Being a Consumer of Mental Health

By JIM PURCELL

There are many issues surrounding consumers of mental health services. It is a holistic problem so its fall-out for people so afflicted are far-encompassing -- from personal to professional to medically.

I am a mental health care consumer. I have Major Depression, Generalized Anxiety, PTSD and complicating all of that is alcoholism. Are these 'real disorders'? Well, doctors think so. Living with this mess, I can assure you I regard them as legitimate disorders also.

But, there are people who say that these disorders are made up: not real. They cannot be seen. Well, for that matter, gravity cannot be seen either -- nor can time -- but they are very real as also. Still, I would not offer an argument to detractors who may think otherwise. If the idea is that mental health disorders are not real, then that opinion is informed by the individual.

Where it gets dicey is when those who do not regard mental health disorders as bona fide medical problems somehow convince consumers of mental health services of the same thing they believe. There is nothing quite so spectacular as a mental health patient who does not take their medication. If medication moderates erratic behavior, and it does, then abandoning such medication will give rise to erratic behavior again.

I am well medicated. Yet, even still, there are those days when depression and/or anxiety gets through. There are days when medication will fall short. There will be times of challenge, even regulated by a well thought-out plan for meds and despite regular talk therapy.

The mental health consumer has to know that not everything will be 'solved' for all times with talk therapy and medications. All these things do for me is give me a fighting chance to interdict very difficult emotions, feelings and moods.

When a mental health consumer is un-medicated, though, they have very few tools to work with, if any, There is always talk about support networks, and support networks of other people can literally be the difference between life and death at their most necessary. However, I would say to measure people in your networks. Be sure that they are people who can handle 'your crazy,' for lack of a better term. They also need to be people who know when it is time to get professional services involved.

Living with mental health disorders is hard. It is not a zero-defect situation. If it were then there would be a shot and  -- boom -- no more mental health problems. This is not the case yet. Maybe some day.

I am writing this just to bring up the challenges of living with mental health disorders, maybe to remind people who have fallen away from treatment to consider it again -- at the very least to let other consumers of mental health services to know they are not alone.