What I’ve Learned from My Son’s Unusual Mental States

Altered mental states can be deeply comforting, especially when you are surprised by them in your sleep.  And an experience within a dream can be especially revealing.

My son had started having unusual mental experiences by the time he was fourteen.  As a psychiatric nurse at that time, I did not understand what he (and we) were experiencing and was loath to pathologize this yet because I know the narratives often shared by families who have a child experiencing mental differences  And I know that a lot of the “treatments” we try do not help and often harm and disconnect much needed relationships.

Through the several years that followed my son’s mental changes, I learned so much from him because his experiences seemed to be the result of deep mental distress—and sometimes the experiences he shared seemed to parallel real experiences or fears from his actual reality.  He did eventually receive a diagnosis and medications for treatment but these alone were not very helpful.  At that time, there was little understood about the function of trauma and other factors in individual mental health.  It was considered that mental health changes were biological in origin and should therefore respond to the appropriate medication.  That may be a convenient philosophy to some, but it is simply not accurate, and I have learned so much since then that I wish I had known when our son was young.

In our culture, we tend to fear what we do not understand or cannot easily control, especially when it is the behavioral/mood changes in someone we care about.  I believe this is why our culture prefers to pathologize these changes and label them.  We have created an entire industry around labeling and trying to match some kind of medication to what a person is experiencing.  And of those who are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder, about half will have two to three diagnostic labels.  A full third of those diagnosed will be identified as having four or more labels through time!  If determining the correct labels is challenging, imagine how difficult it is to find the right medication according to what someone is experiencing!  It has to make us as a society wonder how truly scientific “brain disorder” treatment is.

While I myself have taken medications (yes, I have had my own labels), I have come to learn as so many have that finding the “right” one is an uncertain venture!  It seems that those who really know the “art” of addressing someone’s circumstances with the correct medication are few and far between.

From the experiences I shared with my son, staying with him in some of his most distressing moments, I learned the importance of being with people when they are having extreme mental experiences, and that these shared moments would help them not to feel alone and to feel a little safer through that experience.  (Notably, most of these people with whom I have shared such experiences were actually taking prescribed medications, yet these experiences persist).  The factors that impact our mental experiences are simply beyond biological.

This was something I wish so many people would learn earlier in their lives because I think our society has otherwise failed many of our own.  Most in our culture do not understand that distress can take many forms and that most people with mental health challenges or substance use challenges carry deep wounds that are unaddressed—in part because of fear of further opening that wound and the concern that they may be without support through the inevitable challenges that healing requires.  Rather than offering support, we too often label and cast people aside.  We “other” them sometimes very early in their lives when what they need most is authentic connection and care.  We too often marginalize people whose experiences we do not understand, and their invisibility can be deadly.

I have myself suffered such distress and have entered other mentally created realities in my life.  In fact, I have done this even within dreams to escape what might be happening in that dream or to actually rise above all, having kind of an out-of-body, spiritual experience.

The experience I describe next has helped me—a former psychiatric nurse who was later given my own psychiatric label–to reach deeply and connect with others in distress.  It encouraged me to offer support to people experiencing mental health changes, even those whose lives have been marked by deeply entrenched experiences and changes that we too conveniently call symptoms.

Our family had a favorite dog named Hero.  Hero was wonderful, responsive, and just the size you could kneel beside and hug!  He had medium length hair that was so soft and smooth to stroke.  He was patient with all that went on around him in that rather chaotic time.  He lived for sixteen years with us. I loved him.

After our son had experienced what clinicians would call psychosis off and on for several years, I had this dream that he and my husband were in our den watching me embracing and talking to Hero–my finding absolute comfort and support there.  In reality, though,  Hero had already died.  My husband was obviously upset to see me talking to a space I was calling Hero, and worried for me after all we had experienced as family.

But our son, said, ”Don’t worry, Dad—it does not matter that we do not see Hero—the point is that Hero is now Mama’s reality, and she is finding comfort in him. . . Let’s not interfere, but just be here for her.”

End of dream.

Our minds are amazing.  They can create their own kind of resilience to help us rise above things that have no quick fixes or may never go away.  Insanity can be a safe place when the world is even more insane.  When we are so disillusioned because realities are so inconsistent with what we were taught to value, or what, by God’s giving, we simply understood was good and right, sometimes our minds become creative.  If the people around us could value what others are experiencing, even if they do not quite understand those experiences, they could help each other toward well-being or at least learning to get beside the internal narrative so that they do not overshadow the rest of their being.  We must help people feel safe to come out of themselves, as it were, instead of driving them deeper within and farther away.