Content Warning: this entry deals with mental illnesses. It is profane, and blunt. If you’re not willing to be called out on your shit, then skip this for now. When you’re in the place of your journey, where you have grown enough to face your struggles, come back and read it. You’ll get here, if you’re willing to fight for it-- because you’re fighting for your Whole-ness. If you’re not willing to do so, QueerCoven probably isn't for you. We’ll be here if/when you get here though.

Take a moment and think about all the people you’ve met. How many people manage some chronic issue? Migraines, diabetes, asthma, food or environmental allergies, depression, anxiety, ADHD and more-- millions of humans manage chronic illnesses, some invisible (hello fibro and anxiety!) and some easier to see (mobility or hearing impairments).

It’s so easy for humans to understand and accept visible disabilities. When someone is missing a body part, you can’t pretend they’re “faking” if they need help opening a door, for example. But, if someone has Autism and OCD and needs help opening doors because of their OCD triggers, it’s easier to discount it. We are all guilty of it, even those of us who deal with our own illnesses-- because it’s easy to forget that we only live in our own heads, and don’t know where other people are in their heads.

That’s what this entry is about:

Your mental health is your problem, not the problem of others.

Deal with your shit, including the trauma of your childhood you are afraid of

When you need to take your meds, be brave enough to take your meds!

Get therapy! Do the work!

In the US, “mental illnesses” is a catch all for “everything that doesn’t fit into the teensy tiny box we’re shoving everyone into”, and includes: not wanting to climb the corporate ladder, wanting to make art for a living, being vegan, being an anarchist, loving to window shop, having more than 2 pets, and just about everything else. It’s stupid, and it marginalizes people who have debilitating illnesses that are caused by their brains not making enough of whatever-chemical they need, or their brains being congenitally different, or both, or maybe neither things, but their brains just aren’t quite “usual”.*

Mental illnesses are blamed for credit card debt (shopping addiction), cheating on one’s partner (porn and/or sex addiction), drug abuse and drinking too much (substance abuse), screaming and verbally abusing people (sociopathy, intermittent explosive disorder, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder and many more!) and of course stalking, can’t forget that one (see previous list of illnesses). Pretty much anything that society doesn’t like, or isn’t “civilised” falls under the umbrella of “they must have a mental disorder.”

Women have had various behaviours blamed on mental illnesses over the years-- even back in the 19th and early 20th centuries women who weren’t “usual”, you know, those of us who think with our brains, like to work, think, write, we were mentally ill. (Read “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman for a wonderful peek inside that world)

In the 2020’s we’re a little better, and do accept that a person can be in the grips of a pretty awful disorder and still do great things-- or very bad things.

* I hate the words neurotypical and non-neurotypical because they are so limiting! Technically, as a chemically-fucked up depressive with anxiety I’m “neuro-typical” because I don’t have autism, ADHD or something in that family. But technically I’m less typical/normal than an autistic person who doesn’t have depression! Think about it, my brain does not have the right chemical mix, it is non-typical. So I’m going to use “usual” as a baseline instead of neurotypical. This does not negate the choice of autistic people to use non-neurotypical, or whatever description they choose. They aren’t wrong to choose their own brand/label, and I’d prefer to honour theirs when they tell me, as opposed to sticking one on them.

Ok, let’s break things down.

Your mental health is your problem: This one’s hard, because we’re literally surrounded by the mental illnesses of others. Spend two minutes on Twitter or 8 seconds on YouTube, and you’ll see evidence of every mood or personality disorder known to science, and a few that probably haven’t been classified yet! Humans are fantastic at showing our bad sides, and even better at blaming our bad actions on other people. This is against everything a Witch stands for-- a Witch owns their own selves, and their own issues-- even when we want to lash out and blame others.

Your HeadWitch was diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder and persistent depressive disorder-cyclical (it used to be called major depressive disorder) when I was in my 20’s. Officially. There were discussions prior to that when it was “well, you might have this” but my bio-mother was uninterested in medical help for depression, as she believed that her particular brand of christianity would cure everything-- It did not!

So, I myself did the hard work of getting into therapy, taking my medication, and working to find my triggers, building coping skills, and working to improve my health. I chose to remove people from my life who cause harm, and I left christianity a very long time ago. (If you were raised with religion, even if you still follow it and find it uplifting and benign, maybe consider a couple sessions with a therapist that isn’t religious to see if you need to do some religious trauma work. Trust me, religious trauma is insidious!!)

If you have any kind of mental illness, you need to own that. It’s yours. It sucks, yes! They suck so hard! They are The. Worst! But, it’s yours. It’s not your parents’ disease (even if they have it too), it’s not on your coworkers to deal with it, not your friends, your partner, your next door neighbour. It’s yours. Part of being a real adult, a grown-up grown up person, means dealing with things that are hard-- and believe me I know, and I struggle too. Every single day.

When you aren’t grown up enough to own your mental illness, you basically give up your autonomy. You give control of your Mental Thing over to others, and often blame them for not making you happy, comfortable, healthy-- whole. That’s so fucked up! You’re basically blaming people for your issues, and then punishing them for not fixing you!

