Columns

People with mental illnesses are often very brave and courageous people because we have to be. We are up against the “package deal” of mental illness which includes a number of elements that are altogether frightening. And to face these elements requires fortitude. 

It takes a courageous person to deal with the mere fact of mental illness and to not be in denial about it, or about its repercussions. 

People with mental illness may have to face a lifetime of being medicated; this fact by itself is daunting—additionally there are the side effects of medications. It would be nice to look forward to a day when I don’t have to deal with the physical side effects of medications, which can be very uncomfortable, but that day may never come. We must look forward to an old age in which the medication may no longer work to keep us functioning, in which some of the long-term side effects of medication have happened to us, and an old age in which we may have to live in an institution. 

It takes courage to try medications that haven’t been tested enough and that have awful side effects and in the process of this to become a human guinea pig. Clozaril is a favorite of many psychiatrists when other medications don’t work well enough. It has a one percent rate of causing agranulocytosis, which is a depletion of the white blood cells. Biweekly blood tests are required because of this potentially fatal side effect. Another medication can cause an extremely severe rash which causes the skin to come off, also potentially fatal. 

Many of us must face life without having the insulation of a good income. We may be up against some harsh facts of life when older, one of them being not having enough money to live independently. Not being able to afford good medical care is another daunting reality that must be faced. 

The fear of relapsing and going back into the hospital is for real and must be faced. To wake up in a psychiatric ward and realize that you’re back at square one, and must recover all over again from a psychotic episode, is a hard fact. To be subject to the supervision of treatment professionals in the mental health system, some of whom are flunkies, can be upsetting. 

Being forced through lack of income to live in a bad neighborhood can demand bravery on a long term basis. However, it can take courage to move out of a bad neighborhood, because it could be more comfortable to do nothing about one’s plight. In the same vein, it can take courage to invite successes into one’s life after past failures. 

I’ve been laughed at many times in my life. Yet, that doesn’t stop me from continuing to try. People judge others based on assumptions without bothering to gather facts. It hurts to be the butt of people’s jokes; I endure that without being discouraged, and without lashing out. Some of the time, this ridicule is merely imagined, but some of the time very real. 

It takes courage to acknowledge inconvenient or unflattering truths. The alternative is to have realities that aren’t dealt with and to suffer consequences. I once knew a woman who believed that the best way to deter an intruder was by having an open door. Men in her apartment complex just walked in to her apartment at will. I believe she was afraid to displease people by locking them out. 

If someone has a mental illness, they are up against some difficult realities. Dealing with these realities and possibly surmounting them as problems requires a brave person and it requires effort. The alternative is to live in denial of these realities, and in the process allow the whims of others and the randomness of unconscious fate to control one’s destiny.

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Just to let you know, a year’s worth of these columns in the form of an e-book is available to those with a Kindle device and to those who have downloaded free software that allows reading Kindle format items on your PC. The title of the e-book is “Jack Bragen’s Essays on Mental Illness,” and I have provided below a link to the purchase page. It costs 7.50 and it is about36,000 words long.

Here’s the link to the book: