Reach Out

Something huge can happen to a person when they suffer any kind of long term mental, emotional or psychological distress. Over time, through the stages of acceptance of their condition, the seeking of treatment, the course of their therapy and their path to recovery, a person can become adept at identifying and understanding the mental, emotional and psychological troubles of others. It's like a massive and unexpected side-effect of dealing with the underlying illness, and what's more, it is extraordinarily empowering..

So it is that an adult victim of childhood abuse, when faced with dealing with the long and difficult journey through their traumatic past, begins to understand the nature of narcissism and what psychologists refer to as 'the sins of the father' - that abusive parents are often the victims of childhood abuse themselves. But simultaneously, these people often also start noticing a myriad of other far more subtle and less overt ways in which certain parental behaviours can contribute to neuroses and emotional difficulties in all our adult lives. They become not only mentally healthier, but capable of being much better people and better parents themselves.

Recovering alcoholics and drug addicts go through a process which helps them to identify the causes of their addiction, in order to put new and healthier coping strategies into place and to prevent relapse. At the same time, they often start to experience a much deeper empathy with the pain of other people, and to see how others are using unhealthy ways of coping with their difficulties. They can truly become masters at spotting the warning signs of addiction and destructive behaviours in people, such is the fine-tuning that happens to their perception of the psychological mechanisms at play.

For those who suffer from clinical depression, bipolar disorder and other afflictions which  are primarily disorders of mood regulation, the path to a healthier life lies in understanding the complexities of their particular mood patterns and planning for all eventualities, wherever possible. Sometimes all that can be managed is an acceptance that terribly difficult moods will happen, but even that is a step up from feeling enslaved by their condition. As the person becomes adept at understanding and managing their illness they can find themselves arriving at a point where they have a whole box of tools and techniques to manage mood issues, and it is soon realised that this toolbox is useful to just about anyone who wants to manage their emotions better and develop a healthier mindset.

People nearly always seek treatment for mental health issues and go into therapy to help themselves but rarely, if ever, realise that they are likely to come out the other side far more interested in and empathetic to the pain and problems of others. Seeking psychiatric treatment is a necessarily selfish action. It's starts off all self, self, self - but very soon in the course of treatment it usually becomes obvious to a person that it is how their behaviour affects others and their interactions with others that causes them the most pain. The work they do to change how they think of themselves develops into a journey of changing their behaviour towards other people. They start to think more positively, act more genuinely and consider others more thoughtfully. It's a win win.

When the hard work of therapy is over, the journey continues onward. The newly-empowered mentally healthy individual has a shiny armoury of weapons to fight negativity in themselves, and a whole new level of awareness of how these weapons can be useful to others in their personal struggles. Often, a deep desire to share the newfound knowledge is present, requiring the practising of patience and respect for other people's stages of development in life. This new state of being is what writers of all sorts of self-help, psychology and spirituality themed books refer to as growth - whether they label it 'personal', 'emotional', 'spiritual' or a combination of such - it is literally the evolving of the psyche to a higher state or 'stage of awareness'.

The journey is all about growing and changing and evolving to be better than we were before. It is always about progressing on the path to further enlightenment but never about being better than anyone else. One can falter and slip and regress, and require further work and even more therapy at any time, just as one can advance several strides in short succession. The journey lasts a lifetime. It is like a calling. It can feel like a faith system, maybe even a religion, and perhaps in a way it is..

Whatever it is, I'm well and truly on board.



Copyright ©2018 Richard C. Greenlow. All rights reserved.