Autistic Energy – A Depletion of a Person

I have been thinking a lot about energy lately. Particularly about human energy and why I am always so tired.  I have written about being tired before –> The Hidden Meaning Behind “I’m Tired”. 

Being tired, burned out, exhausted is something that I continually deal with on a regular basis.  Being tired never seems to end. There is a meme that I really relate to – “I am not an early bird or a night owl. I am some sort of permanently exhausted pigeon.”

Why am I like this? Why I do I feel tired, exhausted, and burned out all the time? As with everything in my life, it is never one thing.

I am not the first autistic person to write about this topic. Some others include:

• Ronnie Pinder who wrote Autistic Fatigue
• Emily Swain who wrote Autistic Burnout: An Often-Misunderstood Element of Autism
• Kieran – The Autistic Advocate who wrote An Autistic Burnout
• Ryan Boren who wrote Autistic Burnout: The Cost of Masking and Passing  
• Dora M Raymaker, PhD with Portland State University / Academic Autism Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE) who put together a whole slide presentation called AUTISTIC BURNOUT: “MY PHYSICAL BODY AND MIND STARTED SHUTTING DOWN”

The common message in all of these is the problem with masking and not being able to be your true self in a world that is not designed for you. Societal expectations have an enormous impact on an autistic person’s energy levels.  Contrary to what our society pushes, having the goal to look “normal”, or “be indistinguishable from our peers”, is not a good thing.  Having this expectation that we must strive to pass as non-autistic is damaging to the autistic person.  Unfortunately, we learn at a very young age that in order to survive, we must wear a mask.  As a young person, we may not truly understand why we wear that mask; it is almost instinctual, ingrained in our psyche that in order to make it in our society, we must hide our differences.  We become targets if we don’t.  Wearing a mask is exhausting and we can’t always hide who we are.  No one can maintain a mask indefinitely.  At some point, cracks will begin to form.  A person will eventually burnout and crash due to the tremendous toll that wearing a mask takes on a person.

That mask hides a lot of crap. Take me for example.  By looking at me, you are not going to see a highly impaired autistic person who lives in chronic pain and has mobility issues from Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, who also has Complex-PTSD from a medical trauma and domestic abuse, who has Generalized and Social Anxiety Disorder, who struggles with depression and panic attacks, who has a math learning disability (dyscalculia), but who also has a Bachelor’s in Science degree, a Master’s in Education degree, been a teacher for over 20 years.  People have gotten frustrated with me over my dyscalculia.  I have been asked, “You are so good at Science. Why are so you so bad at math?”  A person can be good at one thing and still have a learning disability in another thing.  One doesn’t cross the other out.

I am called “high-functioning”, but that is not correct. Functioning labels are very problematic. I am seen as “high-functioning”, but then my needs are ignored.  I am told I am being ridiculous or overdramatic, that I am not really impaired, because I have been successful in X, Y, and Z.  I am questioned as to why I can’t do a thing when I did the thing last week.  There are days I stay in bed all day in recovery mode.  It takes me a long time to recover from social activities.

My son has been seen as “high-functioning” as well. The reason is that he is highly verbal and it considered twice exceptional. His educational support needs were over looked, because the school saw a gifted student and didn’t think he should be receiving services even though he qualified for those services.  He eventually had to be home schooled due to the school not being able to meet his specific needs.  My son could no longer function in a regular school setting.  Functioning labels are harmful.

My daughter has been seen as “low-functioning” and it really bothers her. People think that she can’t do things. They see her as “low-functioning”, because she doesn’t talk much in public and she carries around a stuffed animal and uses “chewies” to help her self-regulate. She complains that things in school are “dumb-down” for her and she finds that insulting. She has learned to advocate for herself and having reached the Age of Majority, she is now in charge of her Individual Education Program (IEP). She wants to be challenged, but not to the point that it overwhelms her. Who would want to be overwhelmed? My daughter is not “low-functioning”.  She has needs just like anyone else.  She can function when her needs are met.  Doesn’t that apply to everyone?

Both my children learned to wear a mask at a very young age. It is not something I set out to teach them.  I didn’t even know I was autistic until after both my children were diagnosed.  As I stated earlier, it is almost an instinctual behavior for an autistic person to learn wear a mask.  Both my children struggle with mental health issues.  Some of these issues are genetic and some were caused by their father. Children don’t choose to be neglected and emotionally abused by a parent.  Domestic violence creates ripple effects on those who have been subjected to it. If domestic violence was experienced in childhood, these ripple effects can last way into adulthood.

