Tag: lessons learned

Things I Have Learned from My Mental Illness

It sometimes feels really unfair when coming out of psychosis (the depths of a mental illness). Why me? But in order put spin some positivity regarding it, I’d like to mention some things it has taught me about myself. Here are reasons I’m grateful for certain aspects of living with a mental illness.

  • Being grateful for the little or mundane things
  • Sense of achievement
  • A better sense of self
  • Empathy towards other
  • Learning strength of self

Especially when I’ve come out of psychosis, I’ve noticed things with better clarity. The trees are greener, the flowers more vivid, the laughter of a child or anyone for that matter is so musical. I’m grateful for life. Doing the dishes, laundry, swiffering, or cleaning the windows even doesn’t seem like a chore. I lived through the tough moments and treasure the ability to do them.

I’ve got an incredible sense of achievement for struggling through something terrifying and coming out on the other end. I pick myself up by my bootstraps and dust myself off and continue with my responsibilities with an air of accomplishment. That’s because I did something not everyone can say they muddled through and won for the time being.

I have this enhance sense of self that realizes while I have limitations, I can challenge them. My confidence is earned, and I set the bar for future endeavors higher. It makes me more in tune with my personality.

Photo by Andres Ayrton on Pexels.com

My empathy towards others fighting similar battles is more attuned. It’s heartening to learn of others mightily fighting MS or cancer and appreciating their strength to get through each day. I even see the anger or rage in strangers and wonder who or what hurt them so badly that they need to have such a sour demeanor.

While I feel pathetic and weak when I’m coming out of psychosis, I gradually learn how strong and confident I am to tackle the little things to the big things. I’m resilient. Heart palpitations, sweaty hands, trembling body, and nauseousness are merely bumps in the road. I’ve been to the depths of madness and inched my way back. And I’m grateful for the experience to be more attuned to the world around me and have the strength to help others who make mountains out of molehills see the other side of things.

MISTAKES MADE + LESSONS LEARNED

mistakes

First and foremost is a mistake I made as a teenager. Why? That had the monumental consequences that affected not only me but a daughter from my teen pregnancy. The pregnancy itself was the mistake not the preemie I gave birth to who ended up with the correct mother in the end as a result of the foster care system when I forgot to get her immunized. She later died in foster care of causes related to her disabilities due to her prematurity.

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Next in severity is my misguided judgment in choosing a mate so young: eighteen-years-old and at the cusp of mental illness. He was an alcoholic that brought me mostly pain and suffering. I say mostly because that marriage resulted in my now grown kids, four of them, which were not a mistake in the slightest. That marriage was the impetus of so many blunders, primarily because my normal state was always being on edge waiting for the sword to fall. It was acute and chronic anxiety that my ex-husband would do something to the children that drove me to miss the funerals of some of the most important people in my life, i.e., my maternal grandmother and aunt, as well as my foster father/grandfather. He’s both because I called him Grandpa when I was young and Dad as I aged. I have a hole in my heart from their absence. That will never go away.

Then there’s adolescent wrongdoings due to pure and simple immaturity, particularly with friends. That’s friends from childhood that I lost touch with during adolescence because I was too self-centered. In addition, there’s friends that I met in the hospital stays I had during adolescence. For teenagers, we talked about some significantly deep life events, choices, and people involved. Those sessions were both in group and in our free time. Lastly, there’s high school classmates that I lost touch with because I didn’t know how to be a real friend and instead allowed my jealousy and fear to get the better of me.

mistakes 3

So, only after many years were there lessons learned. Again, I was immature, self-centered, and afraid to change. And I couldn’t work on those things at the height of chronic and acute anxiety. Then the other shoe dropped and along came my diagnosis with schizophrenia. The psychosis began when I was twenty-six and it was all I could do to maintain a facade of sanity for the sake of custody during my divorce. It was only after meeting Robert that my brain went from a state of high alert to a day-to-day normal where I returned to the University of Minnesota and its Center for Spirituality and Healing masters’ level coursework to learn how to be me and all that that entails: mistakes, guilt, and all.

Mistakes-Quotes-2

The most important thing I found was that mistakes aren’t catastrophic as long as you learn from them. Make them the springboard for change. Use that newfound knowledge to help someone else who is down in a similar situation. Discover the light at the end of the tunnel: the pathway to a new portal for positive change.