The Inner Class War; Mental Illness and Revolutionary Politics

(TW)
So if you didn’t already know, you may or you may not depending if we are friends on Facebook, I have major issues with mental illness. I have bi-polar depression, many different types of anxiety, and depersonalization. Essentially my mind is regularly a war zone, not in the sense that I am battling voices in my head or something, in the sense that I constantly have to try to maintain a good mood when everything is making me want to flop into bed, watch old sitcom re-runs, and eat junkfood. I have suicidal thoughts more then I should, and I constantly think that I am not good enough for the world or the people around me. I have vague feelings of hopelessness and it becomes hard for me to enjoy things in life because my pessimistic depressive attitude stemming from my issues leads me to believe that some how everything good in my life will fall away from me, I worry about everything, and I have regular anxiety attacks, though they have decreased in intensity and duration, they also don’t happen nearly as much as they did say a couple years ago or so. All as the result of proper treatment.

The unfortunate thing about mental illness is that it is not nearly as examined as it should be, it is often pushed aside and thought about as a byproduct of bad personal decisions or just something that a bunch of crazy unstable people have. These ableist attitudes are exactly what the modern left should be fighting, at least the kind of thing they should be fighting. Yet there is very little written or spoken on the subject, sometimes in leftist circles it is brought up and somewhat given the respect it deserves, however it is still given the back seat to more trending leftist topics. This is not something that can be analyzed absent a critique of the existing order either. No society which is configured out of cooperation and freedom would have such utterly bigoted attitudes, there is a definite factor of social alienation at play which by nature relies on a division of labor. It of course used to be worse, mental health patients can now receive actual treatment where before they would just be locked up in horror movie esk mental asylums and experimented on/abused by corrupt officials on power trips. However, we still have to deal with the constant stigma and just plain being ignored in the public discussion. Many people still think if you have mild mental health issues that you are some kind of deranged person and mental health just is not talked abut despite being one of the fields we still need to make so much progress on as a society.

The mentally ill are an oppressed group, the left needs to organize ourselves to give the mentally ill a voice and us as mentally ill people need to challenge institutions of oppression that center around our illness. This means developing a radical consciousness that can challenge the root of our oppression as a unit of production made possible by the decision of labor and using that consciousness to build a movement for a socialist, free, anarchist, society. This not optional, this is required for the liberation of comrades with these afflictions. We need to disregard old ideas of mental illness equating to violent or out of control behavior, mentally ill people are normal people, just like anybody else, we DO NOT deserve the assumption that we are some kind of inherently violent or dangerous people. Mental Illness may lead people to do bad things, but so does drug addiction, so does the news, so do the cartoons your kids watch, so does everything, everything has the danger to lead to something extremely bad, the same goes for mental illness, no more, no less.

Dealing With It:

It can be very hard to lead a normal life with mental illness, I know I often am hampered by my mental illnesses in many ways. There are days where I just do not get out of bed because I feel so bad. My illnesses make it hard for me to fully participate in social activities and make it hard for me trust people. Illnesses like this can make participating in politics tricky. When I post my articles on public forums and receive harsh criticism my social anxiety often spikes, and my self worth drops. It can also make it very hard to even wright in the first place, a lot of the time I just don’t know how to say what I want to say and not sound like an idiot or sound half intelligent. I often hold my tongue on things in politics because of my social anxiety. There is also an incredible amount of work that goes into this stuff and I can hardly do that while being laid up in bed crying.

This means that it is certainly hard to be a revolutionary, juggle everyday life, and handle a mental illness at the same time. This has two implications, the first is that our milieu should begin to consider the struggles of mentally ill people and accommodate them as appropriate, the second is that mentally ill people should begin to develop spaces of organization that center around self emancipation and are tailored to their needs as mentally ill people, our milieu should help facilitate this when necessary and appropriate. This means talking about mental illness more and unlearning oppressive behaviors that affect the mentally ill. The goal is the liberation of the earth from structures of domination, the liberation of humanity and that of all species, this can not be achieved without breaking down the social alienation that dominates mental health.

For Those Who Deal With It:

Mental illness is obviously not easy, I understand first hand, it takes a long time for most people to accept they have a mental illness and it is usually marked by a life crises. Given that, the best thing a mentally ill person can do to deal with these things is be active in one’s own treatment and keep pressing on, it’s not easy, you will probably have to fake it somedays, but it’s necessary if you want to make progress and live a normal life which is very possible, you can seek treatment, and you can get it, I won’t lie, there are as with anything bumps in the road, but nothing ever came from giving up at those bumps. To those considering suicide, I know everyone says this, but that is not an option, it will not end your problems, at least not in the way you may think it will, and it will not make things better for anyone, all it will do is destroy a living being that had value and potential, that could have done great things, there are people that care and will help, I promise. You CAN get through this.
Need help? United States:
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National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
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Website: www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org