The Benefits of Mental Illness

Here is something for you to ponder:

How is having a mental illness positive for you?

1. I make a pretty good people helper because I "get it". Depression is something we share. Mental illness makes us a big family.

2. I spend a lot of time in my head....think a lot. Seems some people don't, therefore, I am more likely to understand the jokes on NPR.

3. I don't fall apart when I break a nail, or skin my knee. I have a clue what big problems are. My friends have experienced trauma I cannot even imagine. It puts life's little woes into perspective.

4. When my pals are in trouble, I am there for them. I'm not afraid to listen to problems involving abuse, trauma, psychoses, grief, or broken finger nails. I listen and hug, not run.

5. I try to stand up for those who can't help themselves because I have been there and it sucks.

6. Being nuts made me cling to my spirituality for strength, and has made me a better person. (not good, just better..... )

7. I love "bag ladies" - they remind me of family. I want to bring them all home. I sit in the park with them, feed the squirrels and chat. Great stories are shared, and sometimes lunch.

8. I occasionally got to look at my hot T. I miss the big lug.

9. Emotional pain hurts, yuppers, it surely does, but it's like pinching yourself after a bad dream...I KNOW I'm alive.

10. I get to meet lovely people online and make new friends.

emmy

1. I got to meet you guys
2. I have found some people who understand me
3. I can be whacky sometimes without getting booted out

Having M I has helped because I can help people learn about those of us with MI.
We can be me, myself, and us without anyone making fun of us.
I don't have to worry about impressing anyone.

There's quite a few positive things to any kind of suffering, problems, illnesses. It gives the "sufferer" insight, compassion for others and understanding to name just a few benefits.

If it hadn't been for the psych therapy, I wouldn't understand about mental illness and that it's not a character flaw or something that can be "snapped out of." It's an illness that can be controlled. Also, I wouldn't have had the chance to change myself and my thinking modes. I would have never known that the "religion" I was taught was skewed and wouldn't have had the chance to straighten out that thinking, also. I wouldn't have learned the differences between how men and women are wired. I wouldn't have learned acceptance of others. When, eventually, my childhood trauma made itself known, I wouldn't have understood what was happening, why I was always angry at everyone and dealt with everything from that anger. Certainly, there would never have been any understanding of my beloved mother and why she thought and acted the way she did. I might still be resenting her rather than loving her. The benefits go on and on, but I'm sure you get the picture.

I think the most positive thing is the sense of compassion. Now I have insight to what others go through.

The best thing is we're survivors, and in resession
Angie

Now I'm recovering from depression, I have found it have helped me a lot when helping other people, and understanding mental illnesses in general.

Before I fell ill, I held the usual misconception about mental illnesses: that all of the sufferers were 'mad' and violent. You know the type: the stereotypical crazy, frothing at the mouth, attacking people, that type of thing.

But when I did some research when I began to suspect I had depression, I found out so much more about mental illnesses, especially about depression, but also about bipolar, schitzophrenia, and the like. It has made me far more understanding towards those who have mental illnesses, and more tolerant. On another board, I am one of the moderators of a Depression forum, and I would never have got or wanted that position had I not fallen ill with depression: it would not have interested me. In a way, I am glad I fell ill: it has kind of developed me personally, and increased my empathy with mental disorder sufferers. But falling ill also meant that I lost nearly a whole academic year. However, it did mean I found this site .

Silver:

I agree with you....there is alot of stigma attached to mental illness and I never thought about it until my brother was diagnosed schizophrenic. Then I started thinking, this doesn't change anything, how I feel about him, how I perceive him, etc.

Now I have more compassion when dealing with him because I have had a SMALL...very small...taste of what it's like to be him every day of his life.

It is very humbling.

I don't think having a mental illness is good. Not at all. But sometimes, like when I take the time to laugh at myself for my paranoia, silliness, whatever, you have to make the best of a bad situation. I can see some good coming from this. And things are not always as bad as they seem. It is just too depressing to dwell on the BAD. Like the silver lining behind even the darkest cloud. Call me an optimist.