There has been more information coming out recently about the intersection of autism and trauma. Lauren Gravitz did a piece about this topic entitled At the intersection of autism and trauma. In the article, Connor Kerns, assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, is quoted:

 “We know that about 70 percent of kids with autism will have a comorbid psychiatric disorder,” says Connor Kerns, assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder are all known to be more common among autistic people than in the general population, but PTSD had largely been overlooked. Until a few years ago, only a few studies had delved into the problem, and most suggested that less than 3 percent of autistic people have PTSD, about the same rate as in typical children. If that were true, Kerns points out, PTSD would be one of the only psychiatric conditions that’s no more common in people with autism than in their typical peers.

One potential explanation, Kerns says, is that, like other psychiatric conditions, PTSD simply looks different in people with autism than it does in the general population. “It seems possible to me that it’s not that PTSD is less common but potentially that we’re not measuring it well, or that the way traumatic stress expresses itself in people on the spectrum is different,” Kerns says. “It seemed we were ignoring a huge part of the picture.”  

Bushraa Khatib wrote An in-depth look into how people with autism experience trauma, and in it, Khatib states:

To date, little research has looked in depth at the experience of trauma in people with autism. Research has shown that people with autism have a higher risk of adverse childhood experiences, such as financial hardship, mental illness or substance abuse in their families or parent separation or divorce. Such events have been consistently linked to immediate and lasting health disparities, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression and other mental health issues.

There are also many reasons to believe that individuals with autism are more likely to experience and struggle to recover from traumas. According to a 2015 review article published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, studies have found that youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities are more likely to be maltreated than their peers. Social isolation, family stress, and poor communication skills – all of which are prevalent in children with autism – increase the risk of maltreatment

The lack of awareness and understanding of autism within the community and increased social isolation of individuals with autism can also put them at additional risk for victimization.

The impression I am getting from these articles is that there is a general lack of understanding of autism and how co-occurring conditions manifest in an autistic person. Due to this lack of understanding, society is ignoring a huge part of what is happening.  Living in our society, being told we must meet expectations that outweigh our abilities to meet them, constant stress of change, the ongoing sensory onslaught, the inability to recover quickly enough from the strain of pushing to meet these external expectations, and this apparent instinctual behavior to mask ourselves so that we can pass as “normal” is harming us so much so that there are those who begin to see suicide as the only logical way to end the pain.  I have written about depression and autism before –> Social Skills and Depression.

From my blog entitled To Those Who Still Don’t Understand:

As the aforementioned article states, the ages for the life expectancy of autistics vary a bit, but the statistics point to an uncomfortable reality.  Autistic life spans are shorter than typical life spans.  A study out of Sweden completed late in 2015, entitled Premature mortality in autism spectrum disorder, revealed that people with autism died an average of 16 years earlier than those who do not have autism.  There are other studies out there that support the Swedish study findings. 

Why is it this way?  Why do autistics seem to die younger than those who are not autistic?

Previous studies had shown that 30 percent to 50 percent of people with ASD have considered suicide at some point in their lives.  Bullying, anxiety, depression, feelings of isolation and alienation all contribute to this.  There is a high cost trying to cope in a world that is not designed for you nor is accepting of you.

Then there are the co-existing conditions that seem to be common to people with autism. Chronic health problems can shorten a person’s life span.  Epilepsy, Elhers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), gastrointestinal problems, sensory overload, and lots of stress related illnesses, which can lead to physical ailments, including heart disease, brain inflammation, strokes, and diabetes – these seem to be common occurrences in the lives of autistic people. 

I will end this blog with a something that I wrote on Facebook on January 11^th, 2020, and to clarify that I am not suicidal:

My counselor told me today that the complex stressors that have been ongoing in my life have more to do with environmental/systematic issues than anything else. The type of assistance/support I need to reduce these complex stressors doesn’t exist. This is not the first time I have been told this. Other professionals and non-professionals have told me this over the years.

The system is rigged and it is broken.  Our society is not designed for people like me and families like mine. I feel like I am trapped in these seemingly never ending loops of environmental and financial instability, fight/flight/freeze response, and being retriggered again and again.

