Having the Language in Mental health

I just wanted to mention this as it’s so important. Frankly, I believe that not being able to describe your experience is the main reason that people are unable to get the diagnoses & thus the help they deserve. It certainly was in my case.

For example, I had never heard the phrase ‘dissociation’ or really understood the state it referred to until looking into BPD post diagnosis & it leapt off the page as an identifier for a state that I’d regularly been in, unable to function normally, losing many hours to a semi-embodied state…. kind of….. not knowing what the heck it was or why it was or what triggered it or even if my perception of it was in any way real or substantial… that’s a lot isn’t it…But it’s intrinsic to severe states of mental illness, the insubstantiality of insight, the fact that being dissociative will often be accompanied by paranoia which restricts insight even more.

Since learning about Dissociation my experience of it has substantially abated, to the extent that I’d say I’d only expect to have in in very very extreme circumstances, like meeting a hero or having a car crash etc whereas I used to have it randomly in the house when I was alone without any sort of reason or warning it seemed.

Becoming educated to the language descriptors for all of my/your conditions, traits of conditions is probably more accurate for me now, well, is crucial to anyone having problems with their mood regulation or their negativity or managing stress etc as it’s the bridge to beginning to explain & then to getting help.

Another bit of language that was helpful to me was ‘emotional dysregulation’, it’s a brilliant phrase because it removes the woolly edges away from people who talk about mood as if it was just clouds passing by in the sky rather than the big bastard weather fronts of being really ill with BPD or Bipolar. It’s been incredibly helpful to me just to discern where I am in terms of mental wellness, how much bounce my emotions have, how fast I return to okness after an upset.

Very often an over simplified mainstream mental health perspective doesn’t give you the language you need to explain a complicated ongoing situation, you have to study your conditions, bunches of traits definitely count & become your own expert, especially as the NHS is so depleted & underfunded now. Much of the natural mental health, nervous system free resources available on YouTube Etc are profoundly helpful & easy to find. Become your own expert.