Hi, my name is Alex. I’m an 18 year old who loves travelling, ABBA and wearing waistcoats for no apparent reason.
I’ve also got a mental illness.
The psychiatrists aren’t quite sure what it is. For a while they thought it was Bipolar Disorder, now they are starting to think it’s Borderline Personality Disorder. I’m a bit of a curious case.
I suffer from intense emotions: anxiety, anger, sadness, happiness etc. I have too much of all of them and switch between them at the drop of a hat. It makes me unpredictable and sometimes unreasonable. I store things up until I burst. Being my friend is difficult. You have to get used to the odd paranoid outburst and over enthusiasm when I’m in a very good mood.
One day a teacher did something to set me off. He’d joked about one of my habits – I still suck my thumb because it helps me feel safe – in front of my class. I took myself off to the bathrooms and burst into hysterical sobbing. I used my nails to scratch my arms red raw and kicked at the wall until my leg tired.
My teacher found out about it. He called me out of class so he could apologise. We’d always had a very good rapport and he wanted to know why I had gotten so upset. I explained to him that he had triggered an episode, that it only took something simple to do that. I remember telling him that I was weak, that I’d never amount to anything, that no matter how intelligent I was I’d never go anywhere, that I was a freak.
Then he said something I’d never forget. He told me that I was ordinary. There was nothing unusual about me. All I did was have stronger reactions than other people and even that wasn’t my fault. Yes I did need help to overcome those problems but everyone needs help at some point in their lives. I was no different. The only thing, he said, that had ever marked me out to him was that I was the only person who would still admit to being a Liberal Democrat.
After that he didn’t tiptoe around me. He didn’t treat me any different. He still cracked jokes and he still spent his entire time trying to engage our history class in completely irrelevant debate. To my last day he still treated me like he had before that talk. I wish I understood then how much that meant to me so I could thank him. With so many people when I say I have a mental illness they either think I’m some sort of psychopath or think that I need to be surrounded in bubble wrap and made failsafe. He did neither. He recognised that Alex White was more important than an illness and that one day Alex White would beat this illness entirely.
I hope I prove him right.
* Alex is a Liberal Democrat member in Dumfries and Galloway
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13 Comments
Hah, your teacher sounds amusing (“The only thing, he said, that had ever marked me out to him was that I was the only person who would still admit to being a Liberal Democrat.”)
Bonding through political gallows humour, love it.
Great article, by the way! 🙂
I tend to agree that being emotional is ordinary! Many teenagers are like that, boys as well as girls, perhaps even most, and there are lots of younger and older people who are too. Whether we should classify emotional behaviour under the heading of “mental illness” I don’t know. Perhaps we should instead all realise that it’s what we are all like, and should adjust our expectations and responses consistently with that.
Richard, do you have any medical qualifications? If not, it might be best for Alex and the professionals who are looking after her to make the decisions about her situation and how best to deal with it. The rest of us should not offer an opinion.
Caron, if you think about it a bit, as Alex has done, you’d perhaps realise that the best person to make decisions about Alex’s situation and remedies is Alex herself. And if you had a little bit of medical knowledge, you might realise that that outcome is precisely what the medical professionals may be trying to achieve.
Besides, Alex’s teacher was right. There are far more people who have this kind of experience than is realised. And besides which again, Alex has published her story in a place where comment is invited. My comment isn’t offensive in any way, and indeed may even be helpful.
Just like everyone else you are unique not ordinary and should revel in being unique
Personality Disorders (PDs) were a bane of my time as a Probation officer. Not, according to Mental Health professionals, a mental health issue they refused to become involved or support yet no one else felt in it their remit either. When support was needed people with PDs ended up on a carousel of non help with no one taking responsibility
My mental health diagnosis has changed over 41 years, multiple and no medication and several suicide attempts. I am unique and a unique survivor who is full of admiration for a fellow unique survivor and all those prepared to support
“Ordinary” and “unique” are not, of course, opposites. Indeed, it would be rather extraordinary to find two identical people, which is perhaps one reason why we may be curious about “identical” twins.
The developing discussion does seem to raise a different interesting point too, namely the possibility that professionals, patients, and lay people may all disagree about what they mean by “mental illness”. As Lauren’s experience seems to show, this may also contribute to disagreements as to the best course of action.
This may be an awkward issue in the political sense, because what professionals mean by a mental health service may be quite different from what people are actually wanting. We may spend a lot to get something we didn’t expect!
Richard: Your comment isn’t helpful.
Richard, if you continue to make comments which challenge the validity of this very courageous author’s experience, you will not be allowed to post on the site without your comments being seen by a moderator. Consider this a final warning.
Alex, sharing your story is very helpful as that conversation with your teacher typifies what #timetotalk is all about. He sounds an inspiring teacher, with that down to earth approach combined with sensitivity to do the best for you as his student. As important, you’ve been brave in telling your experience, and because of you other people may find it easier to talk about theirs. Thank you.
Caron. None of my comments have challenged the validity Alex’s experience. Indeed, it’s very difficult to see how anyone could think that.
Alex, if you haven’t already done it, go back to your teacher and tell him how important his response was to you. Don’t let the comments of others get you down (I saw Caron’s response to you on FB – hope you’re OK now) – your teacher was dead right. And you seem perfectly unusual to me (as an Abba fan and a Lib Dem!)
That should of course be normal (facepalm moment – blame it on a long day at school…)
Yes there are times being Alex’s friend is difficult. The switches she mentions do indeed come at the drop of a hat and if you suddenly find yourself the subject of anger you do what any friend does and stay there and be there for her, waiting and caring and waiting.
But part of being a friend of Alex’s is to treat her no differently than anyone else, to be ordinary as the teacher said about her. Fortunately Alex is a bit more extraordinary than her teacher in that she know a lot more people that just one who still admit to being a Liberal Democrat.
But Richard Dean your original comment is not ordinary. You said “Whether we should classify emotional behaviour under the heading of “mental illness” I don’t know.” But had already judged without seeing or witnessing or I note without any specialist training and knowledge deemed the behavioural shift in my friend as ordinary assuming it is not a mental illness, when professionals are working on the reverse assumption.
It is time to talk and on a day when we are encouraging people to take 5 minute to talk about mental health and how it affects them (as many posts one here have been today) whatever you think Richard about being free to pass comment you must surely have thought about your original comments by now. Everyone who has spoken up today has laid themselves on the table of public scrutiny, but like a debate at Scottish Conference on mental illness I have been reaching for tissues a lot reading their stories.