TW: suicidal ideation
I have, in my stunningly slow efforts to spread this blog through Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), spent more than a few minutes networking with anyone who wants a real and helpful discussion about mental health; for X especially, this networking involves a lot of keyword searching through public accounts. Ideally, I’m looking for users that exist to offer information and support for the entire mental health community.
Since mental health affects everyone, everyone is in the mental health community.
And yes, this question will appear on the final exam for this blog, whenever that is.
That’s the idea in theory, and it often works out well. I’ll find a fellow human, try to say something concise and supportive, and move on. The feelings are often warm and polite, and the exchanges are generally light and sometimes even inspiring. There are plenty of intelligent people, beautiful souls sharing their mental health journeys.
But we know this isn’t the full story, don’t we? We are on the internet, after all. Buckle up.
The online experience isn’t always welcoming. Rhetorical wars between users abound, fueled by complaints and bits of misinformation that keep mental health stigma alive. Often, insensitive or inappropriate comments (one X user told once told me that borderlines deserved mass execution) about the mental health community seem unprovoked. One of the most common is this:
STOP GLAMORZING BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER.
Listen.
When I decided to start this blog, I had at least one physician recommend that I only put my name on the blog after I had weighed the possible consequences. Several people in my orbit sternly recommend that I don’t use my name.
This is not something a writer needs to do for glamorous work. Here’s a life hack: If a medical professional says, “Writing about that might actually ruin your life,” then you can assume that the clinician is not worried that you’re about to suddenly look too glamorous for TV.
Borderline personality disorder is not glamorous. My writing about it is not glamorous either. In fact, it is something that can only be called dirty work. In the form of treatment that I’m in, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (widely considered to be the gold standard for BPD), one of the tools that I’m given is called ‘opposite action.’ The basic idea is this: if I think that my emotions are going to propel me in a maladaptive direction, I need to firmly commit to doing the opposite.
Opposite action to shame over one’s mental health and actions involves a clear, open, and honest discussion.
This space is my antidote to the venom of shame, which is the toxic idea that I don’t simply do bad things, but that I fundamentally am a bad, broken thing.
The only way to show someone you aren’t ashamed of wounds is to, in some sense, put those wounds on display and make an artifact of them.
Who said having this disorder meant sacrificing all that GLAM?
And where do I start with the perks! Have you ever wanted to shift from a neutral or happy mood not only into despair, but suicidal ideation, over events that are not really that big of a deal? Find a problem that many would register as an annoyance, and respond to it with vivid mental images of your own death. Try it! Seriously. You could settle for the bland life of putting setbacks and calamity in perspective, or you could go with what all the cool kids choose: an instantaneous spiral into rage, dissociation, and self-destruction.
You could get offended by a friend and try to talk things out, but why do what everyone else does? You need something that glows and SHINES. If you’re offended by a friend, cut them off. Take out the eraser you use for life and apply it to the offender. Justify this as you, bit by bit, scrub someone out of your orbit forever and completely. Avoid the notion that people are human, and thus prone to good and bad, and thus deserving of grace from time to time. If you are hurt, take out that mallet, dip it in glitter, and smack those adversaries to the ground.
Life is too short for sober, well-reasoned reactions. When stimuli takes your emotions to 11 on a scale of 10, know that you don’t have to provide a level 3 response. When you feel the fullness of the emotion, discard all notions of pedestrian living and style. Go rich. Go bold. Take the level 11 emotion and make it a level 13 reaction. While you’re at it, break something expensive and sentimental. Make sure that it’s so important, that reminders of it instantly make you feel depressed and shameful.
And do not stay with the pack! Forget about any friends, family, or other peeps that can function as a support system. Don’t spend too much time with the people you love. Instead, isolate. Stay away. Drag out tasks. Make excuses. But at all costs, avoid, avoid, avoid. When you can’t avoid, write out a fat check for some quick and inexplicably sharp mood swings. To prove that you are a legitimate high roller, confuse those around you with a demeanor that fluctuates from jubilant to abrasive. Repeat the cycle as many times as you can throughout the course of a day.
Drive too fast. Spend too much. Scream with the force and ferocity of a volcanic eruption. Take impulse control and throw it to the wind. Find an adversary and verbally destroy them. Let the dust settle and tuck yourself away, all with the full knowledge that you are, at least, after all of this pain, finally living the life.
Why am I writing about all this?
I can’t possibly keep this to-die-for lifestyle all to myself. That wouldn’t be fair. I have the glamour. I have the riches, it is only fair that I share.
Welcome to first class, from here to the end of the flight.
Yours Mentally,
Nathan
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