In 1990, the HR team at my employer came up with a new health plan that would reduce the lifetime limit for mental health coverage from $50,000 to $10,000.  This would be illegal today, but mental health coverage at a lot of companies was just terrible in those days.

I was trying to argue against this change, and started contacting mental health organizations, to see if they could help me debate my case. I was expecting a bunch of go-getters in suits and ties, carrying briefcases to show up and come to my workplace and help me out.

When I reached the mental health organizations, all they could do for me was suggest some support groups in my area. I went to one for bipolar (then called manic-depression) and depression.

It was really discouraging. With most of the people in attendance, their biggest achievement of the day was getting out of bed, which took them a long time. They weren't going to be much help. And I didn't feel like going back.

Years later, in 1995, it was the 5th anniversary of the last time I'd been in a mental hospital.  I wanted to celebrate, and at that time, I wasn't telling most of my friends about my condition. So, I thought that a support group might be a good place to talk about it. I found one, and had a good time. People liked hearing the good news. I kept going back.

In the late 1990's my career, and with it, my social life, deteriorated drastically.  Bipolar support groups became a mainstay of my social life.

A support group is a great place to go and talk about your disorder. It varies with the shrink, but many of them don't talk about their own lives and are evasive if the patient inquires on the subject. I had one shrink for 8 years who never told me whether he was married, let alone whether he had any kids. At the same time, they know everything about you. It makes for an unnatural relationship.

In a support group, there's a moderator, but most of the conversation is among peers.

The quality of moderators varies tremendously. In some groups they've had formal training.  There are other groups where a bipolar person just finds a space and forms a group. You get some major flakes leading groups sometimes. A support group is not a substitute for seeing a qualified shrink, it is supplement for it.

In a lot of groups, everybody mentions what meds they're on when they introduce themselves. Usually, last names are not mentioned. They all have an understanding of confidentiality, anyone even threatening to violate that gets kicked out immediately.

It is much better to talk about your illness in a group than with people who aren't mentally ill. People in the group can actually relate to your experiences. People who haven't experienced mental illness tend to just think it's all more horrible than anything they want to think or hear about.

The other thing is, if you choose not to tell most people about your condition, being able to talk about it in a support group lessens the temptation to share these experiences with people who will be less sympathetic and are generally much less interested in learning about them.

I've had people who weren't mentally ill tell me not to go. "Those people will just drag you down." they say. But they're totally wrong. I haven't experienced people in support groups dragging me down. Never. Even when their lives are going way worse than mine, they're generally happy for everything good that happens to me.

I remember going to a support group meeting once thinking "God what am I doing here? These people are such a bunch of losers!" What I didn't know at the time was that the new medication I was trying at that time was causing me to fall asleep at meetings and not realize it. Years later, others told me "You used to fall asleep at meetings." So here I was thinking everybody else were a bunch of losers, while everybody else there was thinking that I was the biggest loser in the room!!! 😊

If you are keeping your condition confidential, it's a good idea not to share your last name or especially place of employment with people in support groups. You never know when someone in the group will go manic while they're mad at you and call your boss and tell them everything they've learned about you at group meetings. I had someone threaten to do that to me once. For that reason, it is also best not to friend people from support groups on social media. For that matter, whether you're mentally ill or not, it's a bad idea to put your place of employment on your social media profile unless you want your boss to hear about everything you've said there.

Sometimes there's drama:

At one support group I went to, the organizer kicked someone out and wouldn't explain why. People were so upset about it that some idiot pulled a fire alarm in the building during a meeting to shut it down. And it was a big building. So the management of the building told the organizer she couldn't meet there any more, and she had to find a new space.

At another group, which had a group email list, some people in the group said some things that were extremely racist against white people.  A white woman whose mood stabilizer wasn't working very well was really offended and she went on a wild, rambling, manic racial tirade on the mailing list, to hundreds of people. Having an unmoderated email list for a group of bipolars is almost definitely a disaster waiting to happen.

Unipolar depressives rarely show up at mood disorder support groups, even though they're always welcome. I guess they don't feel that they have much to talk about.

There are major national mental health organizations that provide support groups all over the country, and on Zoom. You can find them on our Links page.