We’re All a Little Crazy

The other day I came across a blog post about a national mental health awareness movement called “We’re All a Little Crazy.” Numerous celebrities in sports and the performing arts lead this movement. Many stories are shared about personal experiences with mental illness, from bipolar disorder to PTSD through #SameHere and a sign language gesture which points one’s thumb towards oneself and the pinky toward another.

The concept behind this movement is to disarm the stigma of mental illness as being something foreign, weird, or outside of a “normal” existence. In fact, many, if not most of us, have at one time or another experienced some level of depression, anxiety, trauma, or loss that would put us, at least temporarily, somewhere on the continuum between mental health and mental illness. The emotional distress within that continuum obviously varies in intensity and manifestation, but to be not mentally well at some point within one’s lifetime is arguably a part of the human condition.

As mental health professionals, it should be especially incumbent upon us to be acutely aware of the additional burdens and pain caused by the stigmas placed on people with mental illness, particularly those that invite bullying or estrangement. Most importantly, we need to be in continuous check on ourselves as we may also fall into the elusive cracks of stigmatization (even if unintentional) of a person diagnosed as borderline, Schizoid-affective, or with Bipolar disorder who come with great vulnerability into our space for assistance and healing. By honoring their stories of struggles and accomplishments as significant and as ordinary as our own, we are welcoming them down a path to healing and recovery. After all, we’re all “a little crazy!”

Respect-Focused Therapy (RFT) is a foundation on which all modalities and techniques used in therapy can be strongly grounded, in order to produce sound, effective outcomes. This approach offers clients the opportunity to gain experiential understanding of being respected, possibly for the first time, from the therapeutic relationship and then be able to heal old wounds by creating more respect for self and others in the therapeutic process.

Disasters and Mental Health

I live in Austin, Texas, and we just got our toes dipped in a small part of Hurricane Harvey, but we also watched from the sidelines as our friends and family in Houston and coastal areas were slammed by the terror of the possibility, if not the reality, of losing everything—homes, cars, and belongings, along with memories and a sense of security and safety.

It is this latter concept of losing security and safety which I think is the hardest to cope with psychologically. Having experienced such devastation in such short order is clearly and literally “having the rug pulled out from beneath your feet.” To have this done in such a large scale is further disorientating and catastrophic. Fear and shock dominate the psyche. Knowing where, or having the capacity, to begin to move forward is blocked by the enormity of insecurity.

Will life move on? Of course. But it will not look or feel the same for a very long time. That’s where mental health professionals come in. The trauma endured by so many in these circumstances is much more indelible, beyond the first few weeks or months. PTSD will be prevalent for many for years to come.

Recovery mentally will be a much slower process than regaining physical and financial losses. Feeling safe again is the struggle. The job for therapists, therefore, is to begin the process of recreating safety and security for our clients who have had such trauma.

It is my belief that we can best do that by honoring them as full human beings who have lost so much, rather than just “refugees.” The differentiation I’m making here at first glance may seem subtle, but categorization and labeling is an easy pitfall. This is even more pronounced when we are working with the poor or indigent. Human nature can often trick us into the trap of stereotyping, albeit unwittingly. But intentional acceptance and focusing on a respectful framework allows us to move in a way that can create safety for everyone we serve.

Respect-Focused Therapy (RFT) is a foundation on which all modalities and techniques used in therapy can be strongly grounded, in order to produce sound, effective outcomes. This approach offers clients the opportunity to gain experiential understanding of being respected, possibly for the first time, from the therapeutic relationship and then be able to heal old wounds by creating more respect for self and others in the therapeutic process.