The Unhealthy Mind Cannot Make You Well

Some time ago I wrote an essay entitled: On Being "Normal". I referred to a story written in a 55-year-old volume of Keys to Happiness, a collection of essays and articles by noteworthy motivational writers and speakers of the time. The I quoted from the essay "Your Mind Can Make You Well." A reader of my essay has told me she thinks it is 'right on' and has shared it with many people. I now have to amend that essay. A lot has changed in 55 years.

On its own, the mind may not be able to make you well. There is a futility in trying when your brain is lacking in serotonin, norepinephrin and the vitamins and minerals it needs. The neurons in the brain transmit chemical messages from one to another through dendrites which stem from the neuron like branches of a tree. Other dendrites pick up the messages in a normally functioning brain. When the brain does not have the correct chemicals to make it healthy those messages reuptake, or return to the dendrite without crossing to the recieving dendrites. That is why psychiatrists prescribe reuptake inhibitors to prevent the action of reuptake and cause the dentrites to communicate, thus the chemical messages reach from neuron to neuron through the dendrites.

An unhealthy mind cannot make you well. It is a great wish, a dream, a will that is ever present to one in mental anquish. This is the reason that a person with a chemical imbalance cannot "pull themselves up by their bootstraps." They are unable to do so with their brain which is not functioning. How many people refuse to see a doctor when they have severe depression, believing deep down that they can will themselves to get better? They are criticized and maligned. They are "not strong enough" to do it, thereby making them feel like worthless human beings...sound familiar? The treatment I am undergoing is addressing the cause of the problem and not just the symptoms. My mind is getting healthy and is able to make the connections again.

Even at my worst, when I was hyper-talkative, suicidal, irritable, incoherent and feeling hopeless and depressed, there was a part of me that actually saw things clearly, seeing how I was acting, knowing that I could not stop myself from saying what I said, even though I knew I should not be saying it. I call that the silent witness. A part of me who knows "this is not right, its not me, this is not normal," looking on in horror and crying in desperation at poor choices, words and actions and agony at not being able to stop them. The unhealthy mind cannot make you well. It just doesn't have the equipment it needs to function correctly.

When I was five, I wanted to die. I didn't know it was something mental, I just wanted my life to be over. There were reasons for that of external influences but however it came on I just wanted it to end. Somehow I knew it was wrong to feel that way. I remember going to the doctor's office with my mom and sitting in the waiting room looking at a book called, "Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories." Unbelievable that these stories were to be told to children before going to bed. I couldn't read at the time but looked at the pictures.

When I was seven, I remember looking at the book again in the same office, but then I could read and comprehend. There was a story about a little boy who was hit by a car and in critical condition, banged up and was not going to live. A little friend of his came to visit and told him that every night Jesus came through the hospital and if you raised your hand He would take you home. The boy in the hospital bed agreed and his visitor propped his arm up so Jesus could see it. In the morning he was gone. For two weeks I propped my arm up with my blankets hoping that if Jesus could come the hospital, maybe He would come to my house and take me with Him.
I have been fighting ever since.

And now I have hope. I have not been in a constant state of depression my entire life. Off and on, off and on, but the past 11 years have been the toughest. This year alone I was hopitalized twice for med adjustments. I have had three to nine months to a year of saneness all while on medication. And since January 1st I have been the best in so many months. I said yesterday that my doctor stated it was "remarkable."

Yes it is.