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0 By Von
Mental illness – the phrase encapsulates hundreds of different diagnoses and issues, which affect 1 in 5 adults in America. Unfortunately, the phrase is still very stigmatized and misunderstood. Sometimes people think anyone who has a mental illness is dangerous or stupid or refuses to reason with others. Obviously there are the exceptions, but most people I have met who have some sort of mental health issue are kind, intelligent, caring, but mostly just scared of the stigma and exhausted from educating others on their needs.
While I know many people try to understand the experience of a neuro-divergent, it can be hard when there are rarely any physical symptoms to be shown. Throughout the years, I have used metaphors to help people understand mental illness. This is my way of explaining what I’m going through to my family and friends, to help them step into my shoes and start to understand.
Pushing the Car (Therapy, Learning New Skills)
I want to make it clear that when you have a mental disorder of some kind, it takes a while for you to realize that it’s not a common way to feel or think. So, when you first get diagnosed, you have to go through a learning process about what is and what is not a healthy action.
Then you start to learn coping skills, to make it easier to adjust to living with your mental illness. However, it is very natural for someone with a mental illness to resist learning the new skills, because it is so different from what they have always done. For example, I have a lot of resistance asking for help when I need it. It makes me feel needy and useless, but I know that I am supposed to do it.
METAPHOR: Imagine you had to drive across the country (I use Los Angeles when I am explaining this to someone) and you only had a car to get there. I want to drive the car, but everyone else is telling me that I can’t. They are telling me that driving the car is dangerous, it’s unhealthy and I shouldn’t do it.
I feel frustrated because I’ve always driven the car, and it’s gotten me this far, but everyone else is telling me that I have to push the car. I resist even more because pushing the car is much more exhausting and will take much more time.
This metaphor helps people understand the frustration of having to change your thinking and the exhausting task of re-learning your behavior.
Boiling Pot (Anxiety)
There are few things more upsetting than when someone notices that you’re anxious, they ask you why, and you have literally no answer. My boyfriend does this to me quite a bit, and I appreciate his love and concern so much. I know he means well, but when it comes to anxiety, I don’t always have a reason.
METAPHOR: If you have Generalized Anxiety Disorder, it means you experience anxious feelings pretty much all the time. I use a pot of water on a range to explain this. The pot is always simmering, and while some triggers can cause the water to heat up and even eventually boil over (panic attack), there will always be some heat in the pot.
The good news is that even though we can’t turn the heat off, there are many techniques to at least turn the heat down. The part I try to stress to neuro-typical people is that no matter what I do, I will always have a little anxiety in me, and sometimes I won’t even have a reason as to why.
The Raft (Depression)
A hard part to understand about depression, which I didn’t even fully understand until I went through a tough bout with it, is why people with depression seem to not want to get better. During my worst times with depression, I would sleep almost all day, I would not do any chores and I wouldn’t put on my makeup (something I have a strong passion for). My family and friends seemed frustrated as to why I wouldn’t do certain things I knew would make me feel better.
METAPHOR: To me, depression can be like I’m on a raft, way out in the ocean. I can see the shore (recovery), but I know it is hundreds of miles away. Whenever life gets difficult, the waves start to rock and sometimes I get knocked off the raft. When those days happen, that’s when I start to consider if getting back on the raft even worth it.
When I’ve fallen off the raft, I often contemplate just letting myself drown. It would just be so much easier to let myself drown, because my alternative is a life of exhausting rowing with no guarantee that I’ll even reach the shore. If I get back on the raft, I know it’s going to be a long and hard trek to the shore. I’m aware that I may not even make it there. I know that I may fall off again and again.
I think this helps neuro-typical people understand the helplessness involved when depression takes over, and why it can be so hard to try to start recovery.
Jumping from a Burning Building (Suicide)
If you’ve never contemplated it, it can be very difficult to understand why anyone would want to end their life. Sometimes people try to help by listing things to live for or ways to find happiness, but it can be much more complicated than that if you are currently considering suicide.
METAPHOR: Nobody wants to die, so it’s not like the suicide contemplator just decided that they would enjoy death. To me, at my darkest times, it felt like standing on the edge of a burning building. You feel like you only have two options: you can have a quick death by jumping off the ledge (suicide) or you can stay and maybe survive, but there’s a chance you’ll endure unthinkable suffering from the flames (staying alive and trying to recover), and possibly never be able to live the same way (never recovering completely).
You can hear people down below yelling “Don’t jump! We’re coming to help you!” But their words aren’t helping your current situation, which is either stay and suffer or jump and die quickly.
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I like this metaphor because I think it helps neuro-typical people understand how helpless those who contemplate suicide can feel with their limited options. I think it also helps them understand how bad one’s outlook has to be (a literal burning building) to even consider suicide.
Broken Ankle (New Diagnosis, Recovery)
A few months ago, I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). The first few weeks were some of the roughest in my life, because I had to learn how many of my day-to-day thoughts and actions were unusual and unhealthy. I would remember times when I was younger that were clearly a result of undiagnosed BPD, and it felt like my entire life I was so different and weird.
METAPHOR: When I got diagnosed, I compare it to figuring out that I had a broken ankle all my life, and nobody knew it. I always knew that I walked a little different than everyone, but I had assumed it was just me and my “quirks.” After learning that a broken ankle was the source of the issue, then I had to go through therapy (truly, both physical and psychotherapy are very painful in their own ways) and learn how to strengthen my broken ankle. Ideally, I will be able to one day walk relatively pain-free.
Even months later, I still am self-conscious about how I had a broken ankle my entire life. I will watch other people do amazing things that I could never do because of my unknown injury. Even as I go through therapy and see improvements, I will find that I keep comparing myself to others who have never had a broken ankle. I have to constantly remind myself that it is not my fault that I had a broken ankle for so long and it’s not my fault that it took so long to discover it.
Healing
However, I also have to remind myself that it is my responsibility to try to heal my ankle. It’s essential to go to therapy and do the at-home exercises consistently. I need to stay aware of how my ankle is every day and make sure I listen to what I think my body is telling me. I have to talk to others about my needs and make sure I ask for help when I need it. I’ve accepted that some things will always come easier to those who don’t have a broken ankle.
I’m aware that I’ll never walk exactly the same as everyone else, and that’s okay. I know there will be days that my ankle is so weak I can only hobble, there will be some days I need a crutch, and there will be some days I just have to rest.
On the other hand, there will be some days I don’t feel the pain so much, there will be some days I walk with the best of them. And there will be some days – those bright and beautiful rarities – I will run.
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