Grieving What I Can’t Do with a Mental Health Condition

Living with a chronic mental health condition can require some major life adjustments. Here’s how I learned to celebrate the life I live and continue to cope with the changes.

Dr. M, my last psychiatrist, described it pretty accurately: I don’t want anyone to tell me that I can’t do something. But I live with a mood disorder, which means it feels like that happens a lot. I live a 15-minute drive from my mother, and even if I desperately wanted to, I probably couldn’t pursue any opportunities on the other side of the country.

When I make my plans, I always have to consider my illness. I can’t just pack up and go where my heart leads me. In living with a mood disorder, I have to be practical. All the time.

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Comparing myself to my peers

Meanwhile, my brother is a superstar. He has a PhD and works as a professor at a large, prestigious research university. After he got his doctoral degree, he lived in two other countries. Even leaving home for a long weekend takes a lot of coordination and planning for me. I could never cope with the complexities of living outside of the country.

When I was in high school, I thought that I could do anything I wanted. I could go to a top college and then go to law school and be a highly successful attorney. Experiencing repeated depressive episodes in college made me believe that law would be a horrible profession for me because it’s inherently so stressful — and adversarial. 

On top of that, as an undergraduate I lived with three highly motivated — and highly successful — roommates. Two of them were on the pre-med fast track. Whenever they visited me in the hospital, I felt terribly embarrassed.

I took a few classes with one of my roommates, and she outscored me on every single exam. I did really well in high school, but as my condition worsened, I had to adjust my expectations. My mental health was not allowing me to go to law or medical school. I learned pretty quickly that I’d always have to consider my condition when crafting goals for myself.

Grieving and accepting my limitations

With the severity of my illness, I felt like the demands of these rigorous graduate programs would be disastrous. Getting such little sleep would make everything worse. So, I soon realized that this was something that I would have to grieve.

But with grieving comes acceptance. I’d have to accept that my mental health condition makes things a little more complicated. But being more complicated does not mean that I have to give up. Far from it!

I grieved the cold hard fact that there were some careers that I couldn’t do because they were too stressful or would complicate the regulation of my mood. It was hard to see my peers accomplishing so much while I was stuck in hospitals and trying to stay one step ahead of my condition. But I learned to accept that with a little bit of creativity, I could have a good life too.

Just because my brother was able to get his PhD and my close friends became doctors, it doesn’t mean that I’m a failure. Sure, I’ve been through a lot, but it’s also made me a more sensitive, compassionate, and interesting person. 

Shifting my perspective

I think that the best way to grieve what I can’t do is to allow myself to feel the grief — scream and cry even — and then focus every last bit of my energy on how I’m going to use my strength and motivation to do what I can do. And that’s still a lot.

I’m now living my life on my own terms and doing what makes me happy. And I’ve realized that life is not black and white: there are some people who may seem highly successful on paper but are miserable if you talk with them a little further and go beneath the surface.

A little self-compassion goes a long way when you’re trying to grieve what you can’t do because of a mood disorder. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. While a mental health condition can make things more complicated, the best thing to do is to focus on all the things you can do.

Comparing yourself to others isn’t good for anyone. I know that it’s hard to stop doing it, especially with social media and whatnot, but it’s a lot like worrying at a wound: the more you pick at it, the more it bleeds.

The importance of self-love

From my experience, the best way to grieve what you can’t do because of a mental health condition is to bombard yourself with positive self-talk. Everyone has good days and bad days.

And sometimes, it’s important to get a little extra rest to be able to cope with the stressors. I still struggle with this. It only makes me human to be competitive with my friends, especially those who seem to be accomplishing so much. 

But in the end, I can only do my very best, every day, with what I do have. I have to learn to love myself, including all my limitations. Being hard on myself only complicates the picture and worsens my depressive symptoms.

The takeaway

There will definitely be days when this is harder. But the better I get to know myself and how to live my best life possible, the happier I will be — even with depression. The process of grieving your limitations from depression gets easier to deal with over time, but you may also experience periods when these complications just seem harder or more painful.

So, I urge you to take it one day at a time and be patient with yourself. Accepting the new lifestyle changes that come with depression can be difficult, but adjustment takes time, and it’s something that continues to get easier along the way.