Mental Health and Life

 For many years I have been aware that I have mental health issues to deal with. Addiction being the biggest and most obvious one.

And add into that mix on and off Depression and PTSD and you get a pretty good mix of stuff that goes on in my daily life.

It can be "Interesting" 🙄

As time has gone by I have discovered that I am not anywhere close to alone with this. In the Recovery world that I live in it is very common for people to have a Sponsor and a Therapist. And as I get further and further integrated into the world that I ran away from for so long I am finding that mental health issues are also very common here as well. Although not anywhere near as well addressed. Many people who do not have some version of personal development do not recognize or acknowledge their mental health issues.

The Stigma towards Mental Health in our Society is still very Negative and very Strong. And yet, we still continue to create a society that people feel they need to escape from.

And let me just emphasize here, I am not saying that Mental Health Issues are a total result of wanting to escape a harsh and unforgiving world. I am well aware that there are also physical and mental aspects of this that have nothing to do with my being insecure and not wanting to be here. I am saying that it does contribute mightily.

And we still have the Stigma around mental health.

Now let us unpack "Create a society that people feel they need to escape from".

When I first started running away from the world I was about five and a half to six years old. That seems awful young to become an escape artist one would think. And yet, I am finding it much more common than you think. Kids are more and more getting scared of this world and running away. IE, going inside. Which is what I did.

And this leads us to the parents. To be clear, I am not blaming parents. I am blaming the Society that sets up these situations.

Looking at my life, our parents were not set up to succeed either. They worked too hard and were not around enough. Why? Because that is the society we created.

They never had learned how to express their emotions. Emotions were something to be ashamed of, not expressed. Not shared.

And loyalty to work and not home was something else that had been installed. Corporate America was the touchstone of peoples lives with the family and kids coming a very distant second. This is exemplified by the first question people would ask each other upon meeting, "What do you do for work?".

Add to this that in the Mental Health Field of the time they were handing out pills like candy. Our modern understanding of Addiction was still a long way off.

This did not give a lot of time for parenting.

So we had another broken generation growing up in a world to escape from. And a lot of us did. We used a lot of different methods.

Most of used addiction. And I do not mean JUST substance addiction either. Addiction has NOTHING to do with Substances. It has everything to do with Obsession, Compulsion, and supporting Actions, Attitudes, and Behaviors.

Sex, Rock and Roll, Shopping, Control, Eating Disorders, Overwork, Fantasy, all these and many more forms of escapism. Addiction. Anything you do because once you start thinking, obsessing over, it you cannot stop on your own. And once you start doing it, compulsing over it, you cannot stop on your own. And when outside forces stop you, you cannot stay stopped on your own.

That is Addiction. Again, nothing to with any particular thing. Actions, Attitudes, and Behaviors.

And now we get to life today. We have all of the above and endless War with the engineered breakdown of Civil Discourse in our Civil Society. Not only is there a lot to fear, there are many well paid people with well financed institutions spreading fear.

So there is a lot to escape from. And a lot of us do escape from it.

Our Mental Health is, in many ways, a direct result of Fear. We are afraid of a cold dark world that is selfish and cruel. By design. And we, the humans who inhabit this place and time, are the ones who have designed it that way.

There are several ways that we are all complicit in this design. 1) We actively participate demonizing others that do not agree with what we believe. 2) We do nothing and just try to keep out of it. I truly hate the phrase "I don't pay attention to politics". That means that you don't pay attention. And are probably afraid to tackle something that seems so huge and unruly. 3) You concentrate on what you are against instead of promoting what you are for.

We have a society that is locked in Fear. And many of us want to not be afraid. So we escape. And this has lead many of us to having to deal with mental health issues. And our society then condemns us for being weak. It is a vicious circle.

How did I escape this trap? Who is to say that I did. I still have to deal with Addiction. I am way past the substance part of the addiction, I am substance free for over 26 years. I still have to deal with Addictive Behaviors on a regular basis. Eating and not great health are two of those ways addiction still shows up for me.

And I still have to deal with Depression and PTSD. Those are the mental health issues of my life.

And the way that I deal with all of this is a program of Recovery in Narcotics Anonymous called the 12 Steps. Those give me a set of directions on how to be Responsible for my Life. All of it.

To be clear, I am not responsible for the stuff that happened to me. I am responsible for my reaction or response to what happened to me.

I am responsible for the child I was who looked at the world and basically checked out.

I am responsible for using Blame, Shame, Hate, and Fear to excuse my avoidance of my life.

I am responsible for becoming a Perpetrator and refusing to acknowledge that I had become all those things that I hated in the world.

I am Responsible for every thought and action of my Life.

And, oddly enough, for me, Being Responsible allows me to, mostly, hold those demons at bay and live a life worth living.

Do I have moments when I do not do it well? Yes. Do I have moments when I slip into behaviors that are not in alignment with Being Responsible? Yes. Do I have moments of Self Pity and all the stuff above that helped me avoid life? Yes.

And all of that is coming with less frequency and when I do fall into that trap I do not stay there as long as I used to. It was decades. Today it is truly moments.

And that, my Dear Friends, is because I have a Community of like minded people that are doing the same thing that I am doing. We support each other through Good Times and Bad. And we help each other see what we are being in the moment and help hold each other to the higher standard that we have declared for ourselves.

So, in conclusion, one way out of the Mental Health Wreck that is modern society is Community. With a couple of caveats.

• This Community must be based in Love. Not Fear.
• This Community must recognize that it is a community and not a bunch of lone wolves going in a common direction.
• This Community should recognize the need to be each others Eyes and Ears. Because while I can see you coming, I cannot see myself coming. We need to see for each other.
• And finally, this Community must be For Each other and not Against anyone or anything.

So there it is. My long, and somewhat disjointed, look at mental health in our modern society. My Hope, what I am For, is that, together, we can create a Society that works for Everyone that we no longer need to escape from.

That is what I Stand For.