On a positive note, I have been able to climb to higher loops than where I was seven years ago. Back then, I was full-on in survival mode. I was a brand new single parent who was under-employed, in grad school, financially insecure, facing food scarcity, beginning the journey of coming to terms with my own disability and Complex-PTSD, needing to begin home schooling (another system failure), and beginning the journey of supporting my children through their own grief and trauma as well as helping them learn self-acceptance. There was a lot of crying, lots and lots of crying. Survival was my only option. I had to survive so that my kids could make it.

Climbing out of a swirling tornado is incredibly exhausting, and so much of that climbing I have had to do on my own while “pulling” my kids along with me, because no one gets left behind.

I am still stuck in that damn tornado, but I am a lot further up than I used to be. I am high enough to see the top edge, but I am still too far down with too much weight on my shoulders to reach it.

I need a break. I am tired. I am just so damn tired.

A Productive Rant

Privilege, Societal Barriers, the Roll of the Genetic Dice, and the Choices We Make in Life

There are days that I find myself wanting to claw at the walls and people’s faces. Some days I feel like I am suffocating, being smothered by everything. Other days I am so fatigued that I find it hard to breath. I feel that I have to fight my muscles just to keep breathing. It is not one thing that is causing this. It is never one thing.

I realize some people would view this as me whining, that I should just be content that I even have a job at all and that I have a roof over my head. I even think I am whining. Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful, but there comes a time when there is just too much that has been going on for too long.

Why do my kids and I continually struggle when others don’t? It really has to do with privilege, societal barriers, the roll of the genetic dice, and the choices we make in life. 

I chose to marry a man that turned out to be emotionally abusive and then abruptly abandoned us.  Did I know he was going to become abusive? No, not in any way.  Everyone liked him. I felt I had known him all my life. The choices he has made has caused a lifelong impact on myself and our children.   

I chose to go to college and become a teacher, something I wanted to become since I was seven years old.  I was born to be a teacher. Unfortunately, the society that I live in does not really look kindly upon teachers or schools for that matter. Lots of negativity, lack of resources, and lack of support.  

Then I chose to go back to graduate school to get my master’s degree, because I had essentially become a dinosaur in my field. I was a long-term science teacher with only a bachelor’s degree.  I needed to make myself more hirable so I could support my children better. That was my thought and when I started my master’s program, we were still a two income household. I knew that, in order to complete my original plan of completing a science education graduate program, I would need the assistance of my husband. He agreed that it was time for me to go back to school and that he would be there to help me.

It wasn’t even two months after I began my program when my husband left. I managed for two years without his help, but due to my learning needs, it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to finish the program. I was attending an online graduate program from a different state.  The school would only help me if I went to the disability office on campus.  That was going to be impossible, so I decided to transfer to another school. Again, another choice on my part that was due to being put into a position that was not my choice.

I managed to find and get accepted into a different online graduate program from a different state, one that believed in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) standards and supported all students in many different formats. I graduated two years later with a Master’s in Education with a focus in Autism. 

In order to complete my degree, I chose to amass student loan debt, because, in the country I live in, college is very, very expensive.  I do not have the privilege of coming from a well-to-do family that could pay for my college education. I either needed to take out student loans or not get my graduate degree.  Neither my degrees guaranteed me a well-paying job with benefits. There are no guarantees in life. 

I also chose to become a mother, twice.  Did I know that I would have complications? No, there were no indications.  Two months of bed rest with my first child (pre-eclampsia) and four months of bed rest with my second child.  There was no warning that all hell would break loose with my second pregnancy. I was almost paralyzed. I have a beautiful son and a beautiful daughter, but my body never fully recovered after my second pregnancy. I have ongoing medical problems stemming from pregnancy complications and Ehler-Danlos Syndrome. 

I am autistic, I have Ehler-Danlos Syndrome, and I also can’t build up antibodies from vaccines. This is all due to the roll of the genetic dice.  My titer levels show no evidence that I was ever vaccinated even though I received vaccinations multiple times, even in adulthood. So, yay for me.

As a person who must rely on herd immunity to protect myself from preventable diseases, I have no patience for anyone who is an antivaxer or anyone who claims vaccines caused their child’s autism. No patience what so ever.  There is a current measles outbreak happening in my state right now.  I am appalled by the self-righteous ignorance of people. They don’t care and they think they know better.

I am digressing . . .

We moved four times in the last six years. We moved due to financial, family, work, and school reasons. Was all this moving by choice? Yes, it was by choice. It has been six years of just the three of us trying to survive.  You do what you have to do to keep going and sometimes you have to make really hard choices so you don’t end up out on the streets.