Just my 2 cents.

Take Care all.
Kimberly

I like emmy's list, especially about the bag ladies!

But I agree with SkyBDark -- I have never had a mental illness but I can tell you that after living with someone who suffers with severe depression, I don't have to IMAGINE what it's like -- I KNOW. Depression is awful, painful, tragic.

The only thing, IMO, that can POSSIBLY be good about having a mental illness is that you might be more likely to develop compassion for others who suffer from it as well, if you didn't have the compassion to start with. Then again, I have compassion for mental illness suffferers, and I've never had mental illness myself. Plus, you can say the same thing about any experience. If you break your leg, you have more compassion for other people who have broken their leg.

I think it's a bit dangerous to find reasons that mental illnesses can be positive -- as many of you probably know, it's difficult enough to find the energy to effectively treat them. Find reasons to stay as you are and motivation to keep trying to dig yourself out of it will be harder to find -- always easier to sit still than to keep moving.

But I do like the optimism that Inkblot had when she asked the question. I don't mean to criticize her intent at all -- I'm just trying to picture my fiance looking for benefits and it scares the hell out of me to think that there is any reason to go back to the way things were last summer when he was at rock-bottom.

The place where I would make my argument is the use of the word "benefits." Although some of us make lemonade out of the "lemon" of our mental illness and use it as a learning experience, I don't necessarily believe that the lemonade is a "benefit," anymore than I would say that curdling milk with lemon juice is a liability of the lemon.

anymore than I would say that curdling milk with lemon juice is a liability of the lemon.

It's not a liablity as far as I'm concerned, having made tons of delicious cheeses from goat milk with the aid of lemon juice.

Maybe it's my life's experiences but to this day, I can't look at a lemon without wishing I still had my goats so that I could make some of those wonderful cheeses I used to make.

All the "lemons" of my life that I've had to squeeze make me who I am today. Even if I toot my own horn, I don't think it's all that bad.

PS You can curdle milk with vinegar, too, but the cheese doesn't come out as tasty as it does with lemon juice.

Whoever changed the title of this thread, forgive me, but I'm giving in to a compulsion. Changing it back to it's original.

While we're doing that, Sep, why not go back to the original questions too?

It is in the present tense....How is HAVING a mental illness a benefit for you?

most of what was posted was regarding having had or come through some tough stuff mentally... past tense...

and most of what was posted may be true as a side, though I agree with those that say you don't have to be depressed to have compassion for and help someone who is... or anything else

there are benefits to OTHERS for my mental unwellness:
psychcentral.com because I'm here
my T, because of the insurance money, his career
gas companies, car dealership, etc because I have to get to therapy

But what are MY benefits for being this way?

:

want me to list them again, here they are:


guess that's about all.

Ok, I guess there may be some superficial benefits and benefits to others in HAVING a mental illness, like that your T gets paid, or that you get somebody to care about you. But realistically, the way I see it there are not benefits to HAVING a mental illness. However, there are benefits to OVERCOMING a mental illness, as we have discussed. Or even to overcoming a little bit of it. Maybe none of us entirely beat the whole thing permanently and once and for all. I am still having a hard time believing that I could ever do that. But I'm better than I used to be, and having made the progress that I have has benefits. Make sense?

As much as being sad or anything else of the like generally sucks, I think people who have suffered understand how precious all the small things are when, if only for a short while, they feel okay. Someone who has never been burdened with heavy emotions are likely ignorant, and take everything for granted. When I'm sad, it seems like there is no hope in sight, ever. I just keep going, thinking that my family would hate me if I gave up on living. But, then, when there IS some sort of light, I just apperciate EVERY little thing. There are things I appeciate that a lot of people prolly don't even notice. Am I making any sense at all? Furthermore, I KNOW it has made me a more compassionate person, when someone says they want to die, and you KNOW PERSONALLY what that feels like, I think you're capible of compassion to a degree that a lot of "normal" people can't obtain. Also, it sort of connects you to people who have similar problems, or dissimilar problems, but problems none the less, and generally speaking, these people are more compassionate and caring than the general public, so that when you fall on bad times again, there's someone to try to pick you back up again. So, I'm not sure that the good outweighs the bad, and I hope that no one I love has to feel as crappy as I do sometimes, but there is SOME sort of a light side to the darkness, even if it's hard to see sometimes. I hope all this makes sense to someone!

