About These Blogs

Welcome to "Beyond Mental Illness." This site was created to give advice to people who have a psychiatric history and now are working to re-build their lives. It is definitely possible for people with psychiatric histories to have meaningful lives with important contributions, and these pages are designed to give suggestions on how to do so.

There is minimal discussion of medication here. Medications can be an important step for some people, but they are only one step. Medications can help mitigate some symptoms, but they cannot do everything a person needs. The author hopes to give suggestions on filling other needs people with mental illness have.

Right now the blog has two composite characters. One is Tony, a young man who has recently been released from the hospital and is low-functioning. The letters addressed to Tony are here on this page.

The second character is Kayla, who has been stable for a while but needs advice on taking next steps and moving forward. The link to Kayla's letters is: beyondmikayla.blogspot.com.

The author recommends people interested in mental health consider reading the following books: http://beyondmentalillness.blogspot.com/p/recommended-reading-list.html.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Improving Your Skills

Dear Tony,

Do the best you can. I tell myself that over and over again. Just do the best you can with what you have.

When I was sicker, I was extremely dependent on my moods. When I was in a good mood, I could do a lot and start a lot and make progress moving forward. When I was in a bad mood, I could not compensate. I would try and try and try, but I could not make my mind work the way I wanted it to.
It took a very long time to fix that problem. It took considerable skill-building when I was in a good mood. Slowly and gradually I was able to do more even when I was upset. Frankly, I still have some problems with that. When I am upset I need to rest and compensate. I can still accomplish some things, but not nearly as much as when I am feeling better.

Being in a good mood has some pitfalls, too. When I am feeling well, I want to try to make up for missed time and accomplish everything at once. I may try to start everything at once and then become upset when I can’t follow up with it. I have learned to step back and choose the most important things to accomplish, and then stick with them. I may not finish everything, but generally the more I can do the better off I am.

More often, I start to work and make progress and then become annoyed when I cannot comprehend everything. The world is a complex place, relationships are very complicated, and no one person cannot possibly understand everything. That is difficult for me to swallow. I want to know everything, and I grow upset when I realize how much knowledge I am missing. Just do what you can. I read once a long time ago to just try to be 1% better every time you try. That can help. We all need to learn that again and again. You don't need to make large steps - only to continually keep making small steps. Look closely at the details of a situation and figure out something you can do - anything. It does not have to be big (it probably shouldn’t be big at first). But look at the details and find some way to make your life or your work or your relationships better.

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