This brings me back to privilege.  Why have my children and I had to struggle for so long? 

I did receive food assistance for four years up until it was decided that I made just a little too much money. This is a societal barrier.  The problem is that, sure, I work full-time, but I don’t make a living wage.  The state took away the support I needed to feed my children.  We ration food. That is hard on the body and the mind.

I am grateful for my job. My years of teaching and my master’s degree opened the door for me to be able to work in the non-profit sector where I can help families with children with disabilities navigate the education system.  I pay it forward by helping make the world better for one person/one family at a time.  This job does not pay a whole lot, but it does allow the flexible schedule that I need to be the parent that my children need.  They have weekly medical appointments that requires a lot traveling.

I have also been homeschooling for the last five years. This was not something that we had planned on.  Homeschooling became a necessity so my children could be successful and reach their potential.  My own health needs require that I have a flexible schedule.  There are days that I am unable to leave my bed, and then there are other days that end up being a 10-hour work day. I do understand that having a flexible work schedule that allows me to work the majority of the time from home is a privilege.  

There was a time that I worked three part-time teaching positions while attending graduate school and homeschooling full-time. That lasted for three years. I don’t remember sleeping much, but I made it work. Now that both my children are part of the Home Link program, which is part of the public school system. I have better schooling support for my children and they are thriving in the alternative learning experience that is available here. I do understand that this placement is a privilege and I am grateful for it.

Even though I have find myself in a better employment and schooling situation, I find that my burnout never seems to end. I have been at some level of burnout for at least two decades.  I don’t have a proper word to describe this never-ending burnout. I do have better days, but it is a constant struggle to even move.  Life keeps going so I must keep pushing myself forward, which only drains me further. It is out of sheer determination that I can maintain my daily responsibilities, but more and more things keep getting piled on. So, I remain stoic and keep treading water. Unfortunately, a person can’t tread water indefinitely. This concerns me greatly.

Life shouldn’t be this hard. Yes, I understand that there are people who have it worse than me.  My point isn’t about my situation alone.  My point applies to everyone who has to constantly struggle in a country that is considered a first world nation and a “Leader of the Free World”.

Do you know what the United States is ranked first in?

As of 2015 the U.S.:

• ranks 1st in prisoners
• ranks 1st in death by violence
• ranks 2nd in ignorance
• ranks 14th in education
• ranks 22nd in gender equality
• ranks 44th in health care efficiency

U.S. Has The Worst Rate Of Maternal Deaths In The Developed World

More American women are dying of pregnancy-related complications than any other developed country. Only in the U.S. has the rate of women who die been rising.

Inequality

The US has the highest income inequality of all rich countries.

Poverty

The US has the second-highest rate of poverty among rich countries

According to a 2012 UNICEF study, 23.1% US kids live in poverty. Other studies place the number a little lower, at about 20%, but both numbers are much higher than in other advanced countries. For black and Hispanic American children, the poverty rate is even higher, at 36% and 31%.

I need to ask that people stop telling others that it was their choice for why they ended up in a particular situation. Poverty is a systematic problem; there are societal barriers in place that prevent many from climbing out of poverty. 

For those of us who have been trying everything to make our lives and the lives of their children better, stop dismissing us by saying that we should just be happy and grateful with what we have. No, just no. 

 

“Every inspirational speech by someone successful should have to start with a disclaimer about survivorship bias.” – xkcd comics

No one should be expected to be happy when they are struggling day in and day out.  For those who keep saying that such and such worked for you, stop!! That is survival bias, otherwise known as bootstrap mentality.

I need people to stop telling others that happiness is a choice. You are not helping anyone. Happiness is not a choice!!  Stop telling people with mental illness and/or disability that all they need to do is choose to be happy.

For many years now I have been focusing on living in the moment, to find happiness in the moment, because my life has been very stressful despite everything I have tried to do to fix the situation. This has been going on for so long that I found myself becoming really irritable.  I had to allow myself to dive into the root cause of this ongoing irritability.  I came to the realization that I am not happy.  Even those moments that I focus on are no longer enough for me to find joy in life. My irritability has been coming from me not wanting to accept that I am not happy. I was being stubborn and didn’t want to face reality.  This brings me to the next part of this productive rant.

Both my children have been described as having anhedonia. I have found that I also have it.

What is anhedonia? To put it simply, it means the absence of joy.