Sky, did you read my post to Karen?

Wendy, when you get through the tunnel or pull yourself out of the mire, you naturaly gain a strength that you wouldn't have had otherwise.

You two try looking at it this way: What possible positive is there when you are training or on a weight reducing excercise plan? All you experience is muscle pain, breathlessness and exhaustion. The muscle pain can continue for days but eventually, your body gets used to the excercise and you're physically stronger, your muscles are more defined and you've lost weight. You're better for having endured the physical pain. It's the same way with emotional/mental pain.

While we're going through the physical pain of becoming physically stronger/better we wonder if it's all worth it. We are faced with the choice of either quiting and going back to the same flabby, overweight person we were or we continue to "work through" the pain and discomfort and come out better for it in the end. We can't stop, though, because we'll go back to how we were before we started. Granted, we didn't ask for this illness. It was dealt to us. Only two choices are either overcome it or give in to it.

Sky, we're still on the same subject. Only difference is that you and I are in a different stage of the "program/training." My hand is stretched out to you to give you "a lift up" from the mire. You CAN and WILL overcome this illness. "I will you to!" (I'm sure you know the story.) Sweets, you also have a physical disability to overcome, but you're not a quadraplegic. Even quadraplegics live successfull lives. Look at all that Christopher Reeve did in the years that he lived after his accident. Leave out that you think he committed passive suicide. You don't know that for sure. What you need to do is focus on the positive, on all the work he did and everything he accomplished while being in a wheelchair and on top of that, a respirator!

If anyone is looking for any positives while they're not working to overcome their mental illness, you're not going to find anything. It's all in the work you have to do to become stronger so that you control the illness and not allow it to control you.

I'm saying all of this in complete love, both to Sky and Wendy, but also to anyone else who reads this. Don't forget, I'm one of those that has been there and know it from the inside AND out.

Thank you ALL for making this such an active thread! I'll offer my opinion. I think that such experience educates us in emotions and behaviors, while giving us compassion for others with similar issues.

For those who say there are no benefits to mental illness... Prior to any problems or diagnosis, would you have accurately depicted the suffering of mental illness as what you go through now? Weren't things much different for you before it developed? Have you not given more compassion to others with similar problems?

It seems to me that all of us here have a lot of compassion to share. We all have difficulties in life with relationships, money, jobs, various anxieties and stresses, health and medical issues. We also have emotions, behaviors and personalities that are more extreme when compared to that of the rest of society.

We are an elite group--the chosen ones, if you will--challenged by ourselves--our own minds--to learn and grow from our experiences. No, it's not always easy, and in fact, rarely is easy. It's up to us to accept that challenge.

We have found that there is also stigma within our own.
Our group has had several MH folks make trouble for us because we were not afraid to venture out on our own, without help from county funding. We are people with names not numbers as under the county.
We are different in the fact that everyone works for the program just like here at the forum.
Angie

I don't mean for this to become a debate. I posted this with intent for something positive.

No matter how much your illness affects you, if one looks--REALLY LOOKS--for a postive thing of any reflect on yourself, I BELIEVE that is possible.

Maybe I am too optimistic. Maybe I am too deep of a thinker.

You are a strong person and I admire that!

welcome ejw.

This is kind of nuts lol but it would put me in the hospital where I was able to take a break from my nutty family but more importantly in the hospital I was able to chear up or distract many other patients. They all called me bouncy.