Psychiatric Illness is Not All Bad, But it Can Seem That Way Sometimes

Today, I try to explain that there are actually advantages to having a mental illness, and that we can use an optimistic attitude to change how we feel about our situation and psychiatric condition

Photo by Nik on Unsplash

I like to think of myself as an optimist. Words of William Shakespeare come to mind often, like the quote: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Throughout my life, there have been many challenges, from the day I remember so vividly of being a farm worker when I was 11 and having to pick weeds all day. When lunch time came, I thought I was spent and wouldn’t even make it back to the truck. But somehow I had that little tiny bit of energy in me that made me run fast enough to secure a good spot. Another quote comes to mind when I think of this time, “If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew…. To serve your term long after they are gone…. And so hold on when there is nothing in you…. Except the will that says to them, ‘hold on!’” This is a beautiful quote from Rudyard Kipling’s “If.”

Just as a quick side note, I have always loved Rudyard Kipling, from his children’s stories of the Jungle Book, to the short story he wrote that became an epic film with Sean Connery, Michael Caine, and Christoper Plummer starred in. I even wrote my grade 12 final essay on Kipling. I was incredibly pleased to learn that a close friend who comes from one of the kindest, most supportive families I know is actually a direct relative of Kipling. You know who you are, but just in case you read this, Dani I love you like a sister.

Photo by Patty Brito on Unsplash

So, mental illness is basically what some could call the shit end of the stick. You experience it, it takes a huge toll on your ambition, your social skills. It may even cause you to have delusional thinking and hallucinations along with paranoia. And for all too many it ends in hospital stays where you go on medications and get better in the eyes of others, but the meds make you feel horrible and you end up going off of them and soon end up getting sick again, not fully understanding why because those damn little pills never seem to come with an instruction manual. I should note here that in the case of most people with psychosis who require anti-psychotic medications, if you go off your anti-psychotic, the dose may have to be increased when you go back on it. Another scary fact is that one of the most effective anti-psychotic medications, Clozapine/Clozaril is only half as effective in people who smoke, so if you can’t quit or you go off your medications, you may have to face that just to be reasonably well, you might have to take double the normal dose. I am not sure if this means double the normal side effects, but the truth is, the less medications you take, the better.

So, I wanted to explain my optimism here a bit, and what better way than to share with you my absolute favorite YouTube video. The singer and dancer in the video is the immortal Gene Kelly. I have heard reports in recent times that he was difficult to work with, always striving for perfection, but his dancing and singing give me so much joy I almost can’t contain myself. I feel like boldly singing along and jumping on the furniture. Here it is:

One of the things that used to really disturb me is the movie, “Clockwork Orange” which I really don’t understand why my parents let me watch it when I was 10 years old. For a long time it totally ruined this song and this movie for me. In the film, the main character commits a violent rape while singing this song. Fortunately by the time I learned the video was on YouTube I had gotten over that.

So, this song and movie inspire me and make me think of the times when a person works really hard towards something, and after a long time they finally fully accomplish it, and everything in the person’s life seems to be going right. Gene Kelly’s character in the part of the movie where this video takes place has done this, he has landed the job of a lifetime, and on top of it he is in love. Sadly, few of us find ways to commit in a dedicated fashion to things we wish to accomplish or try and fail to accomplish them, and even fewer people find the perfect kind of love portrayed in this movie (For Star Wars fans, the woman who plays Gene Kelly’s girlfriend in this segment is Debbie Reynolds, who was the mother of Carrie Fisher, aka Princess Leia.)

So really I would be ripping you off if I didn’t talk about some of the positive sides of mental illness. There really are some, and they aren’t too far a stretch to understand and accept. One of the things I like about having a mental illness is that because of my poor abilities to handle stress, and the side effects of my medications, I have been given a disability pension, which I have been on for almost 30 years. The benefit of having a disability pension is that I have a great deal of time on my hands to nurture my creative instincts and develop my abilities to write as well as being able to cultivate friendships with editors and people who are interested in my writing. Writing is an incredibly long and difficult journey for most who make their living at it. I have had the benefit of accomplishing the dream of being a published writer without having to worry if my writing paid all the bills for me. Writing to me is such a great and powerful thing, people right now are reading words I recorded on computer or was printed on paper. I sometimes shudder to think of how many trees have died since I have published my first book which I think has likely sold around 500 copies in the 14 years since I first had it professionally edited.

But there is so much to writing. I set a course for myself when I was young and for the most part I stuck to it. When I did my earliest writing, I read all the books I could get my hands on, especially poetry books, and kept three journals, setting a goal of filling a page with typewritten words and using the other two journals to record my thoughts and feelings regarding movies and books I experienced.

At first, I really missed what I had done before and I never thought writing could replace it. I was a student pilot taking lessons for my commercial license and it was so joyful and confidence building that I was constantly happy just to be alive. There was a book by a great author Stephen Coonts called “Flight of the Intruder” where the author says, through his main character Jake Grafton, “Flying is the most fun you can have outside the bedroom.” I really felt the loss when I had to stop flying due to my mental illness and the medication I required, but with time, writing gave me back many things I lost.

