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Managing who has known about my mental health condition has been an ongoing challenge. There have been many times where people have known things I wasn’t aware of or other times where I thought they had awareness whereas they didn’t.
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During my second episode of psychosis my parents were forced to cancel a lot of plans with their friends to help me when I was struggling. On their end, their friends were wondering if they were avoiding them. Their friends could sense they had been lying and they also didn’t want to lie so they eventually told them about my diagnosis.
I had a strong reaction to this and I didn’t talk to them for over two weeks. The thought of more people knowing about my diagnosis of schizophrenia at the time was terrifying. It was really distressing for me when people knew about my mental health at this point in my recovery. The diagnosis carries a lot of stigma and judgment with it and this has been challenging. Another challenging component is that my episodes were really embarrassing and I didn’t want people asking me questions about my health or knowing about my diagnosis at all.
Along with this I was twenty-four years old and living at home, and I was at an age where I was wanting more autonomy. This contributed to the stress in my family dynamic. I was incensed that my parents took the liberty of making the decision to tell others without consulting me or asking me how I felt about it. They projected that it was safe to tell these people which felt even more distressing that they were the ones choosing who could know about my mental health without consulting me or seeing how I felt. Aside from the consideration of who is or isn’t safe to share information with, they never necessarily considered maybe my diagnosis just isn’t something I wanted anyone knowing about regardless of who they deem safe.
People who were safe for them were not people who I felt safe with and I also don’t think they should have taken the liberty of deeming who was or wasn’t a safe person to share my information with. I grew up in a small town where everyone shared what they knew about each other. Keeping secrets was nearly impossible. I think the thing that was even more distressing about this situation was the assumption of ownership they took over me. Without even asking me they thought they could take the prerogative to just disclose my most personal health dilemma to people I barely knew, as if they had rights over my personal information or they could just do what they wanted with me. This element of autonomy has been an ongoing dilemma in our dynamic.
From their vantage point they had this mentality that I had nothing to be ashamed of and I don’t have to hide anything, which sounds good on paper but had no baring on how I felt about my condition. My vantage point is that although I’m fairly open as an author I really don’t want anyone in my personal life knowing about my mental health condition if they don’t need to. People having known about my mental health condition causes them to treat me differently, think of me differently, it has caused rumors, and it causes people to say awkward or strange things around me, along with many other problems that arise within social dynamics.
In social settings with friends it’s also been hard to manage who does or doesn’t know about my mental health condition. Throughout my friend groups when I meet people’s significant others I usually tend to think that if one person knows they both know. A part of this feels like a relief in that the significant other knows and they’re not against me, but it’s definitely an awkward feeling when I’m meeting someone whom I assume knows a very personal piece of information about me and I don’t have certainty over this either way.
During these meetings it feels like we’re both aware of this information and it’s in the air but it’s just not being stated. There’s also the element of wanting to have certainty as to whether they know my diagnosis and I really just don’t know and that bothers me. It also worries me that their perception of me is being shaped by hearing my diagnosis before they actually meet me and get to know me as a person. It’s made meeting people within friend groups an awkward occurrence for me and a little bit unnerving at times having the knowledge that I’m surrounded by people who might have judgments or thoughts and ideas about what I’ve been through without me having awareness as to what they truly know. It’s another element of just not being able to have any control over who knows about my condition.
In the beginning of my mental health journey I wanted full control over who knew about my condition because it felt safe. Control in general has been a defense mechanism for me within my mental health journey. I had this notion that if I could control what everyone knows about me I’ll be able to control what they think or feel about me. This felt safe and felt like an easier way to make friends. In the beginning there were less people who knew and I felt like I had a safety net and some privacy. It was nice knowing that when I met new people they were greeting me with a fresh mindset. For some of the following years when there were some people who knew but not everyone, it felt incredibly distressing having to tolerate the uncertainty of not knowing who knew about my mental health condition.
It’s also been hard when I run into people I’ve known from the town I grew up in or whom I went to school with. There’s been this part of me that’s trying to figure out or gain some sense over how much they do or don’t know about my mental health condition which makes it harder for me to figure out what to say and do within the conversation. I’ve come to realize that a good portion of this has just been me being overly worried but there is a portion of it where I’m not wanting to be judged and I’m unsure where people stand with me having had schizophrenia. It was originally pretty terrifying having this knowledge but as I’ve gotten healthier I’ve cared increasingly less.
I went through this same progression at work as well. I’ve evolved to the point of wishing people could know about all the things I’ve been through without judging me but I just don’t see that happening either. I feel safe with most people knowing about my mental health condition at this point but not every detail of my experiences. This feeling of safety has come from self-acceptance of my mental health experiences. In the beginning I worried if others judged me I should judge myself and if others didn’t accept me I shouldn’t accept myself.
It took time but I reached a point of self-acceptance and having this self-acceptance has pacified my fears of whether others are judging me or not. Being at a point where I finally am not judging myself for what I’ve been through has made it a lot easier to not worry about what others think of me. Their opinions don’t have any baring on my self-perception any more, which has been a liberating vantage point.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
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