****** Spoiler Alert *******
No one wants to be called crazy... even and especially when they are acting, well, crazy. But just as people break a bone or get cancer, most of us will at sometime in our lives struggle with our mental health. It can range from exhaustion after the death of a loved one or depression after a divorce, to the more chronic and barely manageable.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend's first two seasons were playing with the "crazy" in the title, but season three takes a turn to get serious about how Rebecca is really not well. She has always known she had issues with depression and anxiety but had never had a correct diagnosis. Which after the obligatory musical number we see why even after the relief of getting a diagnosis she fights being labeled and manifests why it's so hard to treat someone with an issue like BPD.
Borderline Personality Disorder is helpfully described in the clip above and the reason I bring it up is I know all too well how being in denial of a mental illness can lead to insane behavior and even death. My college sweetheart had bi-polar manic depression and because of his stubbornness and pride he would not take his medication as directed or take care of himself as needed. This lead to self-medicating and eventually his death from an unintentional overdose.
He was an engineer with a brilliant mind but wouldn't/couldn't do the smart thing that might have enabled a productive happy life. The waste of it is overwhelming to think about sometimes. It pains me so 😢
When I watched the recent episodes of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend it reminded me immediately of how mental health is both an art and a science. There is no perfect fix-- there are misdiagnoses, there are adjustments needed to medications, there is resistance to getting the help we need. But there is no prize for toughing it out; there is only the pain we cause ourselves, those who love us, and anyone who has to deal with us not being at our best.
If you find you're not thriving in life like you know you can: get help. Get a diagnosis and if it doesn't fit, get a second opinion. Just know you are worth the effort of taking care of yourself. You are not your disease or disorder -- you are a human who is tending to life with its complicated challenges and this just happens to be the one you are dealing with at this time.
It would be crazy not to address our mental health and be as well as we can be.
Wishing us all a healthy happy New Year! 😊
After-note: Good first hand description of BPD in this article.
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