I actually began to love it, and when I look back, though I regret not going to college or university to become a writer, there were a few simple things that caused key shifts in my life and my ability to write. One was having a friend explain to me how to pitch a story to a magazine editor, which gave me almost immediate and lucrative results, and the other was when a good friend who managed the building I live in set up a class to teach creative writing, and when I took it he was amazed at my knowledge and skill, built up from years of writing on my own. He encouraged me and set things up so that I could teach writing and be paid for it.

My dad wasn’t always the biggest optimist. Sometimes he was downright mean. As a young person, I told my dad of my desire to write and he told me there aren’t more than three or four people in Canada who make their living writing. Another thing he would often say was, especially when I would emphasize something that showed I was smarter than most people in school and other things, he would tell me people in Mensa often have jobs digging ditches or collecting garbage. To be the eternal optimist though, I will admit I have been a garbageman and I have worked on many construction projects, but these experiences gave me something to write about. If anyone wants to understand and experience how life experience of even seemingly ordinary things can be developed into writing subjects, please consider reading my latest book, a short story collection titled, “Voted off the Crew” which tells stories very loosely based on my life as it was spent in Edmonton, Alberta.

I actually just had an incredible review done of this book, and it retails for just $16 CAD, so consider supporting my efforts by heading over to amazon and ordering a copy.

I should also say that once when I was visiting my favourite Canadian city, Victoria, British Columbia, I met an author who was signing his books and selling them on the street. I asked him if he made a living at it, and he said he made a good living, around $100,000.00 per year, and I hadn’t even heard of his work. The amazing thing is, after I worked at it for a while, it was easy to be able to supplement my disability income which allowed me to have things like a new TV when I need one or a computer like I have now to work with. And none of this miraculous experience could have been possible if mental illness didn’t side-track me from ambitious desires to make big money as a Lawyer or have a lot of fun blasting around in a fighter jet. My illness made me dig deep into who I really am, and the greatest thing is, I feel I am a better human being because of it. A perfect example of when everything I have been doing made sense was when I was contacted by a young woman who had seen me speak to her class at a local university. She purchased my first two books, “Through the Withering Storm” and “Inching Back to Sane”. She was struggling herself and my books were medicine to her. She read them again and again and never gave up on her dream to get her degree, even though it took ten more years. When she contacted me, it was to thank me and to invite me to her graduation party. I have always believed, especially before I became ill at a time when I thought I wanted to become a psychologist and counsel people that if I could change just one life, stop just one suicide, or make a difference with just one person, then I could justify the fact that I’m down here using up valuable oxygen.

One of the other positive aspects of mental illness I know of is sleep. Whenever I think of sleep, I think about my days as a teen. I was working as hard as I could attending high school full time, and I also had a string of jobs that I would often work full-time or close to it. I would also often stay up late and watch TV often until an hour before school, and I was chronically exhausted. There was this one time when I had to get up and get ready for work, a friend was picking me up, and my mom came in to wake me. I was just 15 and I was a complete zombie. I think I had been drinking the night before and even during the week when I wasn’t working I was keeping up a murderous schedule of not sleeping. But somehow I dragged my butt through school and work. I sometimes wonder if my chronic lack of sleep contributed to my psychosis and depression. Now, I frequently have enough time to really sleep as much as I need and it can often feel glorious.

One last sub-heading of this text post is about maturity. Basically, especially when inflation is factored in, I get about the same money I did each month that I received 20 or even 30 years ago. Basic food and rent, and a few bills. Car expenses I try to limit and take out of part-time income and book sales. But I have grown so much from the time when I was in my 20s and was struggling with money all the time. I don’t have the dire need to go out every night. I stopped drinking years ago which was not only an expense, but something very bad for mental health. I also stopped smoking and I have started to channel my funds into my love of travel. I have found so many cheap ways for me to take a break. On the travel note, I should likely make a post about how I manage to go so many places, my method is to buy all travel tickets way in advance, then with the motivation of a coming trip, find new ways to earn or discipline myself to earn a little, perhaps from The Schizophrenia Society by asking for more shifts, and then paying for all the little things ahead of time, such as the hostel, a fun class. When I get to my destination, I love going to museums and art galleries, almost as much as I love shopping in used bookstores. To avoid the high cost and relatively poor quality of restaurant food while travelling, I like to stay in Hostels and buy food from a grocery store and cook as much of my own as possible. Years ago as a reckless youth, I would spend money without a plan and buy things I wanted without restrictions. Maturity is allowing me to have a much more positive experience not just travelling, but also in living pay time to pay time.

Well dear readers, I hope this hasn’t been too much of a read for anyone. I love to hear feedback and suggestions of topics. I also like to be told when I either pick a lame subject that has been done to death by me or anyone else you follow, or if I do what I sometimes do and write without a strict plan and wander off topic too much. All of you can help make me a better writer by doing these things and I will be able to follow you as a result. Please introduce yourself and your own blogs or podcasts in my chat.