brannon dawson
@brandawson
all right, so. here's the thing. december has brought a lot of old conversations about mental health in public figures back into the public eye, so i want to take a second to talk about a few things. THREAD.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
there's a very ugly conversation happening at the moment surrounding what it means to be an artist who struggles with the management of mental illness within and outside of the creative process.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
right now, we're in the midst of a cultural moment where connectivity and a push to destigmatize struggle lead to a culture of being present with your illness in very public ways.
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brannon dawson
@brandawson
and in a lot of ways, that's great! creating space to discuss illness with intentionality is one in a litany of ways that we dispel the myth that mental illness is something that is always in the process of being cured or killing the mind in which it's housed.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
the vast majority of the time, mental illness can be a thing that just...is. it's negotiated, managed, a bothersome visitor that eats your food but doesn't make much noise. and there are so few narratives that allow for that to be the case. there need to be more.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
but even knowing that, what this model of connectivity and destigmatization doesn't allow for is the ways in which we sometimes fail to take care of ourselves correctly, the ways in which we miscalculate our needs and the steps we should take to meet them.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
it doesn't allow for fallibility, for space to walk back from a bad decision after a troublesome thought has been voiced, or the ability to wake up from the nightmare and realize there's another way. the bigger the platform, the more ironclad your words.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
this is how we get people in kanye's mentions talking about how he gave them the courage to get off their meds so they can make their art.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
there's nuance here. i get that. the pharmaceutical aspect of mental health management is a painful and complicated process that doesn't always work for everybody. but i'm here to tell you something now: MANAGING YOUR ILLNESS DOES NOT MAKE YOU LESS OF AN ARTIST.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
a lot of vulnerable work comes from the excavation of trauma and illness. we're praised for that vulnerability, that strength, which can sometimes make it feel like our value is in that struggle, like we're somehow less if it goes away.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
i know this because i've built an entire career on studying the different forms and faces of trauma, of illness, and the way it shapes a life, all while being a person whose management of my own illness has happened with varying degrees of success.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
a story (TW self-harm, skip 5 tweets if you don't want to read): i've struggled with major depressive disorder, anxiety, and ptsd for most of my life. i started self-harming when i was 14, and went into recovery when i was 20.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
since then, i've had some slip-ups, one full-blown relapse, and learned to manage the urge to hurt myself with a support system that included medication and counseling. until recently, i hadn't self-harmed since 2016, which was a milestone i was proud of.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
last week, i slipped up. i made a mistake. i did it on the heels of some of the most tremendous personal & professional successes i've ever experienced. i'm getting married. my book was honored by my peers in an inconceivable way. i have friends and love. i still self-harmed.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
and that shame, the fucking...unimaginable shame and guilt of knowing that i'm accountable to so many people who love and care for me and letting my illness win anyway was paralyzing, almost as paralyzing as facing those feelings and immediately wanting to do it again.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
i didn't. i self-reported, told my fiancé, my therapist, and a trusted friend. since then, i've been working on trying to forgive myself, to not let that slip-up become a relapse, to understand that a mistake is not the same thing as a failure.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
i'm not saying this to make a show of my illness, but to be honest about a moment when i failed to take care of myself in seeing the stress surrounding me, and to talk about the ways in which leaning on support systems kept that failure from turning into something dangerous.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
medication may not be—and probably shouldn't be—the sum total of a person's plan of care. mental health is a highly complex and individualized issue, and its relationship to art can't be measured in generalities, that much is clear.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
but with that in mind, it's irresponsible to use your platform and your incredible privilege to mock or delegitimize seeking care when you have access to services that so many people don't.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
without access to those services—meds, counseling, inpatient and outpatient treatment—i would be dead. without access to those services, slip-ups like the one i had last week could be catastrophic, forgiveness and recovery wouldn't be possible.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
i'm about to start another thread with links to various resources in ny and nationwide, but in the meantime, please know this: meds and therapy gave me the energy to write, made me care enough about myself to stay alive. your trauma, your illness, those aren't your art. you are.
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18 December 2018
brannon dawson
@brandawson
be safe. be well. being alive is fucking hard, and you're doing a good job.
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