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Living Long-Term with Mental Illness



Living Long-Term with Mental Illness

We would – of course – want to get rid of this thing forever and heaven knows we will have tried. But the more time passes, the more we have to take on board a bleaker, unavoidable reality: this thing is here for the long term. How can we survive this ostensibly extremely dispiriting realisation?

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FURTHER READING

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“We would – of course – like any encounter with mental illness to be as brief as possible and, most importantly, to be isolated and singular. But the reality is that for many of us, the illness will threaten to return for visits throughout our lives, it will be a condition to which we will be permanently susceptible. So the challenge isn’t to learn to survive only a one-off crisis; it’s to set in place a framework that can help us to manage our fragility over the long-term. Some of the following moves, practical and psychological, suggest themselves…”

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CREDITS

Produced in collaboration with:

Leon Moh-cah
https://leonmohcah.com/

Title animation produced in collaboration with

Graeme Probert
www.gpmotion.co.uk

View 48 Comments

48 Comments

  1. @yzu_ on

    “Our extreme sport is staying alive.” Got tears rushed to my eyes. – Autism & bipolar disorder for decades now. Thank you for this, self help can be so degrading sometimes, forcing people like me into a position of forcing remission. It’s about maintenance despite the weeds ready to grow back.

  6. @bencassidybc on

    Maybe the focus on getting "better" is the wrong thing to be aiming for. Because it's kind of vague and too idealistic, setting ourselves up for failure because we don't know what it means exactly. We want to feel better and do better, and we're not sure how. We try to rid ourselves of our issues by focusing on the illness, it's at the centre of everything we do. So we're always dancing around it instead of leaving it behind. Because how can you fix it otherwise? I know I did this for too long. Trying to figure it out and getting nowhere, when I could have been putting that energy into anything else. Now I am trying to do less of that, and focus instead on making my life EASIER instead.

    Not so much, "how do I overcome this or that problem?" More like, ok, there's this issue, now "how can I make this or that easier to do/to achieve/progress with?" sort of thing.

    Hope that makes sense to someone. But basically, focusing on getting "better" makes you always feel lacking, inadequate, keeps you waiting around in limbo.

    Instead of that, start where you are and see if you can find ways of making anything in your life a bit easier. Easier to remember, easier to achieve, easier to leave the house, easier to get dressed or go out or talk to people or anything. New clothes, a new alarm clock, a reminder, getting someone else to remind you, deal with some paperwork, tick a few boxes off. Whatever works for you.

  7. @larkohiya on

    Just here to say that your channel really has been a negative effect on my life. Your often very wrong in your advice and very loud about how helpful you think your being. Ofen simply shallow or shortsighted selfish perspectives or wafting around ideas to get people to agree instead of investigate and question. I havent watched anything of yours in years and was curious if your still around. 9+million subs and i see that accuracy and usefulness are not needed as a tool for financial success. Unfortunate that so many will believe they are learning something from your channel.

  12. @darnelltabor6382 on

    Depression gripped me at 15 years old. It finally let go completely at 55. 40 years is a long time BUT IT DOES END. Stay in the battle. Knowing I've won (read: survived) is a magnificent feeling. I had no idea if i would eventually come out on the other side or not, but i did. Im not special. Your victory is up the road. You can absolutely make it. Please try. Please try. Honestly, every day you survive is a day you've won. Please keep winning. Dont let how you feel win. It doesnt deserve to win. YOU DO!

  13. @meirgrossman850 on

    This is must viewing for anyone suffering…the link between business and mania is prescient – what would life look like if you just quieted your mind and read a book and considered that a victory in its own right? I need to find out…

  14. @johnmoran4106 on

    It is no measure of sanity, to be well adjusted to an insane society. Listen to Alan Watts lectures on the ceramic myth and fully automatic model. Our modern society is completely based upon impossible ideas… Wondering why you don't fit it, is cause enough for what this broken society deems mentally ill. Where on mature is anything continually the same? You are a product of nature. You will have cycles. Not believing that you or anybody else experiences them is in and of itself enough to create the very "illness" you believe you shouldn't have. You are a fruit that grows from the tree of earth, and no the bird who landed on the branch. You are not mechanism of an assembly line. Nothing ever remains the same, and expecting it to be that way will cause anxiety or depression. Give yourself a break. Discover any patterns that produce results that you don't enjoy and alter those behaviors, comparison is the theory of joy.

  24. @heartofdawn2341 on

    spent 30+ years dealing with repressed trauma, feeling like a monster, and that anything good in my life was a sin.
    Now I'm left with PTSD, anxiety, depression, and burn out. Pushing 50 and am really struggling with the idea that I'll never get to have anything close to a "normal" life. The unfairness of it all is utterly unbearable.