The clinical definition is “Anhedonia, a term first used by Ribot in 1896, is a diminished capacity to experience pleasure. It describes the lack of interest and the withdrawal from all usual pleasant activities. Chapman et al.  defined two different types of hedonic deficit: physical anhedonia and social anhedonia. Physical anhedonia represents an inability to feel physical pleasures (such as eating, touching and sex). Social anhedonia describes an incapacity to experience interpersonal pleasure (such as being and talking to others).”  

So, what’s the point?

What is the point if you find no joy in life?

Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer to this question.

My resilience has gotten me this far. I am not the type to give up. I am a survivor.  I know that I am going to keep on moving forward.  That is who I am.  I keep swimming. 

But, I am so tired . . .

I worry about my children. I find myself crying at night, because I am afraid that my health will continue to decline so badly that I will become a burden on them.  I don’t want that. I cry at night, because I don’t know if my health will let me go back to teaching full-time in the classroom and I know that once the child support stops in 2021, my income will drop significantly. I cry at night because I wish for a better life for my children.  They did not deserve the crappy deal they got with their emotionally abusive father. I cry at night, because I don’t know what it feels like to be in a healthy, supportive, romantic relationship and I have no idea if I will ever know. It has been six years and I haven’t even started dating anyone else and that is not due for the lack of wanting to start. Just trying to survive takes precedence over dating.  I cry at night, because of my stoicism. I do not have the ability to turn it off, and even if I did, I need to remain strong for my children. They know I struggle and they worry. They don’t need the stress of seeing their mother crying. 

I am so tired . . . but, I keep swimming.

I will keep treading water for as long as I can.

I am in this place, because of privilege, societal barriers, the roll of the genetic dice, and the choices I made in life as well as the choices other people in my life made. Choices have a ripple effect not only in your life, but in the lives of others.

I ask that when you make a choice, please be mindful of the impact it will have on those around you. Even if your intent does not come from a place of malice, it is the impact that counts. The impact always carries more weight than the intent.

Intent Versus Impact: When Making a Difference Doesn’t | Miriam Barnett | TEDxTacoma – VIDEO

 

(Image sources linked to images. I do not own any of the images.)

 

The Problem with Isms – Wreaking Havoc Across the Planet

I am sitting here at my computer thinking about isms.  There are so many isms in the world and these isms can wreak havoc upon the people of this planet.  According to The Phrontistery, there are around 234 different isms, each representing a philosophical, political or moral doctrine or a belief system. 

Our current society is obsessed with compartmentalizing things into definitive categories or labels. Everything has to be put in a box.  If you don’t fit into a predetermined box, society will try to shove you in one whether you like it or not.  Society wants things to fit in these nice little predetermined boxes.  This is where the isms come into play. Isms are behaviors and some behaviors can be problematic. Isms can be used to exclude some voices, and, at the same time, raise other voices up.

When an ism is a belief system, then that ism generally becomes a part of your identity. According to Scott H. Young, “humans are funny creatures when it comes to our identities. Having a belief has little baggage. You will defend the belief when it is reasonable, and abandon it given enough contrary evidence. Being a belief, or “-ist”, is different. The belief becomes something to defend zealously, the way you would defend a part of your body under attack.”

Mr. Young continues by saying,

Your level of certainty in a belief isn’t related to whether it is a part of your identity or not. I have far greater conviction in the force of gravity than atheism or vegetarianism, yet I don’t call myself a gravitist.

The difference, to me, appears to be a more social one. People decide they are an “-ist” as a way of distinguishing themselves from others. Gravitism doesn’t exist because there aren’t agravitists, who deny the existence of gravity.

“Isms” develop as a way to separate people into distinct tribes. The downside is that tribal logic isn’t rational. Instead of trying to decide which belief system is true or most pragmatic, people defend their tribe at all costs.

The damage of “isms” is obvious in politics. Instead of rationally trying to decide on the best way to govern, most effort is spent on partisan battles.

Racism, for example, is a very, very problematic behavior.  This type of behavior needs to be taught.  We are not born being racists.  We are also not born being patriots, feminists, sexists, nationalists, or nihilists. A person has to be taught to be part of or against a particular ism.  

“The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war.” – Sydney J. Harris

I have learned that misogynists tend to be against feminists and vice versa. Patriotism and nationalism are not the same things.  Racism is so deeply imbedded into our society that people don’t even acknowledge that racism is there.  It is just day-to-day business.  Sexism is also deeply imbedded in our society.  Remember, sexism is defined as “prejudice or discrimination based on sex or gender, especially against women and girls”.

