Choosing Real

A few evenings ago, a friend and I attended a National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) family support group. Groups such as this one exist to provide peer support for people who are living with the mental illness of a family member.

My friend and I were the only two in this group of ten to share our own mental health diagnoses. Thus, throughout the meeting, others turned to us, repeatedly wanting to know some version of what it’s like. I don’t blame them. they really want to have some inkling of what goes on in the mind of their daughter, son, wife, sister.

Some of the questions asked were, “what’s mania (or hypomania) like?”, “What has helped you?”, and “How did you come to accept your diagnosis?”. We answered them all as best we could, wanting to help, wanting to give hope,

Choosing Real: it’s hard. I can feel my face growing hot, turning pink. I wonder if I’m saying too much, if it’s safe, what others are thinking. Will they leave this place and talk about me in the car or over dinner, some sort of disappointment- or worse, judgment- in their tone of voice? It’s possible, I know. Yet it’s my story, a part of me.

I am reminded of these words from poet Linda Hogan :

Even the trees with their rings

have kept track

of the crimes that live within

and against us.

We remember it all.

We remember, though we are just skeletons

whose organs and flesh

hold us in.

We have stories

as old as the great seas

breaking through the chest,

flying out the mouth,

noisy tongues that once were silenced,

all the oceans we contain

coming to light.

I am no longer silent. The oceans I contain are coming to light. And it is my truest hope that my choice to be real will make a difference to someone else.

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