Mental Health

About a month ago, a Facebook connection of mine posted about mental health awareness. While most of the people offered support, there was a long thread of back and forth about those who think mental illness is made up or "over-dramatized". I rarely get involved in online battles. For one, if people are just trying to get a rise out of other people, there is no point in engaging. Second, if they are so entrenched in their views that they feel compelled to respond to a short message of support, what could I possibly say that is going to change their minds? 

I have been bothered by that interaction even though I never responded to anything. Since getting sober, one of my prime focuses has been staying true to my value system. I know what I need to do for my sobriety. I know what I need to do for my mental health. I know what I believe in. Trust me, having an opinion and a stance is one of the most freeing things about addiction. When I was using and in early recovery, I didn't know anything about what I believed in anymore. I threw all my priorities and passions out the window and spend so much time convincing everyone I was just fine. It took a lot of years to get to the place I am today and I am sure not going to take advice from a random person on the internet that doesn't agree with my plan of care. 

This discussion is a piggy-back off of my last entry. Can the internet be a source of hurt or a source of help? Of course, there is no black and white answer. I think the effectiveness of using social media or the internet in general, depends on who you are and what you are seeking. I would say my recovery efforts started in late 2009. I was starting to come around to the fact that drinking was the sole issue of all my misery in life. I didn't really use the internet much to research about my condition. Actually, I was kinda scared to do that because I was pretty sure that I was dying. There was no way I could drink for that long at that rate and not have adverse health effects. I relied on talking with people. I started these weird conversation that would give me some idea about treatment. If they had know anyone that went or if they had any experience. I walked into treatment without a single clue of what to expect. 

In the beginning stages of recovery, I felt pretty fragile. The first six months of recovery was just taking it one day at a time and work on staying sober for that day. Those first six months were not about digging deep into my character defects or past issues. I just needed to stay sober. At six months is when I started DBT which I knew nothing about until I was back in treatment again after several relapses. I didn't ask anyone's opinion about. I attended one class, decided I needed it, and enrolled. Once I started learning about my emotions and the control I could have after some practice, then I was ready to dive deeper into the reasons for drinking and how to resolve those issues. That was a lot of work with my therapist and also working on finding the right combination of medications to treat depression. Along with AA, DBT, individual work, medications, and some willingness on my part, my recovery came together and today I am at 10 1/2 years. 

I started with blog after hitting my first year of recovery because I felt that I was learning so much and I wanted to share what I was learning with other people. I also wanted to be out there and say "yup, I had a serious problem with alcohol and got into recovery. I have severe depression and now I have found the right treatments to keep that near remission." I wanted to keep feeling that freedom of releasing my own stigma of mental health and chemical dependency. All these years later, the focus has changed to living life on life's terms. I am in the maintenance phase of recovery, meaning I know how to take care of my recovery and it's up to me to do that. 

The purpose of reviewing all this history is to remind me where I have been and where I am now. I used social media when I was using as a way to connect to others and make me feel important. I could be at home and connect with others whether they were healthy or not. Most of my life was online. When I got into recovery, I spent 2 days a week in classes, work, in person meetings, and limited time on social media. In fact, social media was a fairly big trigger for me in the beginning. So, I rarely sought support from social media in those yearly years. I took everything so personally in those early days, it's probably a good thing things like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit weren't my go-to places for support. 

Fast forward to today, when I see those types of conversations out there that are either trolling someone or someone spewing grave ignorance, I often wonder if I should just leave social media. It's weird, because it was never aimed at me. I didn't even engage. I have this slight sense of guilt that I didn't. If I am so ready to advocate for recovery, why don't I ever say anything? Am I justifying staying at bay by assuming there is nothing that can be done to change their opinion? Is it just safer for me to stay away and connect with people who are like-minded? I suppose it comes down to what I am seeking when I go to sites like these. 98% of the time, I am seeing what people are up to, watch a bunch of cat videos, and post a little humor on my site for others (and me) to enjoy. I sometimes seek out comment sections on articles to see how people are responding. Often times, I feel disappointed and let down to see how radicalized and often times selfish people have become. I try to remember there are literally a billion other people who are not on this comment thread that are probably decent people. 

The world is online these days. Technology is moving so fast. I am coming to realize that there are effects to this technology. I worry about my brothers and sisters who are in early stages of recovery or understanding their diseases and find rejection online. I worry about those who internalize all the negativity. I worry about the recovery community becoming radicalized. The beginning of change for anyone is a fragile time. There can be a lot of self-doubt and negative talk. The scariest thing I think the internet/social media can do at that point is validate all the negativity and push someone away from the changes they would like to make. Not to mention offer 300 "fabulous new offers" to distract from the real issue at hand. Sure, if I lose weight I will be happier (never mind that I am drinking a liter of hard liquor a day). 

I felt a need to write tonight. Not sure if I solved any dilemma here or not. Maybe I created one for myself. I hope everyone is hanging in there!!!

​Jules