Writing about Mental Health: Five Benefits of Revealing Your Own Diagnosis

Photos from Pixabay by jhenning and rperucho

By Sarah Merritt Ryan

If there is power in disclosing something that bears personal risk, the chance is that it is a story that needs to be told. 

With each passing year in our country, the discourse on mental health deepens. People want to understand serious mental illness better and more research is being devoted to finding the root causes of it. Editors are becoming more receptive to articles about all aspects of mental health. With this discourse comes awareness and acceptance of long stigmatized issues. 

Writing about mental health is one thing, but making yourself vulnerable and disclosing your own illness, especially a serious one, is another. First-hand accounts, though, are essential in making this national discourse authentic and true to life.

            Take me for example: I had three psychotic breaks in two years during my early thirties, after going off the antipsychotics I had taken for ten years. Homeless after my second hospitalization, I was soon readmitted and then discharged to my parents. A social worker gave me disability papers to sign, and some months later I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. It was shocking. Suddenly, I felt like I had so much to hide, and the emotional toll was staggering.

            However, I have been in full remission of symptoms for twelve years while consistently taking an antipsychotic. Several years ago, after much reflection, I decided I was finally ready to own my past and open up about it. I was moved to share what I have been through to help others through writing. I decided to start blogging in order to articulate what emotional healing from psychosis looks like and how to deal with a stigmatized diagnosis. Here are five benefits I have realized from disclosing my mental health challenges publicly.

Writing as an Energy Channel

It takes a great deal of energy to withhold and filter your past from the people you meet. The act of writing reverses that energy flow outward in a positive way that creates more energy and passion in your words, leading to authenticity and power. Writing can be a vital channel — for some a sole means of personal expression — on a sensitive topic that is difficult to verbalize. Learning to articulate your deepest inner thoughts while recounting your personal experience can help you to improve as a writer. It can be scary to dredge up painful memories, but I have found it cathartic for myself and beneficial to others.

All this energy I used to withhold from people details of my past is now channeled into much needed self-expression. This one huge secret that no one could know about has transitioned into an entire body of thoughts, ideas, and insight into the recovery process. I had no idea how much I had to say until I started blogging about it. The feedback from my editors and readers that my writing is powerful surprised me at first. I believe that the power in my writing must come from the strong, deep-seated emotions I am redirecting from fear and shame into pride and activism.

Making Beauty from Ashes

Writing to explain your experience to someone else can help you understand it better as well, leading to additional closure. Writing fosters personal sensemaking, especially when you learn how to reframe your experience more positively. Exploring meaning in your traumatic experience through writing can mark a turning point in your recovery. Your increased awareness and articulation of feelings and thoughts can be beneficial to others who may be going through a similar experience. 

Writing details about my psychotic experiences seemed unimaginable to me even five years ago, but it has paid off. I now blog on the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) and Psychology Today websites. Writing blogs that are geared towards sending hope, a positive message, and understanding to people in a similar situation helps me reclaim my life and accept my past struggles. I can turn my negative experiences around and make them positive influences in the lives of others.

Using Writing to Make a Difference

When you are going through something especially painful in your life, you’re surely not the only person going through the same isolating experience, even though it may feel like it. When you write about something not often written about, you can become a pioneer and thought leader on your topic. Being motivated to make a difference can take you a long way toward more effective, impactful, and authentic writing.

Students, resident psychiatrists, and professors in the psychiatry program where I am treated follow my blog. My psychiatrist says they appreciate the insight I articulate about the emotional healing process of patients like me. (There are not many people writing first-hand accounts about emotional recovery from psychosis.) I am guided in what I write by what I see as missing and what I wish I could have read in the early years of my recovery. It is gratifying that my words are being shared by people of influence in the mental healthcare community. Such an honor as this brings my story of illness and recovery full circle.

Joining a Global Movement

With the tide turning, and mental health disclosures becoming a bit more common, it is less stigmatized to have serious mental illness. With increased understanding, even serious symptoms are starting to be viewed as part of a “normal,” treatable mental condition. Now is the time to participate in a public discussion that removes the misunderstanding about mental illness. You can use your own story and writing skills to help end the shame and secrecy. 

When I first started publishing blogs on my illness, using my real first and last name was a big decision for me, but I felt that I needed to demonstrate to others they shouldn’t be ashamed about their diagnosis. The next step was sharing my picture, bio, and full name on Psychology Today. That was a huge decision, but I believe revealing my full identity online makes me part of a social movement where we reevaluate stereotypes and eradicate shame. Writers are known for pushing social boundaries and opening discourse on difficult topics, and this is the kind of writer I want to be. 

Your Legacy

Years from now, when you look back at your life, would you appreciate more that you played it safe, and hid your true battle that has shaped you as a person? Or would you feel proud that by being brave, making yourself vulnerable and sharing your experience, you encouraged others to communicate what they have been through as well? For so long, I was afraid that having schizophrenia would be my legacy, but now that I have become a successful writer on the topic, I feel proud that sharing my journey may be paving the way for others to do the same. 

Schizophrenia does not define me, but I have chosen to write about this part of my life and identify publicly with this diagnosis so those years of my life do not go to waste. Patients with psychosis, clinicians, and family members will be able to view my blog posts about emotional recovery, accessible and available for years to come, and that’s how I want to leave my mark. My memoir is in progress.

First published in Writer’s Digest online in April 2024.

Writing background: Sarah Merritt Ryan is a blogger, poet, and memoirist. She writes an ongoing Personal Perspectives blog for Psychology Today called Healing Mind: My Journey to Cognitive and Emotional Recovery. She has also published a number of blog posts on Nami.org about stigma, cognitive and emotional recovery, and hope. She has published over a dozen poems in anthologies and journals that focus on surviving emotional trauma.