The damage of isms is obvious to those in the disability community in the form of ableism.  People with disabilities are considered the world’s largest minority group. Currently around 10% of the world’s population, or roughly 650 million people, live with a disability.  I have written about ableism before – Ableism in Society – Autism and Mental Illness.

Ableism is another ism that is profoundly imbedded into our society, so much so that people don’t even realize that they are being ableists. Ableism is a set of beliefs or practices that devalue and discriminate against people with physical, intellectual, or psychiatric disabilities.  Ableism is also the belief that people with disabilities “need to be fixed or cannot function as full members of society” and that having a disability is “a defect rather than a dimension of difference.”  

 Ableism is intertwined in our culture. Ableism evolves within a person and spreads within a society due to beliefs of what having a disability means or does not mean, how able-bodied people learn to treat people with disabilities, and how people with disabilities are often not included at the table for discussions and decision making about their own lives.  I will state again, isms can be used to exclude some voices, and, at the same time, raise other voices up. Ableism silences the voices of people with disabilities in favor of able-bodies voices.

Ableism is considered the root cause of the marginalization and discrimination disabled people are subjected to. People with disabilities need to understand their value. It is important that people with disabilities feel valued and wanted. In order to do so, it is necessary for us, as a society, to check our ableist tendencies, internal and external. Racism kills. So does ableism. It kills dreams.  It kills opportunities.  It can also kill a person.  For more on this, go to Ableism Kills.

More Information about Ableism

Ableism: How to End the Prejudice that No One Talks About

Anti-Oppression: Anti-Ableism

Ableism/Language

Stop Ableism

Talking About Mental Illness – Society Needs to do Better

Content Warning: Suicide and suicide thoughts.

Whenever a celebrity or well-known person commits suicide, suicide hotline information is plastered all over social media. 

Feeling depressed? Reach out! Call this number!

Know someone showing these signs? Reach out!

I am not disparaging the need for these types of hotlines.  Many people can find help through them. In 2015, John Draper (PhD, Director, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Member, SPRC Steering Committee) reported that in the ten years since the Lifeline began, their centers have answered more than five million calls from people in suicidal or emotional crisis.  

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1-800-273-8255 or Chat

En Español – Nacional de Prevención del Suicidio – 1-888-628-9454

For Deaf & Hard of Hearing – 1-800-799-4889

The problem is, how many people didn’t or won’t call? How many children and adults don’t call and continued to suffer in silence, because the people they did reach out to dismissed them or they didn’t feel safe enough to reach out at all? How many kept silent, because they didn’t know what to say, didn’t want to burden their families, or because they were raised not to say anything at all?

According to the CDC, in 2016, nearly 45,000 Americans age 10 or older died by suicide. Yes, as young as 10 years old. Suicide is considered the 10th leading cause of death and is one of just three leading causes that are on the rise.  Researchers also found that more than half of people who died by suicide did not have a known diagnosed mental health condition at the time of death.

According to The State of Mental Health in America, 1 in 5 Adults have a mental health condition. That’s over 40 million Americans; more than the populations of New York and Florida combined. Youth mental health is worsening. Rates of youth with severe depression increased from 5.9% in 2012 to 8.2% in 2015. Even with severe depression, 76% of youth are left with no or insufficient treatment.

From the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, ADAA:

“Anxiety and depression are treatable, but 80 percent of kids with a diagnosable anxiety disorder and 60 percent of kids with diagnosable depression are not getting treatment, according to the 2015 Child Mind Institute Children’s Mental Health Report.”

“Anxiety disorders affect one in eight children. Research shows that untreated children with anxiety disorders are at higher risk to perform poorly in school, miss out on important social experiences, and engage in substance abuse.”

In Spokane County, Washington State, the youth suicide rate more than doubled from 2013 to 2016. It went from 4.3 per 100,000 people 24 and younger to 10.7, Washington State Department of Health data show.  It was reported that nearly 20 percent of Spokane County’s eighth, 10th or 12th graders have seriously considered suicide, according to the Spokane Regional Health District. In 2016, the last year data was publicly available, 15 percent reported that they made a plan to do so. Chris Moore, a student services coordinator with Spokane Public Schools, says suicide attempts are spiking as well, even among kids in elementary school. “We’ve seen a drastic increase with the number of attempts,” Moore says. “It’s a public health crisis. It really is.

