I read with interest John McManamy’s post, “Blueprint for Recovery — YOU Are the Authority” for several reasons. First, because I’m learning that very lesson over and over and over again … not only with my mental health, now, but with several other health conditions. I just can’t get over how much the doctors don’t know. It really astounds me, and frightens me … because I feel like if I don’t do the research and legwork, I could be given inaccurate information.

John writes about the results of his March survey:

“What is holding you back most in your recovery?” I asked you over the month of March. Readers were free to check off as many of the nine answers as they wished. (169 respondents accounted for 490 answers, averaging 2.9 answers per person.) You could have knocked me over with a feather with the results:

Only 35 percent of you checked off, “Unresolved illness symptoms.” In other words, a full 65 percent of you felt that your illness no longer posed an obstacle to your recovery.

Does this mean psychiatry has a high success rate? Um … not exactly. In my January survey, only 14 percent of you told me that you “were back to where [you] wanted to be or better than [you] ever could have imagined.”

What is going on here? Could it be that we have other stuff we need to deal with? This is where it gets interesting:

Fifty percent of you (representing by far the largest total) responded that the thing holding you back the most is “fears/difficulties in dealing with people.” Very closely related (at 35 percent) is “bad living/work/etc” situation.

Clearly, we have major interpersonal issues that need addressing. Without doubt, our respective illnesses play havoc with our ability to get along with people. But you are telling me that people problems have taken on a life of their own, and it’s not hard to imagine why.

For example, my post on Psych Central, “8 Steps to Closure When a Friendship Ends” has 68 comments, many of the readers merely relieved to hear another person voice the complexities of friendships, since somewhere we learned that time with our pals is only supposed to be happy and 100 percent fulfilling.

Had I filled out John’s survey, I probably would checked off the relating-to-other-people part too! … that the place where I want most of my change is in the area of relationships. I want better boundaries, more sincere friendships. I want to bury my childhood baggage for good so that it’s not like a Jack in the Box in my face when I least expect it.I want to have my mood disorder impact less profoundly my role as a mother and wife.

In that vein, John’s take-home message is right on:

There is no such thing as “just depression,” “just bipolar,” “just anxiety,” and so on. A lot of other stuff is going on. Whether wrapped in your illness or independent of it, it all needs to be addressed, because if it isn’t – recovery is simply not going to happen

I can say this with great authority, because this is what you – my valued readers – have told me. Be smart. Live well …

To read more Beyond Blue, go to http://blog.beliefnet.com/beyondblue, and to get to Group Beyond Blue, a support group at Beliefnet Community, click here.

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