Recovering from the Help You’ve Been Given

This week has been a week of conversations with a number of people about a number of things. One of today’s conversations was with a friend from the support group I used to be a member of. We were sitting there enjoying the food, and this friend said something that struck me: “I’m recovering from the help I’ve been given.” I asked him to elaborate, and he explained that sometimes what people think is helping you – whether it’s taking you to see one psychiatrist after the other or putting you on those medications – is really doing the opposite.

I pondered it and my mind went back to the psych ward. I remember that particular psychiatrist telling me (with very good intentions, I’m sure) that it would probably do more harm than good for me to stay in the hospital. After all, I had convinced everyone, including myself, that I was back to the person I was pre-episode. And I was. But that version of myself was not the best version of myself. These mental health professionals helped me to get back to my unhealthy way of functioning. But you don’t know what you don’t know. I am not placing blame on anyone, just trying to understand how sometimes help can be unintentionally harmful.

I returned to grad school the very next day after I was discharged. What was probably less than a month later, I fell into a deep depression. The school psychologist recommended I take an emergency withdrawal because I had not even begun to take the time I needed to recover. I felt like I could not function the way I was anymore, so I really had no choice at that point: It was either withdraw or fail. So I applied for the withdrawal and went home, only to return again that same year. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to be around people. I didn’t get out of bed some days. I didn’t go to class. I was struggling. Everyone thought it was best for me to go back, to finish what I had started. I thought so too. So I pushed until I couldn’t push anymore. In fact, it did do me more harm than good to go back to that environment without changing how I lived because whatever I was doing was clearly not working. For me, medication was not enough. Group therapy as an inpatient was not enough.

Mental illness is tricky because two people can have the same diagnosis and present very differently. There’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. The more we talk about mental health, the better we understand it and take it as seriously as recovering from a broken leg or a heart attack, for instance. Don’t rush your recovery; your brain needs time to heal too.

Lai