Benefits of Mental Illness

By Olivia Mew, Queen’s Student

We’re grateful to have had Olivia complete her Queen’s University Community Internship with us here at KIHC. 

 

Having a mental illness is often considered a flaw or weakness, but does it have to be? With a small change in perception, mental illness actually provides many strengths and positive attributes in an individual.

Being labelled with a mental illness in itself can be both positive and negative. Once diagnosed, you will be more likely to continue these negative behaviours or thought patterns, as you now can justify why you engage in them. However, this awareness is also the first step to understanding your condition and allows you to have more self-compassion. This acknowledgement can allow you to develop more effective solutions to help cope with the illness as you start your journey of self-healing. Additionally, the diagnosis may offer natural or pharmaceutical interventions, which for some people can be life changing.

Once the journey of self-healing has begun, you will be able to better understand your mental illness and can start to see the unique and positive attributes associated with it.

Mental illness forces you to build personal resources that allow you to cope better with crisis in the future. Often, these illnesses create resilience, empathy, realism, and creativity, that enable you to perform exceptionally well. Having a mental illness can be a huge asset in leadership, as the problem-solving skills developed from your illness are directly transferable. Our insight into mental illness inspires us to educate individuals, allowing others to embrace the limitations of people and to be kinder to one another. Mental illness allows us to fully appreciate the good days, because we have suffered through the bad ones, ultimately making our lives richer and more fulfilling.

The unique characteristics of each mental illness provide different positive attributes. Those with depression are often extremely insightful as they tend to be in touch with themselves, life, and the human experience. Those with anxiety are often compassionate, sensitive and attentive to others. Their hyper-vigilance makes them excel as surgeons, doctors, dentists and bankers. Those with obsessive compulsive disorder tend to be hardworking, diligent and excel at tasks that require a high level of conscientiousness, such as business and accounting. Those with mild bipolar disorder tend to be very creative, and often are talented writers, artists, musicians and performers. Last, those with autism spectrum disorder tend to be good problem solvers, and excel at tasks related to technology, science and engineering.

By embracing your mental illness, the good and the bad, you will create a more realistic perspective of yourself that allows you to embrace your unique qualities. With this new perspective, eventually you will gain the confidence to share your story with others, helping them to open up about their struggles, making the world a more vibrant place that is filled with diverse perspectives. So, the next time you start being hard on yourself for your mental illness, change your perspective and think of all the amazing qualities your illness provides you with. Ultimately, mental illness allows us to succeed, so let’s start to embrace it.

 

References

Bethune, B. (Aug 9, 2011). The benefits of mental illness. Maclean’s. Retrieved from https://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/the-benefits-of-mental-illness-and-why-perfectly-normal-leaders-are-the-wrong-people-for-a-crisis/

Heitler, Susan. (Feb 3, 2012). Psychological Diagnosis: Dangerous, Desirable, or Both? Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201202/psychological-diagnosis-dangerous-desirable-or-both

Reader’s Digest (n.d.). The Benefits of Mental Health (or, the Upside of Being a Little Nuts). Retrieved from https://www.rd.com/health/conditions/the-benefits-of-mental-health-or-the-upside-of-being-a-little-nuts/