Another of the facets of mental illness, and one which I have become accutely aware of, is that it carries a life sentence. Now I do not mean mental illness cannot be treated, or that it cannot go into hiding, but that it has been, is, and will always remain a factor in my life.
To look at it another way, it is not impossible to change my face or my body - not that I can conceive of any reason I should want to mind you! Any changes that are made under the knife of a surgeon or via intensive workout and the like are merely amendments to the core however, additions or changes to something whole and distinct. If I beef up my biceps, they still remain the arms that once held you, nothing can alter that fact. They remain the arms I fondly hope will wrap around a loved one once again. So it is with mental illness, any change to my behaviour or way of thinking is against a backdrop of the core me. OCD and depression alongside the heightened state of anxiety they bring are as much a part of Dave as my ridiculous face.
When I think about my state of mind, it is through the prism of past illness and experience. If I slip into a depressed state, I compare it to previous bouts of depression to see how deep, how troubling, how sustained it is likely to be. If I act on a compulsion, I do it in the knowledge of what it is, a need or compulsion within me that is always there, waiting to assert itself, waiting to fire up the anxiety and shoot that metallic taste into my mouth as adrenalin kicks in. My mood is set firmly against previous moods and feelings, it is the only way to make sense of, or understand it.
The hardest thing about this awareness is the bitter taste it leaves. Disability, whether it be physical or mental, can feel like a curse. Life can be terrbily unfair - unfair to those born at the wrong time, or in the wrong place, or unfair in the prevailing conditions of any given individual. For me, it is mental illness that defines much of my life. Whether that be joy at the symptoms losing their grip over me, or despair at a laspe into bleakness. What I am saying is that it remains a factor, always; I was born with it, I fought it, at times I defeated it, it is quiet, it is active, it is simply there - asleep or awake it makes no difference. It is. Terribly unfair, but awfully true.
So, I am left with but one conclusion - I have to accept mental illness as being as much an integral part of who I am as my hammer toes, the funny twisted bit of cartilege in my ear or my impressive Roman nose. Only by accepting it can I ever fully understand and deal with it. I cannot be me without accepting and understanding all of me. I have not been me for far too long, and it comes at its own price - happiness will always be false happiness when one is failing to accept the whole. It is the happiness of a fraction of the self, not a happiness of the totality.
And so it is, without any glee, I am Dave, I am 40 and mental illness is much a part of me as anything else. We start from acceptance, we move from there.
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