"Mental Health May"
by Jamie Allen Bishop
Written 5/1/2020
Mental Health is a subject close to my heart. I have experienced first hand how important the love and caring of my own mental health is, and I have coached many family, friends, and clients through some extremely challenging experiences.
Mental illness is defined as a wide variety of conditions that affect mood, thinking, and behavior. Taking that definition into account, I believe mental illness is far more prominent in our society than we'd like to admit. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, approximately 16% of people suffer from mental illness (that's 1 in 6 people), but I believe that percentage to be much higher.
With the understanding that mental illness ranges in severity (for example) from an experience-triggered depression to hormonal depression to chronic depression, I believe every single person alive has experienced one form of mental illness. That's quite a statement, I realize, but I stand behind it. After all, being born might count as a mentally traumatic experience.
One of the problems with treating mental illness in our society is that we disregard signs like addiction or pain as symptoms of mental illness. Our society also accepts many mental illnesses as normal or expected - depression, anxiety, and PTSD (post-traumatic-stress-disorder), to name a few. Few people outside the psychological profession discuss why the mental illness exists, and even fewer get the help needed to persevere through the difficult patches of life.
The best way I know to break the cycle of both blind acceptance and quiet taboo is to talk about it... get it out in the open... discuss that which is traditionally not OK to consider.
So, let's take out a few of my family skeletons as threads of examples as to "why" mental illness is necessary to discuss. And, let's discuss how to heal.
There are a great many examples from my own bloodline that I could use, but I've chosen to start with the most dramatic examples (at least, they're the most dramatic examples in my mind's eye). So dramatic to me that in 1990, I wrote a book about the drama my family attracts, titled, "Normal Family Life: Generation X Style." It was never published. It was a bit too close to home, and I didn't want to "out" any of my family members on things they weren't ready to face. However, writing it was extremely healing to me. Besides, there's WAY TOO MUCH family drama to write just one book!
If you care to read further, I ask that you set aside your ideas of what mental illness means to you and follow me down the hellfire rabbit hole that was my birth dad's upbringing. All parties involved are currently deceased (my great-grandfather, my grandfather, and my father). Also, I was not close to any of these family members. In fact, my relationship with each of them was such that I can count on one hand the total number of individual conversations I had with them (collectively).
With my own spin and based on a variety of stories from many family members, this story is all wrapped up and illustrated brilliantly on the storyboard in my mind. So, bear with me as I recall the details to explain in writing what mental illness challenges led to my lack of relationship with the paternal side of my family.
My great-grandfather was born in 1898 and raised in Ohio. He lived to be 99 years old and died in Southern California. He was above average in height for his generation and a tough man who lived alone for decades. He was married twice, had two children, and lived a simple man's existence. He was a man of few words, and he was very proud of the photographs he had collected over his lifetime. He didn't have many images (the 1900s weren't quite as well photographed as the 2000s have been), but if a picture is worth a 1,000 words, each photograph he kept told a detailed story of a survivor's life. The few times I met him, I found him to be a fascinating person. The last time I visited with him was when I was 20-years old (the third time I remember ever seeing him), and he still did his laundry on a washboard. (That was 1991.) Our visits to see him were extremely rare. Come to find out, there was a good reason.
In Ohio, my great-grandfather was a member of the KKK, as was his daddy (I suspect). With all the horrible implications and fear-based memories our modern society shackles with that brotherhood, we sometimes forget that in smalltown USA, the KKK (much like city gangs or the mafia) was a group of people you didn't say no to for fear of the consequences against your family. Can you imagine living in a farm town, dependent on your neighbors for food, shelter supplies, doctors, education, etc.? If you pissed off the wrong person, you were on your own... if you lived to see another day.
Honestly, I have no idea how my great-grandfather felt about his involvement with the KKK because he (of course) never talked about it. Mental health-wise, at a minimum, he suffered PTSD involving the heart-wrenching and scary things he witnessed. Regardless of his participation in the activities, those experiences stay with a man. And, on his death bed, I know they all came rushing back at him with a vengeance.
I do know that my great-grandfather moved to California in the 1920s to begin his family, and (I suspect) to get away from the lifestyle he was raised believing.
If you know anything about me, you know I believe wholeheartedly in karma. In a perfectly serendipitous twist of fate, my great-grandfather's family home in California - once in a prominent, middle-to-upper class (1950s white) neighborhood - ended up being a black neighborhood during the last decades of his life. If you've ever visited an aging person in his family home, you know he tends to need help with home maintenance and chores from time to time. Without family to turn to, my great-grandfather learned to set his pride, his fear, and his preconceived notions aside to rely on his neighbors. As fate would have it, his best friend and confidant during his final years of life was his (African) neighbor. (I love how karma works!)
Anyhoo, back to the mental illness story...
I mention the KKK history because, as you might imagine, my great-grandfather was an extremely harsh husband to his wife and (by today's standards) a cruel father to his children. This doesn't mean he didn't love them the best way he knew how, but let's face it - his idea of love had to be a bit fucked up! As was traditional in the early-to-mid 1900s, his love was shown by what he could provide for his family, with a side order of physical and emotional abuse.
My great-grandfather never received mental illness help.
