Guest Post - Mental Health Awareness Month/Week - Better Late Than Never - Keith Allison

              

What happens when you are raised without any knowledge of mental illness? Sure, I knew that people, including myself had felt anxiety, anger, confusion and maybe even a little depression. My parents got me self-help tapes to listen to when we drove around doing errands in the car. They knew something was up but really didn’t do what was needed to educate me. They just thought I needed to turn my stinking thinking around. That wasn’t the problem.

                They taught me that whatever happens in the house stays in the house. My sister just found out that when I was 17, thirty years ago that I was arrested and went to jail. My parents pushed upper middle class and their biggest fear was that people might find out we didn’t belong in the upper class. Anything that didn’t include a silver spoon as the topic wasn’t talked about outside the house and even sometimes to the other siblings.

                At the time there were two types of people, or so I was led to believe, when it comes to mental health. One was you don’t have mental health issues and you live your life outside of a mental hospital or you had mental health issues and you are locked up in a hospital most likely in a padded room. That was the extent of my thoughts and those around me in the late 1970’s. Massive stigmas abound.

I was very smart… almost too smart. I have that issue where common sense really isn’t my specialty. I am not a genius but I do have some of those common sense side effects that happen to geniuses. I really thought that the anger, anxiety, depression, guilt, abandonment issues and the like were what every single person went through. Those emotions are felt by everyone but not to the extreme as I had felt them. My parents used to love telling me, ‘life is not fair so don’t expect it to be.’

I thought my anger was under my control. I thought that my anxiety was me not being able to correctly control my emotions. I thought that my guilt was normal and that people don’t normally forgive themselves for something they did 20 years ago. I thought my extreme anxiety of looking for reasons why my girlfriend’s will leave me was normal but didn’t realize it was what made them leave me. I knew I had some issues but nothing too serious as I was always told that I am in control of my thoughts and behavior. That if there was a problem that it was for me to fix.

                Even though I went to therapist and tried some depression medicine the realization of how serious my illness is was never discovered. Even until now and I am almost fifty years old. I am doing the right thing now. I am back on anti-depressant medicine for the first time in thirty years.  I am scheduled to see a therapist also to try and find out why I think the way I do.

                I want a diagnosis, a real one. Not one where you take a test on the internet that you found by searching “Do I have Borderline Personality Disorder.” I want a doctor to tell me that my quick to anger isn’t something that I can control easily because you have this. That helplessness and hopelessness you feel is because of this. I want answers and I want them as fast as possible.

                I spent my whole life blaming myself for actions I did because of mental illness. I am not saying I am a perfect person but most of my BIG messes that I have created while living life has happened because I was unable to control something because of Mental Illness. I want someone to tell me that it is ok to forgive yourself for what you did in 1989. It is ok to let myself feel real emotions again as it is ok that I want to cry, to yell, to scream and to hide under those covers.

                I also want to know that it is ok to be happy. Every time I was happy as a kid someone pulled the rug out from underneath me. I learned to stop looking forward to anything and to not feel happy about stuff because it will be taken away from me and I am going to be in a worse spot because of it. I have lived a good forty years stealing any happiness away from myself because it scared me. It scared me because I have been gaslight so much that it was expected from my family.

I am done living my life in fear. I am going to find out exactly what makes me tick, why I am the way I am and I am not going to be done until I can feel happiness again without a sense of dread. I want to write about what I learn as I go through this journey of self-discovery and teach it to you. The reason why is that I was suicidal and then I decided if I can’t live my life for me, I will live my life for you. If I can help you not feel the way I do then I feel better about my life.

I want to live my life for me!