by Nancy Douglass

Created on: August 14, 2008   Last Updated: November 26, 2010

Let's get one thing straight right off the line: People don't choose mental illness; mental illness chooses them. That means that whether someone's mental health diagnosis has been caused by genetics, or because of a chemical imbalance in the brain, or because of traumatic past events, the individual didn't ask for it and has likely suffered immensely as a result. Added to this is the fact that many times the person with a mental health diagnosis has little to no insight regarding their condition and, in the case of thought disorders such as schizophrenia, cannot believe that they have a problem at all. In fact, accompanying paranoia is often triggered as a result of this poor insight and the individual may suspect doctors, therapists, and even family members of conspiring against them and trying to poison them with medications, which are prescribed to relieve a condition that the individual does not buy into having. Due to this poor insight, denial, and other factors, depending on the diagnosis, individuals can average between five and fifteen years of suffering with a disorder before a correct diagnosis is made and treatment is begun.

That said, mental health clients can be a joy to work with! As a counselor, it gives me tremendous satisfaction to be a part of a treatment that can dramatically improve an individual's quality of life. One particular criterion that is required for most mental health diagnoses as found in the DSM-IV-TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision) is "significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning." If I were unable to function at my job, with my family, or with others in society, I would personally feel highly distressed and would likely experience a great deal of personal suffering. If this were to continue for five to fifteen years without relief, the amount of distress and suffering endured would be unimaginable. However, when people can become increasingly liberated from the imprisonment and suffering that such disorders cause, they can often experience a joy in their lives as they never have before.

Many people believe that individuals with mood disorders, such as depression or bipolar disorder, should just "snap out of it." After all, most of us, following "depressing" events are at some point able to "pull ourselves up by our bootstraps" and move forward. People with clinical depression are often unable to do this without intervention.

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