This is the face that I like to show to the world. Put together, hair styled, makeup in place, smiling.
Even greater transparency – this was taken in 2012.
Today, I’m going to go for complete transparency. I’m ripping the mask off. Why? To be completely honest not only with the world, but also with myself. Fair warning and in all seriousness, this post might contain triggers for some people.
So here goes.
The Unveiling
This picture was taken today, July 30, 2023.
That which should not be named
Mental health or illness wasn’t something that we talked about in my family as I was growing up or even into my adulthood. Sure, my mom had mentioned that my grandmother had taken Valium back in the day, and I knew my grandfather took an anxiety medication later in life. My mom herself even had panic attacks, knew she was having panic attacks, but never reached out for help with them. Mental health simply wasn’t talked about. As a result, I, though I knew I didn’t feel right, never did anything about my own mental health.
That all changed July 10 of this year. About an hour before I was due to clock in for work, I went into a full on panic attack – shaking, hyperventilating, uncontrollable sobbing. I called into work, still shaking, hyperventilating and sobbing. I blew it off. After all, July 10 was the third anniversary of my mom’s passing. When I had another two days later, I thought it was weird. When I had a third the very next day, I knew I had to do something. A call into my doctor’s office to schedule an appointment and another attack later (the fourth one in five days), and I was diagnosed with moderate major depression and generalized anxiety disorder.
Ripping the mask off
Even with the attention that mental health and mental illness receive these days, there is still a stigma around it. I think it stems from the fact that mental illness is an illness we can diagnose with a blood test or an x-ray or an MRI. There is still so little we understand about the brain itself, and we’re only beginning to understand how chemicals in our body affect our emotions.
I don’t claim to a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve watched how mental illness affects those I love. My one sister-in-law and my best friend both have bipolar disorder, and they’ve both described the process of working with their doctors until they found a combination of medications that allow them to function. My nephew, who’s only a teenager, has panic attacks similar to the ones I’ve been having. And two of my siblings have depression and anxiety.
It’s time we ripped the mask off of mental illness and exposed it for what it is – an honest-to-God illness that needs to be treated like any other. We get treatment for broken bones, heart conditions and cancer. Why not an illness of the brain? Sure, there are those who might say that it’s an excuse, that there’s nothing really wrong with us, that we, as my mom used to say, “have the same clothes to get glad in.” But the reality is that there is something wrong, something that needs to be treated.
The Good News
The good news is that there are great resources available to those who have been diagnosed with various disorders. What follows is just a small smattering of what’s available. If you’ve been diagnosed, be sure to check with your doctor for more localized resources that might be available to you.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) is a division of the US Department of Health and Human Services. They provide a ton of resources, including the 988 Lifeline, which provides free and confidential support to those who might be contemplating suicide or are in emotional distress. You can find more information on SAMHSA’s website, samhsa.gov.
Likewise, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has great information on various mental health diagnoses as well as provides great resources. They also provide a wealth of newsletters that you can sign up for, which cover everything from various disorders to ongoing research. You can sign up like I did on NIMH’s website, nimh.nih.gov.
Unlike SAMHSA and NIMH, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is a grass roots organization dedicated to bettering the lives of Americans living with mental illness. It has chapters all over the United States, dedicated to education, support and advocacy for those with mental illness and their loved ones. You can find out more about the work of NAMI at nami.org.
The final resource that I’m including on this list is one that is more localized to where I am. It’s Be Well Indiana, a set of resources compiled by the Indiana Division of Mental Health and Addiction (DMHA). I would recommend finding out if your own state has a similar site.
You can also find this post on my profile at Medium, where you can follow me for more content.