To cope or not to cope?

I have started to be involved in a mental health facility – in many ways it is like a care home for those not needing full scale inpatient care but not considered able to cope at home.  The residents are a mix – some I can see as significantly unwell, but others I wonder why they are not under home support.  I have only had a few visits so far and know my observations are based on brief and shallow encounters, I don’t have - and it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to have – details of individual situations except what they choose to share as time goes on.  However it makes me wonder about what it is to have mental ill health and to be judged able to cope at home, or not.

Is there a difference about whether you would be home alone or have live-in support? It must be a key issue if you have a spouse or parent to support you then you are not managing the fullness of domestic life alone – bills, shopping, cooking, someone to encourage you out from under the duvet.

I consider this as someone who lives alone, and struggles with mental health.  As someone who in low times struggles to get proper meals and needs Gabi the dog to nag me into getting out. I have the huge privilege to be in a role as a church minister that gives me the freedom to adjust around my moods. And I have come to accept that effectiveness and busyness are not be the same thing, so give myself permission to do the admin on a laptop from under the duvet, and not expect much in the mornings – unless I really need to be somewhere. (I am much more comfortable with evening meetings).

I have days when I can cope with the complications of domestic life, and enough of the role of ministry.  I have days when I am buzzing with ideas and possibilities – a gift but also potentially a symptom, not always being grounded in reality. I have days when my mood is so low that maybe I could be one of those considered not able to cope alone.  If I had not been in a communal college situation when I had my deepest collapse would I have coped in any way – it was enough of a struggle to make it to the dining room to eat food prepared for me.

What does it mean to be one of those who copes? On one level it is positive, it suggests that I am not as unwell as some others. On the other hand it can be an excuse to deny the needs I do have – by services and by myself – pretending I am not unwell when I am.

Coping is about looking like things are okay when in reality every step is both a struggle and an achievement. When getting a shower and putting the mask on for the outside world costs almost all we have – but others see as merely normal. The skilled observer may see the eyes are dead or the responses pre-programmed – but we are skilled at hiding it and the chance encounter at the local shop is brief enough for us to disguise our pain.  Why? Because to get caught in a conversation about how we really feel, and your theories on what will help, that I have to be polite about – that would demand so much more from us.

So back to those deemed to need the care of the unit – whilst glad to be considered not ill enough for that, I do have a certain degree of envy for those who have permission to not cope, who don’t have to pretend or struggle to cope but have aspects of life happen for them.  An odd position it may seem to some, but maybe others will understand my feeling.