Word: mental
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...cycles of varying intensity and duration. Although never properly diagnosed until my second year of graduate school at Harvard, I date my major episodes of depression from my thirteenth year. The following reflections are offered to everyone in the Harvard community willing to take any interest, because the various mental illnesses affect all of us in so many ways: victims most immediately, but also (sometimes drastically) family members, friends, employers, teachers, colleagues and even complete strangers. Please keep in mind that I write only as a layperson and patient, and that medical professionals should be promptly consulted for all diagnostic...
...comparatively fortunate anyway. yet in striving to increase understanding of this subject I speak directly from my own life because it is so rare for people to learn much about anyone's personal experience of such illnesses. I hope to use my case to shatter common stereotypes that mental illness must involve overt, observable difficulties with ordinary functioning...
While the form of depression I suffer is vastly different from stereotypes of mental illness, it has much in common with millions of other cases: I and most other sufferers have never even remotely verged on any derangement, psychosis, hallucinations, paranoia, catatonia, multiple personalities or even wide mood-swings (the preceding symptoms are associated with a variety of forms of schizophrenia, manic-depression, etc.). Further, I know for my own case through many experiences over decades that I possess more resilience, resourcefulness, clear judgment and tolerance of stress in difficult situations (including several near-death events) than most "healthy" persons...
...emphasize that I use the phrase "mentally ill" with great reluctance since it so often bears pejorative connotations in the minds of the ignorant: I hope greatly to revise the usual conceptions of the phrase. The most common forms of mental illness are `uni-polar' depressions (meaning tending only toward a depressed rather than a manic state of mind) termed `mild' to `moderate' on the clinical scale-not severe enough to require in-patient treatment, but devastating nonetheless...
...helps us to learn to accept each other for who we are. On the contrary, toleration is valuable because only by maintaining a large degree of toleration can a community--like Harvard--sustain a healthy level of controversy. Controversy is good because it--like war, competitive sports, and mental games like chess--demands and elicits the best of each of us as individuals...