Mental Health Disorders: Dealing with Them

by Patty E. Fleener M.S.W.

I have been spending a lot of time lately working on my daughter's love poetry website. It has really been a lot of fun cruising from one romance site to another. I found one very interesting site where they assist you in finding lost loves. In fact, there may be someone looking for you already and have submitted your name at their site. 

Jokingly I told someone recently that having mental health disorders (post traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder), and the way I left most relationships, I just knew that there were tons of lost loves looking for me. What's that saying? "Turn loose of my leg!" That was me!

It is truly amazing with the tremendous emotional pain I have experienced in my life that I can actually be in a place to laugh about it. I think that when we can laugh at ourselves, that perhaps that is a good sign. Being able to do that means that we have accepted a quality about ourselves that is not usually "favorable." Accepting it means that we have been able to separate that quality or that behavior from who we really are. We know that that negative quality does not define who we are.

At the time that I was extremely addicted to the men in my life, I felt that I could not live life without these men and that I was a "nobody and a "nothing." 

Feeling a certain way usually has a direct effect on our actions. We act out who we feel we are. However what we feel has absolutely no relationship with reality in these kinds of circumstances. We simply believe an untruth.

In my opinion, that is what low self-esteem is. It believes a falsehood and is many times learned from life experiences or the people in our life. Abuse alone makes us feel that we are "no good." If we were, we would not be abused. Makes some logical sense doesn't it? 

There were many times in my life where I felt "thrown away" by my parents. Parents seem to have a special kind of power. We think, "If my own parents don't want me or don't like me, then I must be really bad." 

We seem to have this notion that all parents are supposed to love their children with all their heart and that all parents are emotionally healthy and capable of showing and giving love. So if our parents come up short of that, we feel we are unworthy, not them.

Of course, we know as adult children, that it is very easy to come out of denial that our parents are dysfunctional, right? I hope you all are shaking your head "no," because to say that our parents are truly dysfunctional sometimes feels like we are betraying them. How could we think and say such a horrible thing about our own mothers and fathers? We're supposed to love and respect them. 

There is a big difference between seeing your parents for who they are and loving and respecting them. And by the way, you don't have to give anyone respect unless you feel they deserve it. 

At the other extreme, some of us have not only come out of denial, but we carry tremendous anger and rage towards one or both of our parents or our abusers for what they did to us. 

This anger and rage are very healthy and they are displays that what was done to you was wrong and that you were indeed victimized. Feeling anger is good, healing and healthy to a point. 

However, some of us don't know how to get past that anger and move on to the next stage of grief. We let that anger move in with us and it lives with us everyday and it takes a tremendous amount of energy away from us - energy that could be spent elsewhere productively. Anger tires us out, makes us anxious and on edge. It can eat us up inside, it can ruin marriages, relationships, ruin jobs, contribute to substance abuse, etc.

Many of us may decide to get professional help to learn to deal with this anger. We reach a point where we realize we have become a prisoner to our own feelings that we can no longer control. If you feel you have lost control, it is very healthy and wise to find a good counselor.

Many people who have been abused continue to call themselves survivors. Yet, I believe you can grow farther than that. I believe that it is healthy many times to drop these labels and to remember that it is ok to be a person again and not spend the rest of your life tied to your abuse.

It sure is easy for me to say isn't it? Many of us, and I include myself, have severe post traumatic stress disorder and it is difficult to say how far we will go into our own recovery. 

How I live my life now is to understand and continue to learn how and why my life remains disabled due to post traumatic stress disorder. This is difficult many times. [Update: 4/04 PTSD symptoms are almost gone].

I look back on my life and see a vital woman with a sense of passion for life, going to work everyday, taking care of household chores, raising a child, enjoying friends, etc. This woman had a "strong fire burning within." However this woman was usually in constant psychic pain.

Today the flames have turned to a dim candle flickering gently. Vitality gone, no outside work, difficulty with chores, keeps people at a distance, etc. Yet, a much healthier life if that makes sense.

My homework now is to accept those parts of myself and continue to love myself no matter what. My homework is not to abandon myself. 

One way that helps me to love myself is imagining myself as far back as I can remember. I see myself as two years old playing in the backyard in Southern California. As I see myself in my mind at two, I think of all to come in this tiny child's life that this child would eventually shut down and be emotionally numb.

As I see all this in my mind's eye, I feel tremendous passion for that child and my thoughts are to hold her tightly and rock her. I want to love her and so I transfer that on to the adult that I am today.

Sometimes I cry for this child and as you read this, it is perfectly ok to cry for your child. If you are having trouble with low self-esteem, think of this precious innocent child and in your mind, pick her/him up and hold her/him.

If you can't remember your childhood back that far, just imagine yourself very very young. If any of you feel at all uneasy doing this, STOP! Touch something around you, talk to someone around you or pick up the phone and call a friend. Get back to today. 

This activity is NOT to take you out of the present. It is only to see yourself as a child. However I do not recommend that you go back to the past in your mind, particularly if you have the borderline personality disorder.