Through A Different Lens – How A Person’s Diagnosis Can Distort Our View
I remember sitting in the car thinking, “things are never going to be the same. I will never be capable of the things I was capable of before.” Twenty minutes earlier, I had been sitting on the couch in my psychiatric nurse practitioner’s office hearing the word “schizophrenia.” After that moment, I never saw myself the same. And the longer I live with what is now diagnosed as schizoaffective disorder, the more I see how this shift in view is not unique to me or even only those living with mental illnesses. Parents, doctors – anyone really, can easily slip into viewing someone through a different lens once they receive a psychiatric diagnosis.
Recently, I was describing a moment from the previous workday to my psychiatrist, and she stopped me.
I didn’t understand, at least not at first. I had described a situation to my psychiatrist where I misunderstood instructions given to me for a small project at work. The point I was trying to make was regarding the gentle correction I received. But my psychiatrist went back to something I had said about why I made the mistake in the first place. In my mind, the mistake was done because, “my brain doesn’t work like everyone else’s.” What my psychiatrist pointed out was that the mistake I had made – not realizing I was supposed to combine two things on a flow chart, could have been made by anyone whether they had a brain disease or not. I paused, and it was like a light clicked on in my head.
I see myself through a different lens.
Had that error been made by anyone else in the office, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. It was just a simple oversight. But, for me, my mind wrote it off as being caused by the cognitive deficits brought on by my schizoaffective disorder. Not once did I consider another cause for the error. And now I can see that I do this constantly. Every error, every moment of social awkwardness, everything that could even come close to being related to a side effect or symptom was blamed on my illness. Someone else could do the exact same thing and I would never think twice. But I see all of my actions through a lens clouded by diagnoses. And there’s no good reason for it.
It doesn’t stop with just myself.
Now that I’ve noticed myself staring through a different lens, I see it everywhere. And not just in others living with mental illnesses and brain diseases. Teachers, parents, even mental health professionals can all see those with illnesses through a lens fogged by their own interpretation of the disease. Through this skewed lens, things that people without mental illness may feel or do appear completely different. Big dreams are translated as delusions. Medical concerns are brushed off as paranoia. Forgetfulness is written off as cognitive impairment. And normal emotions can be dismissed as mood symptoms. Even the view of someone’s successes can be inflated by the assumed restrictions of an illness that may not have actually been at play.
So what is the impact of seeing through a different lens?
Sometimes seeing someone through the lens of mental illness doesn’t produce a negative result. Is there an issue with feeling more proud of your loved one because you believed they overcame restrictions that weren’t actually limiting them? Not necessarily. Can someone living with a mental illness or brain disease be further motivated by dreams and plans being dismissed? Absolutely. But it doesn’t always play out like that.
For example, people with mental illnesses and brain diseases have been turned away at doctors and emergency rooms without even receiving a full examination. All because symptoms of their illness include things like delusions. It doesn’t matter if they aren’t currently or even have ever experienced delusions. The simple fact that there is a somewhat higher than average chance that a serious medical issue could possibly be merely a delusion is enough for some doctors or nurses to write it all off. And this kind of dismissal can have tragic results.
This is a quiet form of stigma.
There may be no ill will, but it happens. I have tried so hard to see myself as human first. But I still fell victim to it without even realizing it. And though the only harm it’s caused me is to my self-esteem, for some, it can have devastating impacts. Dreams and ambition can be crushed, serious physical health issues left untreated, and the person viewed through that clouded lens left thinking that their mental Illness makes them different in ways that they are not.
I don’t have a perfect solution, but we need to find a way to see clearer.
My mind is so programmed to assume that my schizoaffective disorder is the cause of things like misunderstandings that I struggle to catch it in the moment. But I am trying to pause after the fact and wipe clean the lens through which I see myself and ask myself questions. What would I think if it were someone else making this error or having a certain experience? Would I find it outlandish? Or is it understandable? Could that same understandable reason apply to me?
Mental illnesses and brain diseases have a massive impact on someone’s life and how they function in it, but behind that fog is still a person.
Actions, experiences, thoughts, and feelings are not always the direct result of someone’s mental or brain illness. It could be. But I think we need to try to pause and see the human in someone first. You are not a bad person or uncaring if you struggle to do so. But if we can stop ourselves from staring through that lens of mental illness, even in trivial moments like my error with the flow chart, maybe we can help ourselves see the humanity that never left after a diagnosis. Maybe we can create a world that sees humanity before illness.
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