The Weight of Mental Illness – The Invisible Burden on a Lifelong Struggle
Trigger Warning: Mention of Self-Harm
From a young age, I began finding things along my path.
I’m not sure which came first – depression, anxiety, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, but they clung to me. And over the years, they swelled and shrunk at varying rates, but I could not shake them altogether. Each in turn flourished, multiplying symptoms. It became too much to carry in my hands, out where people could see. I felt the need to keep them out of sight, and tucked them into a backpack. Through the highs and lows of my childhood, this weight remained settled heavily on my shoulders.
In junior high I found myself so bogged down by the weight of this backpack that I had to make a change.
I reinvented myself – a new style, falsified confidence, and a new take on life. It laid a thin veil across the stark black of my backpack full of less-than-rosy thoughts, feelings, and urges. I found places to cut that were out of sight. I learned how to joke about my compulsions in a way that made them seem less real. My friends accepted me for who I really was, even after catching a glimpse of what was weighing me down. And then, right as I began to believe that I had found a way to fool everyone, schizoaffective disorder made it’s abrupt, unwelcome arrival.
Schizoaffective disorder fell into my lap so suddenly I was caught off guard.
Drenched in denial, I frantically tried to push the symptoms away. But they wrapped themselves so tightly around me, sticking to my arms and staining my skin. Delusions, hallucinations, unconventional thoughts, lack of responses, and more were shoved into my backpack with as much force as I could muster. It was messy, but I told myself I had hidden it.
I went through college with a fake smile, constantly wondering if others could see what I was hiding.
It was four years of panic that reached a crescendo in my final year – an episode so severe even the psychiatry professor I worked for seemed alarmed. I clawed my way through it and out from under the weight of college and a doctor who seemed fascinated by watching me learn how to treat myself when he did not. But I made it.
I told myself I had everything under control, adjusting the weight on my back as I put makeup on in the mirror. But all the blush in the world couldn’t entirely hide my mental health baggage. People may not have seen it for what it was, but it was there. My behavior became somewhat erratic, excuses paper thin, as I continued through life making snap decisions and carefully blocking out some of the darkest moments, sealing the edges with tape and glue so they could not escape to the forefront of my consciousness.
From job to job and apartment to apartment, my backpack was always there.
The straps dug into my shoulders as I shifted uncomfortably, telling myself I had it under control. I did my best to erase the symptoms inside of it with medication, and in therapy we chipped away at the massive weight, but it continued to grow.
Life wasn’t without its bright spots, like the warmth of new and unexpected love, but the backpack remained and continued to expand. My doctor and I continued to chip away at the jagged edges, and my partner helped me up when I stumbled, but inside that black canvas backpack, the turmoil grew and grew.
I became so used to the weight, that I failed to notice its effects.
The fatigue, electric pain, and heartbeat that both fluttered and pounded out of sync were first attributed to physical health. I blamed my shaking hands and nervous tears on the industry in which I worked. But after making what seemed to be the perfect moves – better apartment, shorter commute, and eventually a new industry with a new goal, the weight remained firmly strapped to my back. And grew. We doubled therapy, increased medication, and went after that weight with a jackhammer. There was success. We uncovered significant findings, turning them over and over in our hands. But along with that discovery came an explosion of symptoms.
I was drowning in an ocean that seemed like a mere puddle to others.
Some others handled work like an oiled machine, while I stumbled through it. Social situations were relaxing for them, but agonizing for me. Fitness and nutrition, though prized, felt out of my grasp while others could make time. When it came time to relax, it was a glass of wine and Netflix for some, but I was sprawled on the couch just trying to catch my breath before the next mountain I had to climb.
I know that everyone carries their own backpacks whether nearly empty or zippers waiting to burst. But they don’t carry mine, nor can they fully understand the complexities of what I carry. I’ve fought with myself, saying that others can carry their weights, so I should be able to carry mine. I tried everything I could think of. I’m still trying so hard to balance this burden on my back along with all other facets of adult life. But my knees are caving under the weight. And I’m left clawing my way through my day trying not only to survive, but also to continue to go about life as if my burdens were lighter because that’s what society expects. I can’t do it anymore.
The breakdown of my mental health was not sudden.
It has been building slowly but surely over the years. There were things that hit the accelerator, and things that dragged the expansion near a pause, but it never stopped. And it wasn’t for lack of trying. Every day I wake up knowing I must get through the day. I set a goal that’s impossible to reach and push myself as hard as I can to act like I can handle life. When I awaken every morning, I don’t know how I’ll get through the day. I just know that I must. For those like me, the weight of your burden compresses your joints as you fight to carry it to the end of the day, only to wake up and do the exact same thing once more.
What I need is time.
I need time to recover. Time to turn the focus from the life that I think I should be leading to the life I could lead. My doctor and I need to sort through the contents of this backpack. We need to examine each item closely and determine how to repair them. I need the space to breathe and the time to not just heal, but to understand this part of my life that has been so stuck to me that I must learn how to see that it is not an essential part of me. Sometimes I feel like lightening this burden is not even possible. But I put one weary foot in front of the other because I want to believe that it is. I don’t know what else to do. I don’t want praise for making it this far. There is no pride in it for me. I just want to heal.
For additional content, follow Not Like The Others on social media