Controlling Mistake

Posted by fxckfeelings on January 3, 2013

Any number of sources, from teachers to parents to inspirational posters featuring wolves, teach us that we should be able to achieve our goals by working harder and feel great when those goals are achieved. Unfortunately, mental illness often trumps these expectations by making it impossible to do certain kinds of work or enjoy the non-working hours that should bring happiness. So, if you’ve got good evidence that mental illness has altered your capacities, despite good treatment, it’s time to change your teachers/parents/wolves’ assumptions about high performance and happiness and identify the other things that matter more.
–Dr. Lastname

My daughter suffers from bipolar disorder, and while I admire her determination to finish college and want to support her confidence, I know that she hasn’t been able to read more than a chapter or two since her illness started 10 years ago. She does fine on courses that don’t require much reading, as long she takes one at a time. Otherwise, she melts down– she can’t do the work, withdraws, stops attending classes, and looks more symptomatic for a month or so until she recovers. My goal is to build her confidence and help her overcome the stigma of having mental illness.

People often think that the measure of recovery after a disabling illness is how much normal function you get back, but when you’re dealing with an incurable illness, “normal” and “recovery” are defined differently.

Pushing yourself harder to meet the old standard under your new set of circumstances is an effective way of meeting your goals, but only if those goals involve making yourself feel like a loser for not being able to accomplish something that’s practically impossible.

True recovery means doing your best to live up to your values, regardless of how well your equipment is working; performance is the means, not the end. The end is maintaining moral standards, like trying to be independent, hard working, and a good friend and/or parent, no matter what new obstacles are placed in your path.

It’s best to begin then by embracing the fact that your daughter has a chronic impairment that isn’t likely to get better—that she is, in effect, brain-damaged—and that your goal isn’t to protect her from that fact but to help her manage it. Indeed, the way her persistent efforts to be her normal self are making her sick are your best evidence that effective management must begin with acceptance and the death of false hope.

Remind her that, in spite of the many parts of her brain that are functioning well, illness has damaged its ability to read long books and that giving herself tasks that she can’t do and that make her sick is a stubborn and mean thing to do to herself. You admire her motivation and persistence, but not her direction.

Encourage her to use college in whatever way works for her, given the way her brain now functions. Help her draw a boundary between being “normal”—a bad goal—and making the most of her life in spite of disabilities, which is the goal most of us, sooner or later, adopt as the one that matters.

Don’t feel guilty if reminding her of her illness and permanent mental disability causes pain. You should know by now that the alternative is worse and that accepting uncontrollable disability is the key that allows you to praise and respect what she’s doing with her life.

Your job is not to help her get to back to the way she was, get through college, or forget about the illness she has now. You help her most by reminding her that there are more important things than normality and health, and that you respect her for who she is and what she does with adversity, not for her college degree or reading.

Whether she realizes it or not, her efforts alone are a remarkable achievement, no matter how you define it.

STATEMENT:
“I hate to see my daughter’s feelings of frustration and humiliation when she can’t accomplish what she used to find easy and I’m afraid to discourage her or cause her to give up completely. I know, however, that she has much to offer, whether or not she is ever normal again, and that I can do more for her in the long run by encouraging her to accept her illness and respect herself for who she is and what she does with it.”

I know my depression is partly self-induced because I don’t feel so bad when I’m busy and working hard on my quarterly projects at work. The moment I’m finished, however, and I’m no longer busy all day and just waiting for the next project to begin, the negative thoughts come crashing in on me and, within a few hours, I just wish I were dead. The worst part is knowing I’m doing it to myself. My husband says I’m too hard on myself and that I should see a shrink. My goal is to figure out how to be able to enjoy life without having to work myself to death.

When symptoms of mental illness seem to depend on what you’re doing with your work life (as in the case above), it’s hard not to feel that control of your symptoms lies in your hands. If you can make yourself sick by not working (or working), the need for control can convince you that you should then be able to make yourself well.

In truth, the fact that you’re vulnerable to depression when you’re not working means you have a tool for managing your symptoms—keeping busy—and that, through no fault of your own, you’ve got intensely negative thoughts that are ready to jump on you when they see an opening. It’s not that you want to be sick or don’t know how to enjoy yourself, it’s just that you’re sick, period.

Sure, there are some people who believe that the ability to be at peace with yourself when you’re doing nothing is an important measure of spiritual development, but there are lots of other people, like the inherently restless, perfectionistic, or me, who believe that’s bullshit. You’re a good example of what happens when unavoidably unhappy people expect to control their happiness, fail to meet those expectations (but succeed at giving someone in my field their money).

Instead of giving yourself a hard time for your inability to relax, accept it and think about what you’ve done with it, like turning it into a career and a living. You’ve found a husband who loves you in spite of your temperament and doesn’t take it personally when you don’t like to kill time with him-—maybe your incessant hard work and worrying allow him to relax.

Assuming your goal isn’t to make over your personality, and putting aside your need to work, ask yourself what else you can do to manage your negative thoughts. You might try cognitive therapy to develop positive reasons for disbelieving what your thoughts tell you (much like what I’m doing here). You could also try self-hypnosis and other relaxation techniques while looking for pleasant ways of structuring your time and keeping yourself busy when work doesn’t do it for you.

Instead of blaming yourself for having a self-blaming personality, respect the good ways you’ve dealt with it and the fact that you’ve achieved important life goals in spite of it. Your life may have been easier and happier if you were more laid-back, but your accomplishments are more impressive because you’re not, not just because you’re driven to achieve more, but because you stay driven despite feeling down.

STATEMENT:
“I hate the fact that I don’t like myself and can’t be happy when I have nothing to do, but I don’t hold myself responsible for the natural negativity of my thoughts and I’m proud of the work I’ve done and the relationships I’ve built with people who can put up with me much better than I can put up with myself.”