My Support Forums - View Single Post - Mental Illness and Our New Global Reality

*Beth* · Jun 25, 2020 at 05:50 PM

This is an article from NAMI's blog. I really relate to it and wonder if others do, too.

COVID-19 has altered daily existence dramatically, but, for many of us, it's simply globalized a way of life that was already all too familiar.

Mental illness affects about 20% of people, and the symptomology resembles the new reality that the whole population is now experiencing: the isolation, the nagging fear, the obsessive worry, the fluctuating energy and motivation levels. Before COVID, many of us simply called this life as usual.

Those who have lived with mental illness are in a unique position to, dare I say, deal with our "new" global reality perhaps even better than others? We come equipped with decades of handling the emotions/feelings/circumstances that may feel new to those who've not been plagued before by depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD and the like.

We get this. It's our stomping grounds. We know what it's like to be okay one day and not able to move from the couch for the next five. It's in our wheelhouse to be immersed in fear and panic, yet go on putting one foot in front of the other day after day after day. The world is just now experiencing our norm.

Yet it is also in our repertoire to heal. We understand what it feels like to give each other grace, to be easy on ourselves on harder days, to adjust our expectations, to be tender with our symptoms. We have things like coping skills and therapy and medication to combat the loneliness and obsessive fear of a life beyond our control. Yes, we have been a population marginalized in the shadows for the way our minds function. But, maybe, now is our time to light the way.

-Julie Benn