Lessons Learned about my Mental Health

Living with mental illness I have learned many things about how to overcome the deepest darkest parts of Schizoaffective disorder amidst other illness. I am officially diagnosed with Schizoaffective disorder, but my psychiatrist and therapist have told me I also have concurrent disorders. Essentially, this means I have other mental illness that exist amidst my main diagnoses. I would like to start off by saying, this post is going to be about the top 10 most important things I have learned about living with severe mental illness and how to overcome it. Without further a due, let's start with the most important lesson I have learned.

1. Accepting my mental illness: I believe the most important step towards healing from an illness is to first of all... come to terms of accepting the illness 100%. To accept the illness is to recognize that it will never go away, and it will be with me for the rest of my life. I will always have to manage it. I will always need to stay on top of taking my medication and be medication compliant. I will need to learn the warnings signs and symptoms so I can communicate that with my support network. In order to overcome the illness, I'll need to understand it in depth and be okay with this being a part of my life.

2. Being okay with not being okay: This step can be tricky sometimes because I have to recognize that I am not doing well, but I also have to seek support to help protect other and myself. Which can be messy because I can easily and quickly become irrational and illogical, plus impulsive with extremely intense emotions. The key for me is to recognize before hand when I am about to go off the deep end, and act before hand to do something about it.

3. Building an emergency plan: Over time, I have built quite a few different emergency plans especially during times I knew my mental illness would flare up. Like when I was pregnant with my first child. In my emergency plan, I found the most helpful things to include was to list my signs and symptoms so I am more aware of what to look for when I am not well. The next pieces of information I put in my emergency plan was to assess how I can manage the illness on my own at first and if in an emergency; where to go, who to talk to, and what to do. I also gave others a copy of this plan, and I kept it in different locations so I could review it regularly.

4. Taking medication on time: Not only taking my medications on time as prescribed by my psychiatrist, but letting my psychiatrist know my symptoms and signs I would have while taking the medication so I can be on the right medicine for the best results.

5. Building a support network: Building a supportive network and being resourceful, I feel go hand in hand. I must be resourceful first before I can build a supportive network. I am going to explain a supportive network first because it is crucial to have some people aware of my symptoms and signs before I can build on being resourceful. Basically, I started with whom I had most close to me and eventually branched out more as I became more comfortable with my illness. The more people I have on my support team the more successful I will be in managing and treating my illness.

6. Being extremely resourceful: I have found that the more I know about who and what is offered in my community and city; the better off I am. I noticed that I will be able to reach out to the appropriate resources as needed and at the right time. As an added bonus, I can direct others to the appropriate recourses when necessary.

7. Knowing my symptoms like a pro: This one took me a long time, and I am still learning everyday. Recently, I have learned that the Bipolar piece of my illness is a daily occurrence. I tend to get irrational and angry with those I love and who are closes to me. Knowing my signs and symptoms like a pro has helped me to help myself and seek help sooner, and learn when to so called "snap-out of it." The problem though with people telling others to just "snap-out of it," is ineffective because the person who is being irrational is probably already too far gone to recognize on their own that they need to "snap-out of it." Which is why saying that statement never works. The best thing you can do is be patient, watch to keep them safe and others, learn when to walk away, or get them emergency help. Also, the reason why people need to recognize they are being irrational on their own gives them a feeling of control over themselves, and they can feel like they figured it out on their own. Honestly, it is the most compassionate things you can do for others is to let them solve their problems on their own unless they ask for help. Like I said it gives them a sense of power and control over themselves.

8. Having a self-care routine: I love my self-care routines because they help me re-center, recommit, and feel refreshed. Whether that is journaling, doing art, meditating, or calling a friend to vent. I can have a safe place to gain those feelings when I am in a dark place in my head.

9. Knowing when to ask for help (or more importantly to accept help): This is also very important for me because I cannot tackle and take on this illness by myself all of the time because Schizophrenia can become a very delusional point of view. Accepting help, and asking for help is the best lesson I have learned to keep my illness at bay.

10. Learning to say "no," and managing stress: This is a very important lesson for me to learn and I am still learning because saying "no" to others when they need help from me, is hard because my personality is super compassionate and loving. However, I need to learn this lesson because I'll end up taking on too many things and then stressing myself out. Over time I have learned, that stress is the worst culprit for bring on mental illness and other physical symptoms too.

Bonus:

11. Staying away from substances: Every time I have had a coffee, it spikes my anxiety. Every time I have had a cigarette, it has made me irritable. Every time I have had cannabis, I have had psychosis. I think you get the point. Every time I decide to have some sort of substance it has effected my mental health. So I know personally I need stay away from those substances and live a healthy lifestyle. Eating nutritiously, and exercising are the best choices I can make for my mental health. Even though I know these things, it can still be difficult for me to resist the temptation of a cigarette or a coffee from time to time. I know that this is for the best for me, but my personality can be pretty rebellious and stubborn in the wrong ways sometimes. That means I need to have a better plan in place in order to take care of my mental health the best.

All-in-all over time, I have learned that my mental illness will always be a learning process, but since I have these illness I personally feel it has made me a stronger and more capable person in the end. It has helped me grow in ways I would have never grown without the illnesses. I don't see so called "failure" as a bad things anymore. I actually see it as a success, because it has taught me how to do things differently. I will always have mental illness, but that does not mean I am in a ball-'N'-chain for the rest of my life. It just means, my path will be different then others and I will be stronger and more capable because of it.

Let me know, how has your mental health helped you grow and learn? What were your greatest and toughest lessons?

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See you next time!

Sincerely,

Megan Rae Ledyit