Thanks to my friends and supporters for everything, but I too think it's time to walk away from DU. [View all]

[Denninmi]

As many of you may know, I took a big step last Friday and "came out" about my recently psychiatric break and my resulting admission into a psychiatric day program in a thread right here in the DU lounge. Until then, I had only discussed openly and in detail my problems on the DU Mental Health Support group, where a very small but wonderful group of amazing, kind, and compassionate people threw me a lifeline and talked me through one of the worst experiences of my life. I had made allusions here in the Lounge about things, but couldn't quite find the courage within myself to really open up about this until last Friday morning.

It was a rough thing for me to accept that I am "mentally ill" and I still feel that it is degrading to be perceived as "crazy" just because I have bipolar II. Yes, I admit, because of this condition, I do have periods of intense emotion, usually in the form of doom and gloom, but I have always had a firm grasp on reality, I don't exactly run around Metro Detroit having visions and thinking I'm Napolean or things along those lines. And other than being ultra-stressed out, unable to sleep, and emotionally drained during this incident, I am completely functional in the real world, just like anyone else, I get up, go to work, come home, tend to the housework, walk the dog, pay my bills, pay my taxes, whatever needs to be done.

So, I "came out" Friday morning to my fellow Loungers, and felt pretty good about it. Everyone was kind and gracious, and that helped me overall to feel better about this entire mess. When this all happened back in August, I felt like I had been given a death sentence, because in my own mind, I equated mental illness with the homeless street people I see milling about in front of the local homeless shelter as I drive by, or with the images I remember from seeing 'One Flew Over The Cookoo's Nest" years ago, and I thought those dark places were my only possible futures. It was rough at first, but lately I have really picked up the pieces and gotten back to a "normal" life, yet one with a lot more hope, potential, and happiness than before this happened.

Bad timing. Who knew, certainly not I, that at almost the same time as I made my post last Friday, a disturbed young man 800 miles away in small-town Connecticut would unleash a tragedy upon the nation of epic proportions by senselessly slaughtering the most innocent among us and the dedicated souls that worked to educate them?

No one in the Lounge has been anything less than wonderful to me, but on the wider DU continuum, it rapidly became very ugly and hurtful towards people, anyone, with any kind of mental health issue. Those of us with these conditions were declared guilty by association of being a danger to society along the lines of this latest shooter, or the ones such as Jared Loughner who killed 6 and almost killed Gabby Giffords almost 2 years ago now. Every major forum on DU has been filled with thread after thread speculating about the role mental illness has played in these too numerous mass shootings. And that brought out the cranks and crazies, particularly the gun fanatics who were all too eager to try to shift the discussion of the tragedy away from the fact that America, unlike any other first world democratic society, is armed to the teeth, and blame anyone and everyone with any kind of mental health issue for these killings. Guilt by Association.

I personally have been told in posts that I should have to wear a modern day scarlet letter to identify myself to the public as someone with a mental health issue, that I should be required to be registered in state and national criminal police databases in the same way that sex offenders are, that the authorities should have the right to force me to move out of my home if I lived within a certain distance of places where children are, that as someone with a mental health issue I'm predisposed to violence, that as a white male from an upper middle class suburb I am especially predisposed to becoming another spree killer, that the medication I take to control the emotional roller coaster of bipolar is at best ineffective but that I could cure myself by thought if only I wanted too, even that I and all people with mental health issues should be permanently locked up to prevent future tragedies, that I am some kind of sponge off of the working taxpayers and I should get a job and pay for my own healthcare and insurance, even though I've held full time jobs continuously since 1987 and do currently pay for my Blue Cross coverage since my employer doesn't provide insurance, an especially ironic comment since I was sitting at my desk at work when I read it. You get the picture. Second class citizen at best.

When this happened to me in August, I honestly thought about driving into some massive heavy object at 90 MPH and effectively ending my problems, but I couldn't do that to my family. So, I endured the most terrifying, degrading, dehumanizing experience of my life. Somehow, I got through it, day by day, and I saw things there that really terrified me and made me come to realize that I had to turn this whole thing around and make dramatic positive changes in my life if I wanted to survive. Which I have been working my absolute hardest to do. And I have been trying to come to terms with myself and what happened so I don't walk around all day every day feeling like a failure in life, like damaged goods, like so much human trash destined for the garbage pile. It's been a struggle, but until I found out on Saturday just how stigmatized and looked down upon people with mental illness are in our society, I was feeling a lot better about things all around, like life held the promise of god things in my future. Now, I'm not so certain, and those old feelings of despair are beginning to come back, and I don't want any part of that.

I think I need to escape this present reality and live for a while in a very, very small world of work, home, family, and friends so that all of the hate and cruelty I have seen right here on DU, which surely is a reflection of the attitudes of the wider society, doesn't crush my spirit back down into some very dark places.

I really need to thank all of you for the kindness you have shown me, it has meant the world to me. Some of you in particular have touched my heart in ways you probably didn't even realize -Aristus, a kind, gentle soul who stood up for me one day in one thread when I really needed it; California Peggy and Elleng who have been like cyberspace "second moms" to me; Fizzgig who has always been a friend through this; the immortal MiddleFingerMom who could always make me laugh even on my worst days; and especially two of the finest men I have ever met, Tobin and HereSince1628, both of whom have talked me down off the ledge so many times I've lost count. I know there are others of you, too, that I am forgetting right now, but I am a little too upset to remember every name right now.

I really need to step away from a place that has felt like home for something like 5 years, because I just can't deal with the hurtful, malicious, painful things that are said and attitudes that are held by a small fringe group of fanatics who, quite frankly, based on their comments, are probably far more emotionally disturbed and far less anchored in objective reality than I ever was even in my worst days. I'm sure I'll be back when I am stronger emotionally or when I have learned to focus on the 99% of humanity that is filled with good, and disregard the 1% that seems to live to do evil in the world.

I wish you all Peace, Love, and Happiness.