For more information – As youth suicide rates surge in Spokane, school officials search for answers

My family has a long history with mental illness on both sides. Then there is my ex-husband’s family.  Various forms of anxiety and depression, PTSD, Bipolar, alcoholism (which is considered a mental illness according to the AMA and the APA – it’s all there based on information spanning five generations.  

For more information – Anxiety and Depression Association of America – Facts & Statistics

My sister-in-law, who I will never have the opportunity to meet, violently committed suicide with a gun when she was 21 years old, three weeks after her son was born.  He will never know his mother.  He is now older than she was when she ended her life. His father raised him on his own. 

My brother-in-law has struggled with depression all his life and has been slowly killing himself with alcohol and drugs. He is in his fifties and he doesn’t expect to outlive his parents. He can’t hold on to a regular job and lives most of the time with his parents and some of the time with his girlfriend. 

My ex-husband has also struggled with depression all his life, but has refused treatment.  His untreated mental illness and his untreated personality disorder ripped our family apart, twice.  He ran from life instead of facing his problems.  He couldn’t deal with his demons, so he pushed his family away and went into isolation with his seven guns and his paranoid ideas.

My ex-husband came from a family who doesn’t talk.  My ex was raised to believe that it was a sign of weakness to talk about your emotions and to ask for help.  Instead, he buried his demons, walled himself up, and went emotionally flat lined to the outside world. The reality is that he can’t handle his emotions, he fears them.  He is emotionally stunted, a 45 year old man emotionally stuck somewhere between a 12 year old boy and a 17 year old teenager.  Our children are actually more emotionally mature than he is.  My sister-in-law killed herself when my ex was only 17 years old and that is where he stopped growing emotionally as a person.     

The Conversation

My son, who is now 15 years old, was diagnosed with depression and anxiety when he was six years old.  He was diagnosed with Autism a year later.  Autism is a developmental disorder, not a mental illness.  My son was on suicide watch twice when he was 11 years old due to his father’s behavior.  My ex had fallen into a major depressive episode, the worst I had seen him be in. He refused to get help.  He neglected and then abandoned his children resulting in my son developing PTSD.  My son was never suicidal, but he had given up hope in life. He saw no point in life any more.  My son still struggles with depression.  He is on medication and goes to weekly counseling sessions. 

My daughter was diagnosed with Bipolar when she was only eight years old.  She has been on medication ever since. She was diagnosed with Autism two years later at the age of 10.  She is now 17 years old.  She was hospitalized when she was 15 years old due to going into psychosis.  She had been essentially stuck in a depressive state for some time and then had a breakthrough manic state.  The combination sent her into psychosis.  The voices told her she had to hurt herself with a knife and then the voices told her to use fire.  She never did and insisted that she could keep fighting the voices, but we managed to convince her to go to the hospital where she stayed for a week in the youth psychiatric ward.  Three months later a space opened up at a long-term treatment facility for youth.  She went into long-term care as an outpatient for three months.  Her medications were straightened out and a new treatment plan was developed for her to be used by her counselor, occupational therapist, and her speech therapist.

Then there is me.  I was diagnosed with Autism after my children were at the age of 36. 

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Depression and mainly anxiety have been a part of my life for as long as I remember, but no one talked about it.  I didn’t have the words I needed to use growing up to describe why I felt the way I did.  I was told to lighten up, to stop taking things so seriously.  I was yelled at if I cried.  I was conditioned to not show emotions or to ask for help.  I was also conditioned that my needs didn’t matter.  I was on my own and told to take care of my younger sister who was only two years younger than me.  Alone, that was how I felt for so damn long.  No one listened when I tried to reach out, so I stopped reaching out.  I withdrew into myself, which only isolated me more, because my family either didn’t know what to do with me or took it personally that I had withdrawn, so I was ignored.  I was an undiagnosed autistic child with undiagnosed mental health issues. 

I grew up in a toxic home, but I didn’t realize it.  All I knew was something was off, but I never could figure it out.  I was told I was loved, but I felt so alone and I was scared.  I felt silenced.  What I wanted never seemed to matter.  I was conditioned to comply.  I had no idea how to say “no” or how to advocate for myself.  I was to comply with the wishes of others and rules were rules.

