I'm sorry to read @outlander that you aren't doing great, and that you are getting pressure from all angles. You have a very stigmatised condition and battling ignorance would also be very draining on you, not to mention self stigma.
Sometimes being in a mental health unit is sort of like watching racism unfold, or being in an episode of Orange Is The New Black. There's a similar hierarchy of prejudice, judgment and bias. Just because someone has a mental health condition doesn't mean that they are in any way sympathetic or understanding of yours. Sometimes, quite the opposite. I was listening to some inmates talk in the dining room from the drug and alcohol ward and they were very affronted and insulted that the ward is attached to mental health. It peeved them off no end when their psychiatrist suggested that there could be some underlying MH issues underneath, that need to be addressed. And this guy said something like, "we don't have any mental health problems we just don't know how to live". Its almost like some D&A patients want absolutely no association with the MI patients and being here has exposed them to people that they find beneath them. There are other patients that have enough humility to see that everyone in the hospital is struggling with coming to terms with the stigma and judgment from the outside world, and we don't need more of it in here! I don't think that there is a sad story underneath every addiction, often there is, but not always, I think sometimes it is pure addiction and there has to be some biological reason why some are more susceptible to it than others. Just like Traumatic Stress. Heaps of people experience trauma but not everyone will develop a disorder from it, there's clearly something very wrong/different with my genes brain & biology. But its really interesting watching how people internalise their reason for being here and the lack of understanding there is for complex mental health conditions. Even trauma, some people just don't get it, especially with what they would assumingly categorise as 'social anxiety', but really, is a hair trigger reactive nervous system resulting from domestic abuse. Its not that I can't sit in group therapy because I am shy, often, its because of the tension between patients. Just the slightest threat of tension between two people and my nervous system is in fright-flight-faint, its that flimsy. I'm sure you have experienced similar tensions in group therapy. I think when the dynamics are good, they could be very therapeutic, but they can also be disastrous. I can't handle tension and abrasive personalities, I have to be with people that are gentle and calm.
I hope that you sleep well tonight @outlander. It sucks having bad days, but all we can do is ride the waves and start again tomorrow. It's easy to say that and very hard when you have real, practical stress and pressures that effect MH like financial insecurity and family problems.
What you need tonight @outlander is a cuddle coma!
Corny xx
