I’m reading an article by Linda Logan, who is diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder II. She discusses how we need to revisit treatment of bipolar disorder to include identifying ourselves in the context of our mental illnesses.
Amy Barnhorst, a psychiatrist at the University of California, Davis, told me, is the unique set of challenges facing people who have experienced mania and hypomania. “The parts of the selves that may come out” in mania and hypomania, which can be horrifying, “are very real,” she said, making it difficult for patients “to reconcile those behaviors with their self as they have come to know it.” In mania and hypomania, the sick self has no accountability; the improved self has a lot of explaining, and often apologizing, to do.
For many people with mental disorders, the transformation of the self is one of the most disturbing things about being ill. And their despair is heightened when doctors don’t engage with the issue, don’t ask about what parts of the self have vanished and don’t help figure out strategies to deal with that loss.
It is exceptionally hard to reconcile mental illness with our sense of self prior to being diagnosed with mental illness. We may have been successful, intelligent, fun people, but in the throes of depression, we may feel we are stupid, no fun to be around, and lost. Once we are no longer symptomatic with depression, we may look back on our time of depression with shame, or question “How could I have lost myself when I was depressed?” or “How do I explain my behavior to those around me?”
Therapy is important even when we are “recovered” or “in remission” to be able to understand and fully integrate our mental illness into our sense of self in a positive, non-judgmental way.
Jess Graner, Mental Health Therapist 