Guest Post: Life Is Like Planning a Trip Across Antartica

Sheldon's note: Today's guest post is from Lana of the blog Lana Hobbs the Brave. She is a wife, mother, and ex-Christian who grew up in the world of Christian fundamentalism.

I have to say that I greatly admire her courage in speaking so openly about mental illness both here and on her blog (under her own name, no less). She has been diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder, and like me, has her strong suspicions that she is autistic as well.

If you haven't done so already, check out yesterday's post for a link to my recent guest post on her blog.

Once upon a time there was a woman who just couldn't be happy, who couldn't keep her house clean, and who had trouble making friends. 

That would be me.

Sometimes I may look like a lazy person with a bad attitude, but actually I suffer from bipolar disorder 2 -- with a lot of depression -- and am probably aspergers. 

What life with mental illness and autism spectrum disorders means is that a person must work very hard just to seem ‘normal’. 

An autistic person works much harder to do what comes naturally to a neurotypical person. This post does an excellent job of explaining this dynamic.

I think the concept works for mental illness, too. For example, at times I have to work very hard to simply NOT think about suicide all day long. It takes all my brain power to constantly redirect my thoughts. 

At other times, I’m hypomanic and everything feels like a huge deal. I must accomplish ALL THE THINGS immediately! And heaven forbid anyone stands in my way. 

When this happens, I have to concentrate very hard to remind myself to slow down and not holler at everyone who is irritating me by walking too slowly.

When I’m anxious, just picking out which barbecue sauce to buy at the store feels like I am planning a trip across Antarctica. And then I have to do that a dozen more times, for every item. It can be exhausting. I sometimes only make it through by muttering to myself aloud. I probably look insane and out of control, but the fact is that I am working very hard to be in as much control as I am. Without all my willpower and effort, I would be standing blankly in the middle of the very first aisle.

What Am I? OCD? Autistic? Do I Have The Courage To Find Out For Sure?

I have been questioned before about the symptoms that I have, both publicly and privately whenever I have discussed my frustrations about my difficulties in relating to people, and when I talk about how my mind works, such as when I did in Tuesday's post, This Is How I Feel Sometimes.

Many people have said that it sounds more like high functioning autism/Aspberger's syndrome than OCD. The short answer to that question I don't really know.

I have researched both disorders quite extensively, read the blogs of people living with both, and I've even spent time reading through the forums at the popular autism support site Wrong Planet, many of the stories of people, and their frustrations to some extent, sound like I could have wrote those post. The irony of the site's name isn't lost on me either, I've felt sometimes like I was born onto the wrong planet.

You see, I haven't been to a psychiatrist before, and I haven't been formally tested. I know I really shouldn't be saying anything about what I have until I finally do, but there's many reasons why I haven't gone ahead and been formally diagnosed.

I really don't know what it would accomplish. What am I looking for? 

In some ways, I've already come to terms with who I am, and I really don't know what I would be hoping this would accomplish. In many ways, if the tests come out as I expect, saying that I am either OCD or high functioning autistic, it's not as though I didn't know that already. Would I really gain anything by finding out for sure?

Am I still having some lingering doubts/guilt from my past?

As I talked about in my two part guest series on My Secret Atheist Blog, I grew up in a household that was, (how should I put this politely?) unenlightened about mental illness and psychiatry. I was told after a nervous breakdown that the resulting depression and anxiety attacks were nothing more than simply "guilt" and that if I got back into what their idea of what was a "right relationship with god" then everything would change.

Of course now, I know that's nothing but pure ignorance, mental illnesses are caused primarily by biological factors, but even though one may consciously know this, it can sink deep into the mind, I wonder if this is part of my apprehension.

Am I just merely making excuses? Do I need to just let it all go, and do it anyway?

These are the questions I keep pondering over....

My rant about a bigoted Postsecret submission

This is from one of my favorite sites, Postsecret, it truly is one of the greatest sites on the web. People send in postcards, anonymously, with their mostly deeply held  secrets, to the site's founder in upstate New York.

Submissions range from the mundane to the shocking and hilarious. Postsecret's founder, Frank Warren seems to have a policy of not censoring secrets due to their subject matter or offensiveness. Comments are not allowed on the blog itself, but on a separate site known as "Postsecret Community".

This week there was a submission that well, to put it mildly, royally pissed me off.

For those of you that don't know, Aspberger's is the most highly functioning form of autism. For more information, click here. Why this postcard pisses me off is the assumption this person is making that someone with autism is lying about having their condition to get away with being an "asshole", in the words of the secret sender.

I'm sure that there may be one or two people out there who may be doing this in the world, to get away with offensive behavior, or to gain sympathy, but I highly doubt this is the case. Why this makes me angry is that there are many ignorant and bigoted people out there who would assume such a thing about a person, probably for no good reason. I have depression and OCD, and I will that in person, I don't tell many people I have it, because there are so many people out there, riding on a high horse, just like the person who sent this postcard, who do not understand mental illness, and have a burning hatred for those of us out there who are not "normal" by their standards. I have been mocked, misunderstood, told that my depression isn't real, that it was the result of "guilt" (about what, they never told me, and I don't know to this day). I have heard people say that depression is "unconfessed sin", I have had my own family deny my mental illness.

I'm telling you this to say that if you have the notion that mentally ill people have it easier in this world, shake that idea out of your brain now, it's a flat out lie. Ask anyone you know with depression, bipolar disorder, autism, how they have been treated by people in their lives, and the misconceptions people have told them.

Why anyone would lie and voluntarily put themselves through this kind of hate, misunderstanding and discrimination is beyond me, and strikes me as highly unlikely. 

I have to wonder, the person who sent in this postcard, if it would change their mind if they ended up having a son or daughter with autism? What if they themselves came down with depression or schizophrenia?

Would they treat their son or daughter the same way they have treated this person? Would they have the same skepticism and bigotry, or would they finally come to their senses and finally learn more and become a more accepting person? How would they feel if they were the person with mental illness, and had to face the same kind of stupidity they are spouting day after day? 

I think they would start seeing things from a whole different light than their current, bigoted point of view.