You can ask for accommodation of course-- if you're blood-phobic, your friends and coworkers should never show you videos or photos of blood, or ask you to give blood, or whatever. But if you have anxiety, you can’t ask people not to breathe in and out if that makes you anxious. You can’t ask people not to touch doors if they make you anxious.

You can’t ask people not to do anything that makes you anxious-- because that’s yours. And You Need To Own It.

It's ok to be afraid of your childhood trauma, and it's ok to be terrified to dig into your mental health issues. What is not ok, is to ignore them, and pretend everything is fine, while you're running around on fire, and setting everyone else on fire.

You're a Witch-- you're a brave warrior, a healer, a leader, and a good friend-- so fucking act like it!

Therapy is great for every person, for every reason. Just as a “checking on my head”, as a “processing the death of my <insert beloved person, hated person, beloved pet, politician you hate so much you want to set their grave on fire, whatever>”, whatever you need a 3rd party for. That’s what therapists do best: they act as a disinterested 3rd party, and can give you advice from outside-- they aren’t as invested in your day to day as you are, because only you live in your head.

Everyone has trauma from their childhood. Even people who had parents who loved them, cared for them, provided everything they needed/most of their wants, and who are physically and mentally healthy. Sometimes the trauma is the death of their pets or grandparents, and how they did/did not deal with it. Sometimes it’s trauma from school, bullies, bad teachers, accidents, etc-- childhood is brutal for everyone, and I don’t know how we make it out alive sometimes.

But, we have to deal with those traumas. They are ours, just as much as our eyes and hair, as our freckles and the road rash scars from riding bikes, or skateboarding. They are deep and can impact us in ways we don’t know, or realise.

What we have to do, as we own our mental issues and traumas, is to find a way to dig through that baggage. We have to discard what hurts us, and keep what nourishes us. This is where you need a good therapist.

I recommend checking resources like https://www.polyfriendly.org/ and the Secular Therapy Project (https://www.seculartherapy.org/) for open-minded therapists who won’t try to proselytise you. You can also check your local Jewish Family Services. JFS will provide excellent therapy without the threats of hellfire and damnation that often comes with christian counsellors.

Trauma can give us the worst kind of coping mechanisms. We choose to hurt ourselves in the long-term in an attempt to mitigate the current harm/discomfort. This is why therapy is necessary, and sometimes medication-- we are working to change our habits and our mindset. Changing the way we act on impulse, the way we think, feels impossible-- but therapy can teach us skills, and help us make better habits.

When you need to take your meds, be brave enough to take your meds!

I live in a state that has had medical marijuana for over a decade now, and recreational use since 2020. I know several people personally, and have heard so many stories, about people who got MMJ cards for nebulous “anxiety”. It’s always been an open joke that if you wanted to smoke, you went to an MMJ mill, sorta like a “pill mill” but for medical marijuana cards, and tell them you had chronic anxiety and pain, and there you go, your card.

When I hear “I use MMJ for <insert mental disorder here>” I roll my eyes, and think, “Because I’m not brave enough to get therapy and actual medication.” I don’t know that it’s true for everyone, but for just about everyone I’ve met, it’s true. So, for the purposes of this article, it’s anecdotal, and therefore ‘canon’.

I have been in therapy on and off for the past 20 years. I’m no longer on medication, but if I need it, if I spiral like I did, then I will get back on it instantaneously! Being on antidepressants is not always easy and finding the right medication or combination of medications, for whatever you need (ADHD, OCD, whatever) can be time-consuming, and you have to deal with whatever weird and possible terrible side effects until you get the right one. But there are so many, you’ll find one or three, I promise!

Medication can feel like defeat, like you can’t fix yourself by yourself. And isn’t that the point of being a Witch is to fix yourself, and do good, and be awesome? Taking your meds, being a brave warrior and taking your pills the way the doc/psychologist tells you to, is hard, harder than anyone can know unless they take them, too. You probably won’t find a lot of support in parts of the Pagan community-- they, like many fundementalist christians-- hate medicine for depression, anxiety, ADHD, etc. You’ll hear things about how you shouldn’t “poison” your body, and you need to be “all natural and organic” and blah blah blah.

What they are doing is policing you, and your body, and your health. They have no right to shame you-- and to teach you to shame yourself-- for needing medication. Medication can save your life-- or make your life better-- or both! It can save you from years of pain and suffering, from castigating yourself for not “getting better”.

I’ll let you in on a secret: my depression is caused by my brain not making enough serotonin and dopamine. What little bit my brain does make, gets “eaten up” faster than it should be. So I’m chronically “chemically” low. My “normal mental state” is lower than others, because my brain doesn’t make the correct amount. So, for me, medication means my brain doesn't process/eat the chemicals too fast any more.

No matter how much weed I smoke, or edibles that I eat, my brain is never going to make the right amount. The same is true, for you: your brain is going to do what it does, regardless of how high you get or how often you "wake and bake". But your lungs... well.