Should I be open about my mental illness? It's a more complicated question than you may realize, filled with hidden pitfalls and considerations you may not have made.
Dennis Heil speaks bluntly about his choice to be open about his mental health journey, starting with his first active suicide attempt to the Bipolar depressive psychotic break that forced him to acknowledge how bad his mental health was. From there, he speaks about some of his experiences of living openly with high-functioning autism and Type 2 Bipolar Disorder with severe depression. Last, he transitions to five questions he thinks one should ask themselves before deciding to open up.
The reality of being open about one's mental illness is not how it can seem in recovery and activitism spaces. There's so much cheerleading about it as a way to combat stigma, but rarely do you hear anyone talk about the downsides of that. People may judge you and use it against you. If you post your story on social media, it's now in the public eye for potential employers to see. Not only that, but most people aren't all that understanding, so you have to get used to ignorance.
The Five Questions I would ask myself if it were Day 1, and I was considering doing it again. (Okay, it's more than five questions, and more like five groups of questions, but whatever.)
1. What purpose does it serve? Will this improve my mental wellness or add to my life?
There's no reason to expose a vulnerability to the world unless it serves some purpose for you. I chose this path for myself because my silence is what almost killed me, and it's killing so many other people like me. I hope that by talking about these difficult subjects in the way I do that other people like me will see a kindred spirit, and know they can be better, too.
2. Can I be okay with people not understanding me, or not wanting to understand?
Most people are not going to be all that understanding. If I had to guesstimate based on personal experience, I would say about 80% are neutral, 15% are understanding, and that last 5% are angry and afraid of Bipolar Disorder because of trauma done to them. Depending on how open you are, you may find yourself arguing or being questioned a lot. For example, I'm diagnosed with Type 2 Bipolar Disorder even though I've experienced psychosis and/or psychotic features. Why? Because the diagnostic criteria specifies that you need to experience psychosis in mania to fall under Type 1. I've never had a full-blown manic cycle, only hypomania. The times where I and my professionals could identify that I experienced psychosis were only in depression.
3. How will this affect my professional life?
Severe mental illness may limit your career options or have a negative affect on your professional life. For example, when I was younger, I wanted to get my CDL and go into longhaul trucking. The problem is that certain medications and illnesses can disqualify you from that, for fair reasons. I wouldn't want to be behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer when my brain disconnected from reality. That just sounds bad for everyone involved. Not to mention, you may run into the issue where you get passed up for promotions or miss out on job opportunities because why hire a person who could be unstable for weeks or months at a time when you could just... not do that?
4. Am I balanced at the moment?
I don't have an issue with people being open about their mental illness and journey. What I do take issue with is this blanket narrative that it's a good idea without any discussion of the downsides. You have vulnerable people, newly diagnosed, coming into advocacy and recovery spaces and hearing these messages, like "Speak your truth." And it does not consider that person's well-being. What if they're unstable and plaster it all over social media? What if they're in an abusive situation where it will be used against them? What if they have a job...
Dec 18 202538 min