anger and guilt. Offer to help her compose a statement to your brother in which she expresses the reasons for her concern, such as his emotional distance, changed sleep habits, or any other unusual behavior.
Urge her to get coaching from a drug abuse counselor on how to address her husband’s problem without getting negative or feeling guilty for raising issues, and remind her that she will have much more impact on her husband if she shares her concerns directly, not through you, an interventionist, a drug whisperer, etc.
Be prepared to respond, however, if your brother asks you whose side you’re on; you’re on his side and the side of good health and good marital communication, just like his wife and everyone else who cares. Without having any way of knowing whether he has a drug problem, you think there are good ways for his wife to raise the issue and good ways to have it resolved, one way or the other. Don’t be apologetic about encouraging his wife to raise concerns. If she’s angry or frightened, the feeling is hers, not yours.
After the facts sort themselves out, they will benefit, either from his getting treatment for substance abuse or from having defined an issue in their marriage that may or may not change. No matter what the outcome, be proud of your willingness to help and your confidence that a direct, reasonable discussion will benefit both him and their marriage, no matter how invested you are.
STATEMENT:
“I don’t want to interfere in my brother’s marriage or private business, but I will be a good sister and friend by urging him and his wife to deal frankly with any problem, to get help if they wish it, and to define and accept differences if that’s what they encounter.”