My grandfather was the opposite of his father in many ways. He was an extremely handsome, physically fit (to his dying day), and tall man who presented as a kind-hearted, manly-man willing to share the shirt off his back. He was well-respected in his circle of influence, and he lived a long and full life. He, too, died at age 99, just shy of his 100th birthday. (He wanted to best his old man by reaching that milestone birthday, but living a few months longer would have to do!) My grandfather was everything that his father was not - loving, thoughtful, and overly accommodating. In fact, he was a bit of a pushover. Having the childhood he did, and becoming the man he chose to be, his only vice (that I'm aware of) was pretty girls. He ended up being that dirty old man who shoved his tongue down every pretty girl's throat! (Bleeccchhh!)
As a pushover, my grandfather married his beautiful high school sweetheart and had children right away. When his mother moved in to "help with the children," more of what he experienced in his childhood began to surface. Keeping in mind my great-grandfather, her husband, was still alive, my great-grandmother wouldn't leave her son's home. My grandmother begged her husband to "be a man" and "send your mom away." Rumor has it that there may have been an incestuous mother-son situation going on, and when my grandmother turned to alcohol to cope, her addiction triggered a dormant paranoid schizophrenic disorder.
After my grandmother threatened her husband's life, her mother-in-law's life, her own life, and then the lives of their children (my aunt and my daddy), she was institutionalized. After at least five lobotomies and shock-therapy, when she was returned home, she was in a permanently vegetative state and lived far too long under the rule of her monster-in-law and pushover husband.
I can only imagine what kind of childhood trauma my grandmother survived to become an alcoholic schizophrenic. I am willing to bet the farm that she didn't receive mental illness help as a child, nor did she receive marriage counseling.
My grandfather never received mental illness help.
(Good God! Can you believe this story is legit?)
Finally, we come to my father, a man raised by his incestuous grandmother, a passive father, and a mom in a vegetative state. You can guess how mentally stable he was!
When my parents met, my father was a gorgeous surfer dude who had been the captain on his high school football team and was living a partying beach bum lifestyle. My mom, also from an abusive and mentally distraught family background (but that's a story for another book), felt "lucky enough" to catch the eye of the handsome devil. When pregnant at 21 and 18, my parents were headed down a path of easy success, right? (Insert sarcastic laugh-cough here.) I could get into the challenges their relationship faced, but I won't. It's not a pretty story.
My father never received mental illness help.
(I'm noticing a trend in the lives of my male role models, here. Doh!)
Not receiving mental illness help resulted in lives that were challenging. I realize the mental wellness industry has come a long way, but talk therapy was available in the 1880s, and in the 1950s when a lot of this chaos went down, talk therapy was available to the masses. Since it's still thought of as weakness - especially for men, I can attest to the fact that talk therapy wasn't the first choice of these men.
Here are the consequences of not receiving mental health support:
1) My great-grandfather raised a mentally ill son and ended up alone for 30+ years, bitter and solitary.
2) My grandfather raised a mentally ill son and ended up alone for 30+ years.
3) My father ended up addicted to just about every possible drug at one point in time or another (alcohol, weed, cocaine, crack cocaine, ecstasy, shrooms, PCP, crystal meth, and religion, to name a few), and he ended up with a difficult family life. He died at the tender age of 69, which (considering his bloodline) was quite young.
Here's where my story takes a completely different path because of one woman in my life. (Thank you, mom!)
My mom sought the professional emotional and mental help she needed to release the baggage from her childhood (and there was plenty, including my father's behavior). She continued receiving support until she was able to forgive herself and the people who might have brought her life down. This support helped her move into a healthier, happier, and more successful life. My mom is the reason I feel my life has been so successful. She not only set the example of being willing to receive help but also has been a huge advocate for me to get support when I've needed it. I am ever grateful to her for being the example she wishes to see in the world.
May is mental health awareness month, and help is out there every day of the year. There are free programs. There are free call lines. There are a great number of ways to feel supported that are healthy to your physical, emotional, and spiritual wellness. I welcome you to become aware of how you support you. Are you willing to hear things that make you uncomfortable, or are you making sure your support is your opinion in someone else's voice (which is not true support)? True support will push you past your comfort zone of complaints and condemnation of others into a world where you see every possibility and every forgiveness necessary to make you feel whole.
While life has challenges to face, I am here to tell you that a happy, healthy, and successful life is easy. That easy life has only two factors: (1) focus; and, (2) willingness to receive (help).
If you are in need of help for a mental illness, I highly recommend seeking professional help. Most employer insurance covers much of that cost.
If you are in need of counsel around the general life you lead - purpose, communication, action, relationships, trust, or abundance, my #KarmicSoulReset coaching program may be a lovely fit. I have over 13 years of experience in the personal and professional coaching industry, and (Lord-knows) I have a whole heck of a lot of life experience to back up my knowledge. Interested folks can contact me through email: jamie@soulheartentertainment.com.
Do you have an easy life? What do you focus on? When were you willing to receive help? I would love to read your answers in the comments below.
Happy Mental Health Awareness Month. All my best to your mental wellness!
Warmly,
Jamie Allen Bishop, MA
