I’m doing a reproduction of a portrait of my grandmother. It was painted in the 50’s and it’s quite big. When she died in January she left it to my uncle and my cousin asked if I could do a copy of it. I decided to trace it on the canvas so that I didn’t have to worry about getting the drawing right. I worked on the face today, especially the mouth. I don’t do many portraits, but I do know that getting the likeness is tough. Hopefully this will work out. I’ll post a photo of it when I’m done.
As I worked I listened to a podcast about mental illness. Or, rather, the mental health industry. Should it be called an industry? I don’t know. The guy being interviewed said he’s been working in the profession since 1972 and that when he started there was much more support for the mentally ill, for those struggling with things like eating disorders, schizophrenia, and bipolar disease. Ezra Klein was a tough interviewer, asking him repeatedly why he wasn’t able to fix the mental health issue in California. It was uncomfortable at times to listen to but I also wanted to hear the answer.
He (Thomas Insel) said the problem stems from the fact that on the state level there’s no oversight. There’s no one body overseeing the state, cities, and counties, no way for them to all agree upon a set of goals or how they’re reaching those goals. He did say that things that are working in California are day centers, places where people can go and get care, get counseling or medication, or just find a safe space to relax. He says that help comes in the from of social, environmental, and political support.
I grew up with mental illness. I had a parent who had a nervous breakdown when I was nine and I can say that when you’re in need like that you’re pretty much on your own. I saw my parent reaching out to trusted family and friends and trying to find therapists and medication without being ‘found out’. Back then there was a lot of stigma. Being depressed or too overwhelmed to deal with one’s life was seen as weak. There was a constant, mostly unspoken question that always loomed, Why can’t you just get it together?
When I started to experience depression in my teens I dealt with it by drinking. That helped until it didn’t. But in my 20’s I believed that depression was something that I grew into, something that developed over time. I saw it as a combination of trauma, a difficult home-life, and learning unhelpful ways of dealing with feelings. I grew up with the unspoken rule, don’t talk, don’t trust, don’t feel, and in a home where there was mental illness, addiction, and abuse, that makes sense. Why would we open up and acknowledge the things we can’t bear? It’s seems easier if everyone pretends we’re all ok.
But somehow I viewed mental illness as an issue of development: I grew to be someone with depression, but I could grow to be someone without it. I spent a lot of years looking for tools to help me with life, and I’ve found some great ones. Today I feel that I have a rich life. It may not be the life ‘I could have had’, but it’s a good life. I think the takeaway from the podcast is that mental illness is a medical problem, but the solutions are social, environmental, and political. We need families, whether they’re our biological families or communities we discover and build for ourselves. We need to feel connected, known, and accepted.