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Let’s Talk About Mental Illness

An old friend and former workmate, Steve Repsys, has started a new community on Facebook called Let’s Talk About Mental Illness. If you have ever suffered from a mental disorder, I urge you to join and participate in the discussion.

Mood music:

I first met Steve nearly 16 years ago when I started my run as editor of the weekly newspaper The Billerica Minuteman. He had just started as a reporter. Neither of us knew at the time that we had mental illnesses — OCD for me and generalized anxiety disorder for him. It would be many years before either of us was diagnosed. In the meantime, we worked together in an office in Chelmsford, Mass. I was the boss and acted like it.

I was always stressed about getting the paper done by deadline. Quality didn’t really matter to me. OCD will do that to you: Getting the task done always takes priority over doing it right. Steve was the whipping boy, the sole reporter. I pushed him hard, nearly to the breaking point. He never let me down. But along the way, he would work so hard that his mind would go into loops. One loop involved a worry about finding an apartment. Another was about whether he would get a promotion. All normal things to worry about, except that he was clinically unable to stop it.

I carried on the same way about other things. Whenever the going got tough, we would both bitch about everyone who made it possible.

During the small windows of downtime, we would convene in my apartment a few steps away from the office and play Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. Star Wars was very important to us back then.

Steve eventually went on to another role in the company, and I went to The Eagle-Tribune. We both settled down and had kids. And in recent years, from different states, we’ve come to grips with our mental diseases.

Steve and I reconnected on Facebook a few years ago and it was clear to me that he was in the middle of a storm I had already passed through. He knew he had a problem and set about dealing with it. Because I write this blog, he has regularly sought me out for advice. I’ve seen the good and ugly of his struggle up close and watched a year ago as he hit bottom. He has since made awesome strides forward and went public about his experience in June. The response he received has been overwhelming and positive, much as I experienced at the birth of this blog.

That inspired him to start his Facebook page. I’m proud of him for doing the work to get well and for wanting to help others.

“I had signs of mental illness five years ago after the birth of my second daughter,” Steve wrote on Let’s Talk About Mental Illness. “Finally things became so bleak that I was forced to come to terms that I was suffering from a mental illness and I wanted to be around for my wife and two daughters. Admitting to myself I had a problem was the hardest, but the best thing I could have done.”

“This page is meant to give others hope and realize that they are not alone,” he continues. “If there is one thing I have learned is that by opening up and talking about our inner demons, the less scary they become.”

Let's Talk About Mental Illness

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Recognizing Cries For Help In Your Friends’ Online Posts

For all the drama and groan-inducing crap we see on social media every day, there is a very redeeming quality in the social networking site.

Mood music:

https://youtu.be/l8T-KZMED00

It’s a good early-warning system for identifying friends in need. I’m not revealing anything you don’t know, but a New York Times article my wife sent me really drives the point home.

Written by Times reporter Jan Hoffman, the article points out, among other things:

For adolescents, Facebook and other social media have created an irresistible forum for online sharing and oversharing, so much so that endless mood-of-the-moment updates have inspired a snickering retort on T-shirts and posters: “Face your problems, don’t Facebook them.”

But specialists in adolescent medicine and mental health experts say that dark postings should not be hastily dismissed because they can serve as signs of depression and an early warning system for timely intervention. 

As obvious as this seems, it can be hard to swallow all the same, since we all love to get annoyed with people who over emote online. I’ve certainly written my share of posts making fun of the whole thing (see “I am the Facebook Superstar. Hear me whine“). I don’t regret it, because I think there is some fun to be had in how people carry on.

But reading that article has me wondering about a couple friends from childhood who took their lives: Sean Marley, who I’ve written of a lot, and Zane Mead. Had Facebook existed then, what might have been? Would these old friends have posted  hints into what they were feeling? Would it have made a difference in they did?

Maybe. Maybe not.

I have seen cases where someone posted about being depressed and angry, and other friends filled the space below the post with comments of support and love. I think that would have helped Zane. Sean was a much more complicated person, so it’s harder to imagine.

All of this wondering is a pointless exercise on my part. Facebook wasn’t around in 1988 and 1996, so we’ll never know. All we can and should be doing is honoring their memories.

But for today, Facebook gives us an opportunity to help someone else who is in a mentally dangerous place. I’ve heard a lot from authority figures in my community about how Facebook is bad for kids, kind of like candy and drugs. But they miss the point. Like it or not, this is where our kids are going to be hanging out from now on. This is for them what hanging out in the park or under the bridge was for our generation.

The difference is that if we’re connected to them, we can see what they are saying and doing. That’s not always a good thing if you value your privacy. But if someone is in deep pain, we might be able to notice sooner and maybe make the difference.

That article is a good reminder to keep a close eye on what our friends and family say, and to not take every annoying comment lightly.