I’ve been away from this blog for a while. I thought it might be appropriate to talk a bit about why. An exploration and reflection on the past 9 months or so. I also want to thank those who have continued to support my Patreon despite the lack of output for so long; this might be a matter of not noticing, forgetting they had supported it, but it might also be a deliberate decision to continue to support me in this small but very tangible way in spite of my output. For that I am profoundly grateful.
I did post some written ministry recently, but if you read the note at the bottom on when it was written, you will see that it was written as far back as June 2020. I was not completely dysfunctional by then, but was already struggling.
Since the autumn, my mental health has been so bad that I’ve become almost completely dysfunctional. I’m getting better; I’ve had some help, my medication has been changed, but it’s still a struggle. One of the things that contributed to it was falling behind on some Quaker work, and with the way my mind works, this caused me to develop an aversive reaction to everything Quaker-related. Things got so bad I ended up avoiding almost everything that causes stress. My main paid work wasn’t affected, which is convenient to say the least, but that’s because it isn’t stressful most of the time – and when it is, that stress is brief and then over, rather than ongoing.
I don’t know how much the pandemic has affected this. It’s not the first time this has happened, though it is the worst. It’s not always started with Quaker-related things, but this isn’t the first time it was that, either. I had to really steel myself to attend the Meeting for Worship for Solemnisation of Marriage of a member of my Meeting community, a few years ago, because the aversion to Quaker-related things was that strong. I made myself scarce quickly afterwards, not hanging around to chat, because I couldn’t really speak coherently at that point.
This time has been the worst, because it has spread out over more of my life, and it has gone on the longest. These sort of anxiety-related manifestations are far from unusual in bipolar disorder, although they are less known to ordinary people – and most doctors – than the more typical depressive and manic/hypomanic episodes. I’ve had some good support from my local Community Mental Health Team; the unnecessarily stressful or aggravating things that have happened (a certain amount of stress and aggravation is to be expected) can probably be attributed to the professionals I’m dealing with not getting on well with my particular set of comorbidities.
In the midst of all this, I also got diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). This isn’t actually a new condition; people don’t develop ADHD later in life, after all. It’s something I’ve always had, just never noticed, and I have to say it is a great comfort and reassurance to realise that certain ways in which I am different from others are, to some extent, explicable and understandable in relation to that.
I can’t promise I’ll be posting more regularly as time goes on, but I am going to try. I think this is a step in my recovery – re-engaging with one of the less stressful parts of my Quaker life, pushing back the anxiety response towards the things that actually started it, rather than letting it spread across the rest of my life. I feel like things are on a definite upward trajectory now, and while I’m sure there will be some backsliding, I hope things are going to move generally forward, getting easier. I can work at the things that I’m told will help, but ultimately there has to be hope as well.
I have thought, during this time, about a very short passage in Quaker faith & practice, 21.67:
I was terrified I’d break down.
I did.
It didn’t matter.
Rosalind M Baker, 1986
People often use this term, ‘break down’, and I don’t know what everyone means by it. To me, a mental breakdown can describe a lot of things, and I don’t like to think that’s what happened to me. Certainly, a lot of breakdowns are more spectacular, but given how dysfunctional I became at my worst, indeed how limited in function I still am, and the level of intervention the NHS has deemed appropriate, I suppose that this imprecise, vernacular term does apply to me. I prefer the more technical term ‘severe exacerbation of severe and enduring mental illness’ (and it took me a while to accept the ‘severe and enduring’ thing applied to me, even knowing that, technically, it did), but then that may mean less to most people than ‘mental breakdown’.
You can read that short, short piece by Rosalind M Baker in several ways. Ultimately, perhaps, it doesn’t matter, in many ways. Those who truly value you will not value you any less, perhaps, and it certainly doesn’t matter to the Divine (or God, or what-you-will). But while it is happening, it matters. It affects everything in your life, even the things it affects least. It has mattered to my Meeting, not only in their concern for me, but also in the fact that the work I had been doing for the Meeting ground to a halt, some of it quite important.
If I had a more typical sort of job, it would have mattered. I would certainly have had to take sick leave, and if I was in the sort of insecure work that most people do I would almost certainly have lost the job. The extended sick period would have made it harder to get another job, never mind the fact that anti-discrimination legislation supposedly makes that illegal. If I had children, it would have mattered a great deal to them, affecting my ability to care for them. It certainly matters to my wife, who not only has to live with concern for my well-being but also an increase in the care she has to give me.
So does it matter that I broke down? It depends who you are, how you look at it, and what you mean by ‘matters’. I know it doesn’t matter to the Divine, and it shouldn’t matter to how people see me and treat me long-term, but ‘shouldn’t’ doesn’t always mean ‘doesn’t’. I can look forward to some people treating me with kid gloves, certainly. I know some people will feel they can trust me to do things less; that I am less reliable than they might have thought. They may be right.
Maybe it doesn’t matter to you, my readers. Or maybe it does matter, in a positive way. Maybe you think it gives me insights that will be useful, in terms of mental health or even more generally. Madness has often been associated with holiness, though that is frankly morally and intellectually no more sensible than associating mental illness with daemonic possession or putting us all in asylums.
Anyway, welcome back. Hopefully I’ll keep producing output at a reasonable pace for a while. But who knows? Thank you for being with me on this journey.
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