Next week in the States we celebrate Thanksgiving. It’s a time to come together with friends and family, to eat, and to enjoy all the things we’re grateful for like the previously mentioned company, a warm home, and all that delicious turkey. But this year, I’m thankful for something completely different. I’m giving thanks to my mental illness.
Why I’m thankful for my mental illness?
It’s cliché, but sometimes clichés are the only real way to describe circumstances. I’m grateful for my mental illness because it brought me to where I am today, and I quite love where I stand.
Was the journey painful? It was excruciating. Along the way I lost friends to overdose and suicide, I said some really hurtful things to my mom (sorry mom I love you), I battled addiction, dropped out of school, and was hospitalized three times. All this before I was even eighteen years old.
Then in my twenties, I was a pill-popping, alcoholic, Charles Bukowski wannabe working at a Dollar Store with no real hope for a future. I was off all medications, had no access to mental health care or addiction treatment, but I wrote in my journals like mad. For my foray into the adult world, I was cast as a hot mess hell-bent on self-destruction.
Then I learned to make friends with my illness.
It was also in my twenties when things began to shift ever so slightly. I can look back on a specific point that changed my trajectory. It was Christmas 2002, I’m at my Uncle Joe’s house, and someone handed me a beautifully wrapped gift.
I was surprised to be receiving a present, but it’s Christmas, so I’m thrilled too. Slowly I began pulling the gift-wrap away from the box and inside found a blue Reebok yoga mat, yoga block, and a DVD from Yoga Instructor Rodney Yee. There was no way for me to realize the impact yoga would have on my health entirely, so I went back to drinking.
But soon I found myself practicing twice a day. This yoga practice eventually brought me to yoga training where I studied yogic philosophy and meditation with a teacher who lived in India. For the first time in my life, I was asking some seriously heavy questions and getting interested in self-discovery.
Where would I be without my mental illness?
Over time, I began to see that my mental illness didn’t define me. I wasn’t a freak, and I wasn’t schizoaffective even if that was my diagnosis. I was Charles, a real person with feelings, emotions, and someone who has real value to add to this world. On my arms, I have the scars to prove that I survived the hard times.
Sure I struggled walking along the path yet I made it to the same destination as the kids who had money growing up, or the friends who didn’t have to worry about domestic violence, and even the kids who went off to college and landed great careers. We share all the same creature comforts now.
But I would argue that all the suffering I experienced better prepared me for the big dangerous world. It’s because of the mental illness that I was guided to explore all the dark recesses of my mind. All along the way, I was developing coping strategies to keep me healthy when the world around me is seemingly falling apart.
Thank you, mental illness!
You see when I was battling addiction I was writing. When I was deep in depression, I was learning to yoke my body and mind through yoga. From a young age, I was experimenting with various diets like vegetarianism. It was because of the mental illness that I began to try these techniques some twenty years ago, and now they are at the forefront of mental health treatment.
Using these techniques, I began to heal, and my life changed for the better. I made it to college and studied journalism and writing. Today I write this blog and contribute to other publications. What is most remarkable is that I receive emails from readers who are inspired by my story to share their own, to reach out for help, or to begin their self-discovery.
I don’t practice yoga as much as I’d like but my journey in yoga brought me to Buddhism. Now I meditate and occasionally teach meditation classes helping others experience a bit of inner peace.
And probably the most fantastic piece of my story is my wife and three children. I come from a broken home, and I understand what it’s like to live in fear, to not feel loved, but now I’ve created a new home where that cycle is broken.
Who knows where I would’ve landed without my mental illness?
There’s a good chance that I’d not be the creative, resilient, and active person I’m today. I might hate my daily grind. It’s that monotonous and mundane existence, which I think is the real disease. So, to my mental illness thank you for the wild ride and all the lessons learned.
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This post was previously published on Charles Minguez and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Talk to you soon.
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Photo credit: iStock