I didn’t know anything about emotional abuse until I was required to take a class for my professional certification as a teacher.  Even then, my mind just couldn’t accept that I had come from an abusive home life.  No, it couldn’t be.  There were other reasons for the behavior, always an excuse, excuses I had heard as a child growing up, excuses I was taught to just accept without question.     

By the time I took this class, I was already married and a parent.  I also hadn’t realized that I had married into an emotionally abusive marriage.  I married what I knew.

For more information – Invisible Scars – A Tale of Emotional Abuse

About 15 years ago, I went through a horrible medical trauma that was made worse by my family’s behavior.  More information can be found here – The Volcano is Awake. There was a time that I wanted to die so the pain would end, but I was never suicidal. I reached out for help so many times, but I was told get over it, bury it, move on.  I would reach out and get a cold shoulder or a back turned to me.  I had to get myself through that dark time of my life on my own and I would never wish that torture on anyone.  What got me through was that I couldn’t leave my children without a mother.  They were only a baby and a toddler at the time and something inside me kept saying that there was no one else to take care of them.  It was my responsibility as a mother that pulled me out and in the process “mama bear” emerged.  I had reached my breaking point, but never fully broke.   I became stronger, but in the process of working my way out of the darkness, I learned I had developed Complex – PTSD.  

When my marriage ended, I once again reached out for help, but was met with the same cold shoulders and told to move on, get over it, stuff it away. As with my medical trauma, I was not allowed to grieve in the way and for the length that I needed to.  I had become an inconvenience, a burden, again.  Once again I found myself alone with two children, teenagers now, and I had to get through the emotional pain of having my family ripped apart, but this time I was going to do things on my terms.  By this time I had learned about self-advocacy and self-determination.  I drew the line and held those boundaries. 

I reached out to others outside my family.  It took time, but I eventually developed a support network that is primarily online.  I am in a better place now, but my children and I are still grieving.  We are getting there, though.  We are much better than where we were a few years ago, but the depression is still there.  It has never fully gone away and I don’t know if it ever will. 

I have tried to create an environment where my children can feel safe talking about how they feel. I want them to feel that there is someone who will listen to them, who feels their voice is important, and who will never give them a cold shoulder and tell them to get over it and move on.  I remind them often that they each have a whole care team rooting for them.  I want them to know they are not alone.   

There is still too much stigma around mental illness. In 9 Ways to Fight Mental Health Stigma, Laura Greenstein states, “Stigma causes people to feel ashamed for something that is out of their control. Worst of all, stigma prevents people from seeking the help they need. For a group of people who already carry such a heavy burden, stigma is an unacceptable addition to their pain. And while stigma has reduced in recent years, the pace of progress has not been quick enough.” 

As a society, we need to do better.  We can’t just post about a suicide or crisis hotlines only during a time when a celebrity commits suicide.  We can’t just think posting these hotline numbers are enough. 

What is mental health stigma?

Mental health stigma can be divided into two distinct types:

• social stigma is characterized by prejudicial attitudes and discriminating behavior directed towards individuals with mental health problems as a result of the psychiatric label they have been given.
• perceived stigma or self-stigma is the internalizing by the mental health sufferer of their perceptions of discrimination and perceived stigma can significantly affect feelings of shame and lead to poorer treatment outcomes.

How can we eliminate stigma?

People tend to hold negative beliefs about mental health problems regardless of their age, regardless of what knowledge they have of mental health problems, and regardless of whether they know someone who has a mental health problem.

 “The fact that such negative attitudes appear to be so entrenched suggests that campaigns to change these beliefs will have to be multifaceted, will have to do more than just impart knowledge about mental health problems, and will need to challenge existing negative stereotypes especially as they are portrayed in the general media.” – Graham C.L. Davey, Ph.D

According to National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), stigma harms the 1 in 5 Americans affected by mental health conditions. It shames them into silence and prevents them from seeking help. People need to feel safe talking about mental illness, so here I am talking about mental illness in a public forum.  I do not feel shame.  I do not feel embarrassed. I am not a burden. I refuse to be silenced.  I want people to know that they are not alone. End the stigma!!

Educate Yourself and Others – Learn More

“Everyone knows a little about mental health issues but knowing the facts can help you educate others and reject stigmatizing stereotypes. They are not the result of personal weakness, lack of character or poor upbringing. Understanding mental health isn’t only about being able to identify symptoms and having a name for conditions, but dispelling false ideas about mental health conditions as well.” – NAMI

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh