I'd really like to talk with some people who don't categorise their afflictive mental states as "illness" or "chemical imbalance", if you're here.

[working9while5]

Nervous about this because what's in a name, hey? But it's something I increasingly feel strongly about.

I will not for one second dispute that when I was in the depths, it felt worse than any physical illness I've ever had in my entire life. I can read "I had a Black Dog" and I recognise it all and then some.

I just don't think I was ill or that it was caused by a chemical imbalance. I think that my brain was chemically imbalanced in that state because I was dwelling so much in the regions of the brain that store dark thoughts and memories that my brain was bathed in those neurotransmitters. I have no doubt if you hooked me up to a machine my brain would have looked all depressed. I also needed - and need - medication.

My experiences relate to my father's severe alcoholism and watching a man who was once really charismatic, caring and inspiring become an abusive good-for-nothing screaming drunk, my mother's absent presence, being raped in university and other such events which sucked all my faith in the future out of my life bit by bit. I think I just had no skills to support me in not spending my entire life in my head rather than with my feet on the ground and the whole thing short-circuited when I was pregnant and lacked the meagre resources I'd been using to keep it all at bay. I think I had learned to relate events in ways that predicted catastrophic outcomes through virtue of experience.

I've had a year and a half of weekly therapy, groups, psychiatrists, CPNs etc and I just feel so pissed off that this journey and its pain and where its brought me is categorised as being the same as diabetes or a broken leg when for me, it was a product of my life... and not only my life but what other people brought into it.

It just seems to me that the emphasis on the medical model in relation to this is sometimes just another sanitisation and another way of shutting up those who have been abused. I appreciate it's great that people get sick pay and I know it certainly manifests as illness so perhaps it is semantics.

yet when I went to the supervisor of midwives to tell her I'd had a dissociative state during my first forceps birth because of the rape, she said that she wouldn't want any of her staff to know this because it wouldn't be appropriate but it was fine to write OCD/Depression all over everything. The implication to me is that the causes of depression are still pushed into the category of "deeply shameful".... but in that case it wasn't the OCD or depression that was creating my fear, it was a bodily memory that had been triggered. Categorising this as illness just seems to me to be a way of making it be something intrinsic to my brain rather than something arising from human experience of suffering.

Does anyone else feel this way? I think I had a particularly medical model type of team which didn't help - there was constant reference to how ill I was and how I needed to recuperate and how disordered my thinking was and every time I tried to say, I don't think this is illness, I think this is about something that happened and a fear of similar trauma happening again, it was put in a box like "you MUST accept this is illness". I was never disputing I needed meds or therapy... I just didn't find the metaphor of chemical imbalance helpful. I had enough suffering because of what happened, I certainly didn't want that bastard to be responsible for my fricking brain chemistry!

I agree with the OP, I really do. It's because of that and because the medical model so prevails on the MH board here that I don't post much about it.

It annoys me when professionals or anyone else describes me through diagnosis or labels because, for me personally (and I know that others feel differently) the labelling of it doesn't help.

But what makes me very angry is the scenario the OP describes with the forceps and dissociation, in which being a victim/survivor of violence or abuse is pathologised into a psychiatric category. It's akin to either victim blaming or refusing to believe.

True that it prevails. I feel heartbroken every time i read something along the lines of "am taking 20mg of X, not working, have y and z side-effects and feel crap" and people try to be helpful and say "see your gp to up the dose or change ADs."

Me too. Very sad.

Salbertina - sometimes it is genuinely that the ADs that the person posting is taking isn't right for them. No one, at least I am not suggesting that getting the AD dosage right is going to be the answer. However getting the AD dosage or type of AD right is certainly going to help. Someone might be advised to up their AD dose because the dosage they are on is actually subclinical. If i was to give someone that advice, i would be thinking in the short-term and not the long term.

