How I Understand Mental Illness

 What is mental illness? As I understand it. I can only ever explain something as I see it and if I've experienced it. The answer to what is mental illness might be an obvious answer to some, but not everyone. There's mental illness and then there's chronic mental illness too.

First off, health is not just physical. It's mind, body, spirit. If one is out of balance then, at some point, another part will be affected. All three are equally as important. NB: With spirit I mean your go-juice, what makes you happy, what gets you out of bed in the morning, your thirst for being. 

For me to best explain mental illness as I understand it then I must start with physical and genetic disorders. It all starts before you're even born. From the moment of conception you're already set up for predisposition. You're predisposed if your family history has cancer, stroke, heart disease, fibromyalgia, diabetes, alzheimers, blood clots, and the list goes on.

Not everything is purely down to genes. I have a prothrombin 20210 gene mutation. One of my parents has it and there was a 50% chance I would get it. I didn't find out I had it until I had a blood clot (pulmonary embolism) when I was 29. My chances are up because I am predisposed to developing clots, but why did I go 29 years without developing a clot?

Introducing the environmental factors. At the time I had pulmonary embolism I was quite unwell. I was underweight, suffering from muscle weakness, I had anaemia, and when I went christmas shopping I ended up spending two whole days in bed. I wasn't moving and I was probably dehydrated. So I got some clots.

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson

If you grew up with an emotionally immature, unavailable, or selfish parent, you may have lingering feelings of anger, loneliness, betrayal, or abandonment. You may recall your childhood as a time when your emotional needs were not met, when your feelings were dismissed, or when you took on adult levels of responsibility in an effort to compensate for your parent’s behaviour. These wounds can be healed, and you can move forward in your life.

In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay Gibson exposes the destructive nature of parents who are emotionally immature or unavailable. You will see how these parents create a sense of neglect, and discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion caused by your childhood. By freeing yourself from your parents’ emotional immaturity, you can recover your true nature, control how you react to them, and avoid disappointment. Finally, you’ll learn how to create positive, new relationships so you can build a better life.

Just my thoughts

Catching Up

I've been distracted lately. Or maybe the right term is busy. In a good way, mostly. 

My back has decided sitting at the dining table to type is not cool. I'm doing physio three times a week and a bunch of exercises three times a day. It's kinda made me not want to type or blog, but today I am taking over my partner's desk as she is in the office. I felt inspired.

I finished a great psychology book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson, and began a new one, Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. It's a big deal for me after the anhedonia and depression. I realised the other day I had begun a trilogy in January 2020, made it to the sequel, only to lose reading momentum at page 378. 378! That's some effort and yet apparently not enough for me lol. So, yeah, big deal for me.

I've officially started a book club. We're getting things underway, have chosen our first book, and have set the date for our first meet up. I had a book club years ago which I ran for two years. Unfortunately I was so triggered at the time, and unaware of it, that book club wasn't a fun experience for me. This time will be different and I'm quite excited.