The Road to change
I’ve been thinking a lot about the act of advocacy and what it means the last few weeks. Advocacy aims to influence decisions within political, economic, and social systems. Put simply, advocates want to change the world. I’ve been an advocate in the mental health space for more than a decade now. Functioning at the national stage for just over eight years at this point.
I’ve worked in public policy, speaking, mentoring, research, and other areas. Whatever people asked me to do, I generally said “yes.” It was important to me to not only metaphorically give back to the legion of friends and family who kept me alive during the depths of my addiction and illness, but also change the systems not only made things worse, but actively abused me…and continue the same those in similar situations.
During this time, I’ve met others who speak to their own experiences with addiction, mental health, and recovery. Especially in the keynote space. There’s something that’s become an increasing concern gnawing at me. Something I believe is problematic. Something damaging to the audience they’re supposedly there to inspire.
All of the troubles they talk about are spoken of in the distant past tense.
It’s never their present.
I had one of the most catastrophic episodes of my bipolar disorder in my life earlier this year. At the time of this writing, it was not even five months ago. The constant background radiation of the suicidal ideations that I’ve had since I was 15 got so loud that I couldn’t push them back anymore that they were clawing at me like nails on a chalkboard. This was problematic for multiple reasons.
The first, of course, is that my neurochemically driven mood was so low that I was obsessed with the need to take my own life and couldn’t think about anything else. I couldn’t engage in my hobbies to distract myself. When I tried to attend meetings, or get any work done, I was distracted or rambling because I was just trying to talk to drown out the noise.
The second is that I’m actually terrified of dying and pretty committed to living, and thus never going to take my own life. So when I’m full of suicidal ideations, the intent fills me with impotent rage…because I know I’m never going to do it and relieve that pressure in my skull. So it just vibrates constantly like a jar full of bees. This anger spills over in every interaction with other people. Because of this, I do my best to isolate and save others from the intensity I have seeping out of every aspect of my being. Something that’s not great for anyone in that place, thus creating a vicious cycle of an unhealthy catch-22.
So I did the right thing and walked into our local crisis center and got the help I needed to process the situation. The next day I had an emergency appointment with my therapist, and two days after that, an appointment with my med manager. Every day for a week after that, I had a phone call with a counselor, and regular check-ins with social support–be it a family member, friend, or one of the treatment team now on red alert.
Importantly, however. I also talked about it on my social media channels as soon as I was ready to do so, and I’m talking about it here and now.
I’m not doing this performatively. Or maybe I am. What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t make up this breakdown for the sake of garnering attention, and I’m not milking it for that effect either. I’m simply talking about the realities of it to make sure the people who need to know that even those who have been in recovery for 12 years and do all the “right” things, can and do still have times of crisis and horribleness and need to seek help.
Because too many “advocates” or other public-facing folks (especially at the national tiers) hide their “breakdowns,””relapses,” or”, ”setbacks” – however you want to refer to them. Something I think actively harms their audiences because that same audience is full of people who very much have to live with the same things we do and begin to think of themselves as failures. To quote one of the messages I received:
A few times over the years, I’ve had breakdowns in the middle of speaking on stage and, at the time, I was both embarrassed and horrified. Having an activating event never feels like a happy funball, and the nightmares, brain fog, and jumpiness for the next few weeks are never sunshine and roses. Besides, I pride myself on being a pretty darn good storyteller. Freezing up with tears in your eyes and hyperventilating with PTSD-filled memories from your time in solitary confinement causing you to forget specific sequences of events, or even whole sections of a narrative isn’t all that great for a person who talks for a living either.
But my job is to bring that lived experience to the table and show what the impact is, and nothing does that more than demonstrating it in the rawest form.
I’m certainly not advocating for the deliberate triggering of advocates or speakers, or the performative demonstration of such. That’s one of the worst things I can imagine, and would lessen the collective value of all of our work. What I am saying is that I’ll no longer punish myself for when it happens to me, which it of course, it will. Because I’m going to keep doing the work. Because that’s the mission.
What I’m also advocating for is that others with platforms share their own struggles. Our audiences need to know we still have them. Because that should be the mission for all of us. We keep saying “recovery is a journey, not a destination.”
Then we need to show them the road we all walk together.