A quick Internet search on mental illnesses will bring you to the most common types, as well as the most common symptoms. While in theory that’s helpful, using google to define your brain is a game with no end. Once I turned 13 and my psychological world flipped over, I fell into the trap, and I Googled everything. To this day, nearly 6 years later, I still scour the Internet in hopes of answers.
The Internet lays it out pretty simply to cover the basics, in a tidy list of “The Top 12 Symptoms of Problem A.” But this gave me the wrong idea about mental illness. After many years of research, talks with friends with similar issues, and discussions with trained professionals, I’m less than pleased to announce that nobody really knows what the fuck is going on.
Defining the mind is an impossible task.
My psyche is still quite a mystery, and I’m trying to accept that it probably will remain a mystery forever. But I have learned a few things that I’d like to share.
First, there are issues that come along with mental illnesses that are less common, therefore no one tells you about it. Everyone knows depression is a dip of emptiness or sadness that can lead to self- and world-hatred. Everyone knows anxiety involves a rapid heartbeat, racing thoughts, possibly even panic attacks. But it took about 5 years and 3 professionals for me to learn that yes, you can have both. They seem so separate, so in commercials and Google searches, they’re separated. But it is completely possible to deal with both.
And that is what my current psychiatrist says I have - that is why I’m difficult to diagnose, and why my friends and family often don’t believe I have a problem. When you can’t fit somebody’s issue into a box and he/she can still function in daily life, it’s easy to dismiss them as overreacting.
But I promise you, as somebody who didn’t admit to anyone there was an issue until the last year or so, it’s not an overreaction when you’re unhappy and want to do something about it. It takes a ton of effort to ask for help.
Then comes a turning point.
When I learned that my problem is more complex than I assumed, things started to click. It occurred to me that certain problems in my life are not me being insane, they’re symptoms. For example, one particular symptom no one talks about (but is more common than you’d think) is dreaming.
And I don’t mean having dreams generally, I mean vivid, wild dreams that make you wake up every day confused, scared or both. Here’s a mini science lesson to explain it better: often when people experience anxiety or depression, or even other illnesses like bipolar disorder, the REM cycle of sleep is extended past the normal term per cycle, thus people with these disorders are more likely to have long and memorable dreams.
So more days than not, I wake up feeling frazzled and like I never slept, wondering what the heck is wrong with my subconscious because of the dreams I had. I just thought I was a part-time psychopath, but it turns out there’s more to a brain than what WebMD can account for. Go figure.
My experience is far from over, but I know that there are people like me out there.
There are people sitting behind a computer incessantly searching for answers about why they feel so abnormal.
If this sounds like you, my advice is to reflect on yourself. Think about you as a person, the way you act, the things you love, and why you behave in these ways. Then find someone you trust, or better yet a professional, and tell them what you've seen in yourself. Even if you think something is an insignificant detail (like I did about frequent dreaming), share your experience.
I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned about myself by starting a conversation with “This is probably irrelevant but…” You can't learn everything, and it will take time, but learning about yourself away from a computer screen is an amazing thing. The thought of asking for help can be a weight on your shoulders, and like a real weight, it will only hurt more in the long run if you hesitate to lift it.
You deserve happiness. And you can find it—just not through a search engine.