  27. @Keef020 on

    that's what i found 30 yrs ago in a 12Step programme that reccomends not to take that first glass! the residu of insanity sometimes seems vanished, but it isnt and it became manageble. if i would drink again it all comes back and stays…

  29. @Zoey-- on

    It'd be nice if I could get a medical professional to actually agree /how/ I'm sick. It'd also be nice not to be given a self help pamphlet or told to visit a website or buy a book when I am quite aware such self-driven action is as impossible as me walking to the moon. Mind you it'd also be nice not to be offered drugs to turn part of my brain off. But here we are and I have to simply pray for a good Wednesday to celebrate. Your video made me cry but overall I survive and manage.

  30. @welshbake-if7zj on

    I went thru two committals half a decade ago. Going thru them was unbearable psychologically – you feel like your personality is changing; physically – you feel dumbed; and emotionally – you feel numb, allegedly due to medication.

    Now, looking back, however, I understand why people around could not and cannot relate. Just earlier today, I happened to reread my messages to confidants around that period of life and, though I can recall how I felt back then inwardly, the messages sound, at most, like a genuine tantalizing peep for help. No text can reflect the inner change you are going thru during such times.

    What helped was the certain mindset: bleak humor, pessimism, and compassion inasmuch as to allow oneself to be cynical and skeptical within one’s own self, meaning I was not holding back my mind from expressing itself and, at the same time, I was not pouring it out on other people. This has become a watershed lesson for me: one can think freely whatever one wants and it does not make one a bad person.

  32. @EmiliaHardy-g1k on

    Easy , boundaries decide what is not welcome in my life and getting rid by all means necessary. Two telephone number changes later I’ve moved on and not looking back.

  38. @PeaceLoveHappy on

    When I have a dark day or days, I always tell myself that I've been coping with this for years and I've been here before. That I've always gotten through and had brighter days. (And even in the darkest day I've always had at least one thing to be grateful for, even if it feels like the only thing is that I have is a roof over my head and food to eat.) It’s not easy. Because it feels like you're carrying a lead weight on your heart and the only things you can feel are pain and fear mostly. But I remind myself that there's light at the end of this. This is the roller coaster of my life and when I'm on the ups I try to enjoy them as much as possible without over analyzing the feeling of happiness I'm experiencing.

  39. @OokwaYikmagwa on

    A better vid than usual. 👍😢
    I’m 41 and I increasingly understand why we often don’t make it past middle age.
    Bravo to the Netherlands for fairly allowing access to the get out of jail juice.
    And here’s to Antinatalism. 🍻

  40. @niq6713 on

    Yupp, Dr. Scott Ellis on YouTube, he's this personalized. He shares personal insight and provides realistic ways to both acknowledge and tackle life on a moment to moment basis.
    I appreciate both of your content.

  41. @PeculiarK8Atelier on

    This is so sad, and so hard to accept. I want to believe there is a cure for everything mental, but there's officially not. Mental problems are a sign our souls are suffering. I cannot function daily with my 100%, no matter what ways of healing and how long I tried. I feel like I am betraying my own dreams….how to deal with that… ;(

  42. @tatiscolombia on

    This is what years of therapy let me, the lesson that my anxiety, depression and PTSD aren't going anywhere, that they're part of ny life now and I gotta live my life, not around them but neither ignoring them, and always keep close the tools to deal with them.

  45. @falsojovenbuda on

    School of Life los aaamoooooo!!
    me han ayudado un montón a entenderme mejor
    a ser más cariñoso también, borrarme la impresión de una maldición, de algo fatal
    la depresión desde chico + trastornos de personalidad
    ese mix tan intenso
    y esa vivencia tan dura a pesar de todo el amor que tuvimos durante todo este tiempo
    sabemos y queremos amar
    y nos aman como pueden hacerlo
    pero es cierta esa distancia
    se siente
    sobre todo cuando se cansan de acompañarnos en este proceso
    y nos creemos lo peor de lo peor
    unos paria
    pero todo lo malo es makinación
    hay amor
    muuuucho amor
    y no sólo entregarlo a los demás
    sino a uno mismo

    VAMOS QUE LE GANAMOS A LA DEPRESIÓN CAARAAAJOOOO
    JAJJAJAJAJA
    como siempre
    gracias por todo <3

  47. @thebenjiguy on

    Really starting to question if I should even have children at all. I've always wanted to be a great father, but I truly question if it would even be right anymore.

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