The Importance of Being Earnest

[Photo credit: Daul Kim by Cecile Bortoletti for Lurve Magazine 2]

Recent events have pushed me to, once again, undelete this blog and write this.  (It's worth noting that I write only when the urge hits me, which is probably why I am not studying it.)  

It is of the utmost importance that mental health is discussed, not only in America, but throughout the world.  It deeply angers and frustrates me when I hear about the struggles that individuals go through due to a lack of support from their loved ones.  

The idea of mental illness is an enormous stigma, and though race, nationality, and geography play a large role, I can only speak of my experiences as an Asian-American woman and Texas resident.  Upon diagnosis in Baltimore, when I arrived in Texas I was taken to a mental retardation center.  Past entries have described my experiences in Austin State Hospital, but, in a nutshell, medical insurance is the saving grace between good treatment and bad treatment.  How can the uneducated public take care of their own when those licensed to do so refuse to? 

There needs to be a change in how mental illness is addressed and treated, everywhere.  Suicides are all preventable, and too many times, help is not given and problems are not addressed until the individual views suicide as the only option.  

I am open about my diagnosis with Bipolar I.  After my third stint in the hospital in September, I gave formal letters to all my professors explaining why I had missed a week of classes, some of which included exams.  Although some understood completely, others did not even know what bipolar disorder was and, to put it frankly, didn't seem to care.  And I am supposed to be attending the leading research university, correct?  

People have come to me to talk about their own experiences and struggles with mental illness ever since my diagnosis, and one thing they all say to me is, "... but I don't think my case is as bad as yours."  The only reason why my "case" can even be pegged as "bad" is because of the tragically wrong way it was handled from the beginning.  

Just because I am receiving treatment by no means indicates that I am mentally incapable of understanding what I am receiving and why.  Placing pills in the palm of my hand and assuring me that it will "make me feel better" is patronizing and dumb.  Telling me I am just stressed because of school and "the overbearing nature of my Korean parents" is ignorant and dumb. (One licensed psychologist actually had the audacity to inform me that my parents' minds were still in "Co-ree-yuh," when he obviously had no idea that my parents immigrated to the states at age 20, had met and married here, and had raised us in the most "American" way that they knew how.  He obviously had no idea that my dad only speaks Korean to my mom.  He assumed that they were not citizens.)  

I am beyond blessed to have parents that are so supportive of me and my illness and my treatment.  I am beyond blessed to have friends that treat me as if I am no different.  I am beyond blessed to have a boyfriend who visited me daily when I was hospitalized and who sat with me and all the other patients for hours and who bum rushed a security guard to get to me in the "observation room." 

Others are not so lucky and it pains me to know that they continue to think it's "all in their heads."  I completely understand.  The moment you realize that you have lost your sanity, it feels like someone has flipped you upside down.  I was sitting in my bunk as a summer RA in a college dorm and I felt my stomach hit my throat.  I remember being in a hotel room with my dad and punching the walls over and over and over. But it got better.  Everything got so much better.  

A friend recently asked me if I had the choice, would I choose to have this disease.  Obviously I wish I had not experienced some things that I have experienced.  But I think I would still choose to be this and to have this. Kay Jamison said it best by writing, "I have often asked myself whether, given the choice, I would choose to have manic-depressive illness. If lithium were not available to me, or didn't work for me, the answer would be a simple no... and it would be an answer laced with terror. But lithium does work for me, and therefore I can afford to pose the question. Strangely enough, I think I would choose to have it. It's complicated... I honestly believe that as a result of it I have felt more things, more deeply; had more experiences, more intensely; loved more, and have been more loved; laughed more often for having cried more often; appreciated more the springs, for all the winters... Depressed, I have crawled on my hands and knees in order to get across a room and have done it for month after month. But normal or manic I have run faster, thought faster, and loved faster than most I know."