What if we didn't have any mind troubles? What daily/weekly issues would we still have lingering that annoy us about ourselves?
Sometimes we can observe our relatives to find an answer. Eating disorders come to mind. Some of us can come to a conclusion that it is "our mental illness" when maybe obesity runs in the family. Moods could be the same. I'm on a hefty dose of mood stabiliser as is two of my blood relatives yet moodiness runs in the family....trouble is bipolar 2 and depression also run in the family and this can be a basis for bad moods or swings. This is just examples of my confusion about the topic as I'm not an expert.
Sometimes we grapple at things. I have a relative. She has heavy depression and moods. She told me in front of her younger sister, that she tells her sister all the time about her moods, its like she has 5 houses and every day she could be in any one of those 5 houses....5 different moods. My answer to that was...well if you think that's bad for you, not knowing which mood you'll be in, imagine what its like for your sister?
My point here is, insight is a gift for some of us. If you have insight you are one of the lucky ones. But insight into what is part of your mental condition compared to what would be there if you didn't have such condition would clarify so much and take away a lot of "circling around our problems"...indeed focussing on shadows while we could be putting all our energies into the real issues.
Consider this: For several years since my first visit to a psychiatrist I was always, for most of my then 47 years in fact, thinking I was the one and only ultra sensitive highly emotional person in my extended blood family. Last November I visited this part of the family interstate for the first time. My parents had split from them when I was a toddler so I hadn't met these people before. To my surprise my sensitive side and the emotional side responsible for some heavy and deep poetry over many years was mirrored by others in the family. One was an entertainer, the other an artist, one a writer and finally one was a WW2 veteran. The war veteran had fought at Kokoda and I'd heard about his battles with mental illness. I, like others put it down to the war...apparently not so, he was much like that prior to the war.
My message in this is try to be factual. Talk about these to your doctor/psychiatrist if you are concerned because by discounting some of your "hunches" it could help your recovery.
Tony WK