I have been thinking about this thread today in terms of others and my own experiences. I think it would be wrong to call all mental health issues an "illness" just as it would be wrong to call all other pysical conditions an illness. A cold is an illness, what is hayfever? similar symptoms? What about a sprained muscle? Its too prescriptive. What do we call an illness? is it an illness if its caused by infection or is it an illness if its a faulty gene? Cancer is an illness, i dont think anyone would argue with that, but it has various causes. What about someone with downs syndrome? are they "ill"? They have an array of health issues, but are they "ill" So there is a confusion with that word - illness.

I think there IS a danger with defining depression and anxiety as an "illness". If we think of an illness, we think of something that we have no actual control over, that we need medication for. So if we are ill with flu, we need antibiotics or we need painkillers or decongestants. Its not something that we ourselves can control, without external help - of course we could sit it out and wait for our immune system to do its job, but sometimes it needs a helping hand. If when we are suffering from depression/anxiety we surrender to it being an illness, it gives it too much power and renders us helpless to be able to tackle it ourselves, without external help and we turn to ADs and or therapy. Saying that, I am suffering from anxiety just now, there is no point in telling me to pull myself together, if anyone says that to me, im likely to laugh in their face. I am an intelligent woman, highly qualified but i cannot bring myself to look for a job due to the anxiety it induces, its totally illogical, do you not think if it was just a case of pulling myself together i would have pulled my finger out of my arse by now. I think recognising that i have been unwell has helped me, it has allowed me the time i have needed to recover. I am on ADs, maybe i'll be on them forever, i don't know, but i do know that soon i will "pull myself together" and sort myself out, i haven't been able to do that yet, because, yes, as much as i don't like the label, i am ill.

Hi Lem- wasn't attacking any particular or all posters saying this, appreciate well-meaning. It feels rather knee-jerk, that's all. Plus lots of recent research to prove they're at best a placebo and even then the side effects can negate any benefit.

The effectiveness of ADs is a conundrum isn't it? Both me and Dh seem to have benefitted from them, but I do also wonder what I would be like now if I hadn'tstarted them in Feb, but done all the other rest/counselling stuff.

This article I found interesting in terms of specific effects of ADs vs Placebos and the long term prognosis re recurrence.

I think my head is not well at the moment because I am constantly thinking a load of negative paranoid anxious crap. It feels weird to call it an illness, but it is seriously not right!

Oh and article also indicates that for severe depression ADs were most effective, placebo effect strongest in mildest cases.

Hi Coliuring, agree a conundrum agree they can help whether placebo or not.

Can't finish that link though, doesn't strike me as v robust- from the dodgy photo through to the AWFUL mistaken use of "leased" instead of "least". Peer reviewed it is not!

I hate the medication thing, I hate that I am supposed to need tablets that have serious side effects (the long term impact of anti-psychotics are bloody scary) and I hate being told alllllllllll the time that I need them, that I have to take them, that I must do it or xyz will happen. At least in physical illness you cannot be locked up and injected with medication against your will! But they do have a place, and being aware that side effects can be avoided by changing medication is important. Sorry that was a bit of a rant!

I suppose on a tangent, I find that milder MH problems seem to be accepted more, like it is acceptable to have depression, go to your GP and have CBT/short term anti-depressants and get fixed. Severe, or complex MH problems still have a huge stigma and of course these sorts of problems are harder to fix, they take longer, the approach to them needs to be more holistic and longer term. I think this can be hard to understand and maybe making it very medical can make it more accessible or acceptable.

I think looking at yourself, and challenging your own beliefs and personality is bloody hard work and scary. What if you find something about yourself that is horrible or mean or bad? I am often told that recovery requires a personal shift, and that is the hardest bit. Sometimes it feels quite overwhelming that I have so much work to do on myself and that so much of what makes me me needs to change. It would be easier to say it was the chemicals in my brain, my illness and focus on that. But it isn't. My problems lead to the chemicals going a bit squiffy, lead to my illness so I need to tackle the problems. Does that make any sense?

I would describe myself as unwell at times though, when I was trying to kill myself multiple times a day, when I was screaming and hurling abuse at staff in hospital, when I was watched 24 hours a day for nearly three months, when the TV talks to me, when I get confused about whether the person talking to me is them or someone else speaking through them - that it mental illness.

I was thinking about this today. It is a double bind isn't it. You must take your medication or all hell will break loose and you must take responsibility for your illness including your symptoms of mental distress. I cannot help noticing a logical inconsistency there in that mental health services appearing to be constructing your agency as something they get to define the terms of.

I appreciate that in practice it is sometimes different professionals urging medical adherence and urging taking moral responsibility for one's symptoms but that makes very little difference from a service-user/patient perspective.

It would be nice if in all this services could acknowledge that they are also a little bit mad.

"My problems lead to the chemicals going a bit squiffy, lead to my illness so I need to tackle the problems. Does that make any sense?"

Absolutely, this is exactly how I see it fluffy,

My first cousin who I grew up with and have always been very close to has schizoaffective disorder. He is undoubtedly ill - there was an armed response unit sent to his flat recently because he was out on day release and he refused to return and the police were sent and he told them he had a gun and was waving a sword about the place.

Yet I know him. I know where this has come from. I was there. His mother never, ever bonded with him and took no responsibility for or interest in his extreme distress and resisted every opportunity to support him when his psychotic symptoms began, just burying her head in the sand when he was anorexic, when he was screaming and dressing up as a monk and putting tinfoil on his head to stop people reading his thoughts. I remember when he was a two year old (I was seven) and the rage in him, his mother's total lack of connection with him.. and then she had another child who she adored and he had to live with that. His father rejected him (his mother was single) and he had to grow up in a house unloved while his brother was adored.

I have talked to him both when he is well and when he is ill and I think he is at heart profoundly lonely in the most huge sense of that word and he is particularly deteriorated at the moment as he has turned 30 and has been out of society for 15 years. He hasn't developed the social or vocational skills to cope in the world and so he is facing a life without relationships when that is the one thing he so desperately wants.

A few weeks ago he hit his mother for the first time. I heard the details and I can see how it was triggered. Now the whole family is full of how they don't want to be anywhere near him, he is terrifying etc.

It is such a fucking tragedy. He is not bad or mad and yes, he is unwell... but to me unwell doesn't cover it. He is in the most profoundly alienated tormented mental state and there doesn't seem to be any way out and his brain just can't process it in any way. It is like the most desperate spiritual aloneness and crisis. I just wish people could see that and see that he is suffering because of his humanity, not because of some quirk of brain chemistry alone.

I have antidepressants, now a really low dose, but basically was forced to be on them as aparently if you are very ill (physically disabled), then I have to be clinically depressed. It's something I have very mixed feelings about.

At times I am properly 'ill'/ depressed I think, and at some points last year I was very very not right, but entirely due to the unbearable situation I was/ am in. But they'd rather treat the mood than the cause which is just so so wrong. The wet shirt analogy someone posted earlier.

I was getting physically iller and iller and correspondingly more and more anxious and freaking out cos I couldn't get medical help for it... But then my gp was refusing to refer me back to the consultant because I was depressed, and wouldn't treat severe drug interactions, because somehow as I was depressed its ok to dismiss real clinical need. I ended up going privately to a specialist who sorted out some things and massively improved things... And lo! My mental health issues went.

I get the ease with which i can be dehumaised and my word and exleriences dissmissed and belittled, i get the faulty logic and willingness to discredit patients with difficult problems.

However i dont get why its considered a mental health illness to have an appropriate emotional reaction to traumatic events. Why is it acceptable? Or helpful?

Also went to a psychologist who said I wasnt mentally ill, but then, I do feel terrible most of the time and think my brains got stuck in a negative/ traumatised mode and I do need help to get out of it. Ugh.

Oh Double, absolutely. Why is it acceptable? Have you read any of the ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) stuff? They talk about how nonsensical a lot of this is, that of the nine normal human emotions six are considered negative and that all human beings experience this pain in relation to events in their lives as it is just a part of being human.

I have had the most horrendous experiences. My father was a very generous, gentle, loving, kind and wise man in my early childhood and I loved him absolutely and felt loved by him absolutely, but alongside this kindness to me he was horrendously cruel to my mother, telling her she was sexually frigid and he had to sleep with other women who he would show her pictures of and explain to her that this was what real women looked like, putting down her opinion, trivialising her fears, overwhelming her, doing frightening things on the verge of physical violence but not quite like reversing at speed towards her and then stopping etc, throwing tables at the wall. And yet he did none of this to me but he tried to get me on side, love bombing me and trying to put distance between us. As the years went on he became severely alcoholic and when I went through puberty, he suddenly turned this emotional abuse to me... doing things like defecating in my room and then sitting me in a chair and interrogating me about it until I admitted I had done it, driving us to the edge of a cliff and then edging it nearly off while we all screamed in terror... but in that abusive vein, when he was "good" he was amazing and he used this on/off to control me for a lot of my life. It will not be surprising probably to read that there was sexual and physical abuse in his own home. If you ever tried to say that his behaviour was bad, you would be treated to hours of him detailing his abuse in the most horrific detail and sobbing while you comforted him and told him that it must have been awful and thank God he wasn't like that. Thanking him, over and over, for resisting the urge to sexually and physically abuse us. Lovely.

I have difficulties trusting people. NO shit!! The rape was a classic incident because I knew I was getting signs that I might be in trouble very early on and could have gotten out of the situation but I felt I couldn't, I didn't have a right to in my mind.

I have MAJOR issues with any situation in which I feel I am going to be in pain and not heard or listened to or where if I make a mistake it could be life threatening. I haven't been to the dentist since I left home and I can't drive. This is because of my experiences. NO SHIT!!!

Why bother slap a label on it, really? I think I've done a brilliant bloody job with life. I have a decent partner who doesn't abuse me in any way, two gorgeous kids, a job I love, several good friends and a lot of interests and hobbies. I also have strong behavioural reactions to situations that remind me of past traumas. Why on God's earth is this "illness"? I'm aware of it. I can tell you all about it. I just struggle not to be overwhelmed by a very narrow range of experiences that just bring up too much stuff for me. So what? It's just life and being human, surely? Why label me as though this were something that I came into the world with when I bloody well guarantee you it is not. It's like Psychology 101. I don't want to be a victim of those experiences forever and I feel that by labelling my reactions to them as illness, that's what happens. I am more than my experiences.

"I suppose on a tangent, I find that milder MH problems seem to be accepted more, like it is acceptable to have depression, go to your GP and have CBT/short term anti-depressants and get fixed. Severe, or complex MH problems still have a huge stigma and of course these sorts of problems are harder to fix, they take longer, the approach to them needs to be more holistic and longer term. I think this can be hard to understand and maybe making it very medical can make it more accessible or acceptable. "

Fluffy, I think you are on to something there.. but the root causes remain unsayable which I think pushes a lot of people into recurrent presentations. I think any time you have had experiences that are not deemed acceptable to speak about, it can make it very hard in day to day life to have a bad day and not be able to reduce your workload or take it easy until it passes and certainly work stress often means I don't care for myself and then I fall down in an ill heap because I feel I can't let down the side. Which is also my conditioning.

Am I ill when I fall down, hell yeah? But the illness is the consequence of the conditioning, not the antecedent of the ill behaviour?

Sounds like you've made a good job of it working. I like to think i am too! Still on a fairly high dose of meds, unlikely to come off them, but I feel better for them - I'm having a blip at the moment, but am handling it ok, better than I would have without meds, but at the end of the day I'm just me, with all my experiences and thoughts and everything else, and it's made me the person I am. I don't consider myself unwell at the moment, just as having a blip.

Other odd quirks - I have very strong boundaries - cant close my eyes if there is anyone around (so yoga is out!), don't like physical contact unless its something I've thought through and am completely comfortable with -I find it really hard even in work, with people I know, who maybe try to touch my arm as they speak to me. I have issues with trusting people, and like to have everything really tightly under control - I guess so I can make the world happen my way.

I am beginning to realise the meds are probably going to be long-term for me too. I had tried a taper because I would like to get pregnant again one more time (God I must be nuts after all!) and I had never had them before and didn't realise the extent of the jitteriness and low mood I lived with before I took them. I think I have a happy medium now, the docs would have liked me to be on max dose but I am on half that because I don't really want double the side effects, especially sexual function. It took me bloody long enough to relax around that not to want it to be feelingless now for another reason.

I am in complete agreement with the OP. I was terrified when I was referred to CAMHS after being told that I had a mental illness (OCD). I really thought I was crazy which made me feel much, much worse! I prefer to think of it as mental 'distress' rather than illness.

All the GP's I have seen have never, ever asked anything about my history, diet, familial support just prescribed anti ds and told me to wait for my appointment from the mental health unit/referred me for further therapy etc. I, of course, expected SS to be informed, I was an unfit mother etc. I have had numerous psychiatrist appointments where I am asked how I feel and am then told 'come back in 3 months and we'll see how you are then'. I spent thousands in private therapy.

My days were almost completely taken up with researching my 'illness' to find that elusive 'cure' so I could start living again. Of course that was a vicious cycle as I would be constantly reading about mental illness convincing myself that I was going madder and madder. It was like I was inhibiting a dark world that most people do not live in. I was separate, weird not 'normal'. I can honestly say I have been to hell and back BECAUSE I was diagnosed as 'mentally ill'.

7 years later after my symptoms got worse and worse I no longer believe I have OCD and nor do I believe a lot of these labels exist in themselves, it's all an anxiety response and I have very good reason to be in a state of heightened anxiety: a physically, sexually and emotionally abusive childhood all the way through to me leaving home at 18, witnessing domestic violence at a very young age and my father's running off at the age of 6 (all contact severed), being raped shortly after I left home and left with an STD, being burgled while I was pregnant with my 1st child, my 2nd child dying at birth, my 1st child almost dying 2 months later, getting pregnant with twins unexpectedly and only 2 months after my 2nd child died, my husband being attacked in the street unprovoked by a well known drug dealer in front of me shortly after that (DH had bumped into him accidently), we had to wait 3 months for the HIV test to come back as he was badly bitten by the bloke! Numerous non-fault car crashes,I could go on and most of that was within a 6 month period. I just carried on though as my childhood conditioning has left me expecting bad stuff to happen so I almost expected it! I could'nt book a holiday without having thoughts of 'don't get too excited, something bad will happen so you probably won't be able to go'. It has been horrendous.

Can you see a theme here? My symptoms of mental 'distress' finally started shortly after we had moved to Canada to start a new life after DH had been made redundant here in the UK (I had to quit my job after the twins and had spent 3 hard years at home with them and my oldest with no help whatsover plus added financial stress).

After moving into our new house over there, I started suffering from the old adrenaline rushes, palpatations, difficulty breathing, dizziness so went to A&E thinking I was having a heart attack. I was told I was neurotic and it was all in my head then given anti depressants. I struggled on even more stressed out that my mind was giving me these physical symptoms then the obsessive thoughts started and the random feelings of complete and utter doom and panic. DH then had a near fatal car crash, his pick-up truck was crushed and we have no idea how he survived, that set me off big time as he had to travel for his job over there. Eventually we had to come back to the UK as I was so 'ill' giving up our house in the process as we could not sell it (tried for almost a year) and therefore all our money that was tied up in it. We came back to the UK with 3 DC, a suitcase each and penniless. No help from family at all except for 6 weeks being put up by my mother and stepfather until DH found another job and we could rent a house. It was a subject of much mirth in my family .

Back here, GPs have dismissed me for years. I have quit jobs because of the constant dizziness. I even had another child while going through all this with all the sleep deprivation and added anxiety of being responsible for a 4th child! We were kicked out of our rented house when I was 6 months pregnant so were homeless and now live in a 2nd floor flat with 4 rambuctious DC! I have been a wreck physically and mentally.

I had decided I would be mentally dysfunctional forever until I met a therapist who took one look at me and said 'Lionessy, you are carrying so much pain, it emanates from you'. That's when it clicked. Amazingly, it had never occurred to me before! I have been through some terrible events, I had kept it together for a long while but the constant stress was too much and I was reacting to it perfectly normally. I AM totally normal and my view of the world as being fraught with danger was because that had been my experience.

I have a long way to go. My confidence has been shot to pieces basically because I thought I was abnormal. I used to fly around the world without a care, now I get panicky driving on the motorway. I used to be told I was unflappable now I'm like a bloody headless chicken!

I truly believe that if someone had taken the time to look at my life history and told me I was not mad just in distress at what had happened to me, I would'nt have suffered for so long.

As it is I now know I need to look after myself, rest my adrenals (practically impossible) and tell myself everyday how bloody strong I am.

Sorry for the essay. I think it would be hard if not impossible, to come across someone suffering mentally who has not suffered some kind of deep distress even if they are not fully aware of it themselves.

Yes I think the problem with conceptualising it as illness means that we are seen as weak and vulnerable. And honestly, we aren't. Simply to be able to stay alive and continue with the basic activities of daily living requires a massive and sustained amount of resilience and optimism and resolve, far more than most people. I remember years back a flatmate telling me that she couldn't cope with being around me any more, but that she felt awkward saying so because she recognised that I could never take a break from being around myself. It was one of the most thoughtful and insightful things I've ever heard from a friend who hasn't had my experiences. (But yes, I went away for a week to give her a break from me )

Lionessy, that is so weird because you have written so much that matches my experience.... I also feel that getting the OCD diagnosis led me to do so much private research that I convinced myself I was utterly mad and beyond hope.

We have had some similar early experiences, too.. I absolutely identify with the holiday comment! I have always had that sort of feeling.

I am so sorry to hear about the losses of your children. I was so deeply obsessed with that and had so many images of it as part of my own pain that I just can't even imagine the pain involved when it is not just your mind playing tricks on you but your lived experience.

"I truly believe that if someone had taken the time to look at my life history and told me I was not mad just in distress at what had happened to me, I would'nt have suffered for so long."

^

I think this is true for so many and why is it so bloody hard to have human empathy for suffering? And we are the crazy ones? I also prefer mental distress and won't allow them talk about it as illness.

Thing is, for some of us, there is no reason we feel this way. I had a perfectly happy, stable child hood but developed this awful illness in my teens and the only way I have found of coping is to be medicated. I have tried counselling and even seeing a psychiatrist but there is really no underlying reason for me to suffer from depression, my brain is just made that way. Medication (40mg prozac) does deaden my emotions somewhat, but that is preferable to the alternative. I have had ups and downs in my life, but nothing more than is normal.

I feel conflicted over this.

I do have a mental illness. I'm completely at peace with being mentally ill. For me, the definition of which is, the way my brain works has a negative effect on my life, and requires treatment. Likewise, I am physically ill when I require treatment for a bodily problem. I don't see recognising myself as mentally ill as a bad thing, or a negative thing, in the slightest; quite the contrary, really.

On the other hand, the treatment you receive, and the attitudes of the professionals involved in your care, can greatly affect the way you feel about your circumstances, and I'll be the first to agree that there are many 'professionals' out there who are everything but that. And I think this can impact hugely on how we feel about our situations.

I've been thinking what you just wrote, Sir. The chaos of my life is evidence of illness/disability. I am theoretically capable of living in a much better way than this, but I don't because I can't carry through with my theories. This is an utterly basic definition of mental illness.

What other people choose to do with this information can be, and often is, a problem. But that isn't a fault in the information, it's their attitude towards it.

Btw Working am I allowed to mention the word 'conpliance' in this thread?!

I have issues with it and think if betrays a very disturbing attitude towards patients. I will write more tomorrow but wanted to check you consider it to be part of this thread?

FloozeyLoozey, earlier in the thread babyheave mentioned similar. My view on this is that this is bound to happen and of course there were will be people for whom it is organic just as there are people born with mobility problems and those who acquire them.

I think it's just for me I feel that sometimes the way the condition is viewed means that there are times that the validity of my experience is denied e.g. I will be trying to work through some issues which are central to my recovery and there will talk of this as "obsession" and "rumination" in a way that silences me, when actually, when it comes to OCD, part of the work is to actually "allow" myself to look at and name these experiences instead of just doing compulsions to push them down within myself. That, I have found very unhelpful.

Double, absolutely! I agree wholeheartedly. We choose to take medication and engage in therapy etc to the best of our abilities... and yet yes, at times, the way our mental distress is unfolding may prevent us from knowing what's currently the best course and we need support with that, but "compliance" suggests no choice and is most worrying when it is used as an accusation that invalidates your opinion even when you are being clear and informed about the choice being right for you at that time. It is tricky, isn't it? I understand that initially when I didn't want to take medication it was because I couldn't see the wood for the trees, my perception of risk was so hyperinflated and that related to OCD. However, it is still my body to do what I need to with and there needs to be respect for that and for the fact that medication does have side effects that at times don't seem worth it. I know this is particularly an issue with antipsychotics and have seen my cousin struggle with that while everyone in the family blames him for not wanting those meds.. but they blow him up, make him feel flat, affect his mobility. To talk about compliance in relation to drugs which have such a profound effect on wellbeing really undermines the extent of the rock-and-a-hard-place choice for some people.

SirBoob, I appreciate your viewpoint here, it makes sense to me - I like your definition For me, the definition of which is, the way my brain works has a negative effect on my life, and requires treatment. I have been at pains with my care team to explain that I actually don't have an issue with this either. I know I need the medication and I know that I need guidance and therapy and I have been fully engaged with that, and what I want is recovery/wellness which of course are the flipside of "illness" in one sense.

I guess for me, I know that I need support for my distress. I know that healing is going to require support and that I can't do this on my own either without therapies or medication. That functional definition I have no issue with. Quickly's point resonates with me here: I can live better than this but I'm not going to be able to carry through without becoming well and part of that may mean long-term medication.

It's just the throwing-out-the-baby-with-the-bathwater element I have found so, so hard. That I am finally allowed now to say that I struggle with distress in a way that impacts upon my day to day ability to carry through certain tasks is a good thing, and it means I won't be challenged about driving at work in the same way etc. This is positive.

It's the fact it seems to make people second-guess the validity of my viewpoint and feel that they can tell me what my experience is when I have, for all the horror of it all, always had good insight that I find difficult.

Oh and something else on "insight" - I have always been characterised as having good insight and this has been a poisoned chalice too, because "good insight" is often seen as meaning "not suffering as much".

When I was seeing almost constant images of my children dying, I had the "insight" to know it was my brain summoning these up as an anxiety response and that it was not coming from outside myself. I also had a good awareness of why my brain might be doing that and what it related to in my past.

However, the psychiatrist would say things like: "well it's good you are not fearing going crazy" and I would think, well... I'm not fearing these images are outside myself, but functionally I am seeing things that distress me greatly and mean I can't operate normally psychologically or doing everyday things, so how does my insight help?

In some ways, this "insight" was torturous because alongside the distressing images I had a constant screeching dialogue of "stop it stop it stop it stop it" (in many variations and forms) going along with it. Even the characterisation that I was less at risk didn't seem apt. I was really getting very low and not feeling I could go on.

So in some ways I am wondering, is it terming these experiences as "illness" is the problem or is it the way that people see you through the prism of a diagnosis as if a few bullet points on a page (even if they apply) can actually explain the experience to someone who is on the outside of it, or make their decisions about your needs ALWAYS more relevant than your own.

I came across research that only 1% of complaints made against mental health trusts can actually be seen to arise from mental state e.g. be a product of the illness itself, yet my experience is that if I say something against staff attitudes to me, there is an automatic and easy assumption this is because I am "mentally ill". No sunshine.

As Martha said upthread, it's this idea that no one can think you are unwell and in need of support if you appear articulate and calm, yet on the flipside, if what you say when articulate and calm doesn't suit them it's very easy to flip that and suddenly dismiss your thoughts and feelings as being just a bit of faulty brain chemistry.

Don't know if that makes sense?