Nobody’s replied to you, Mike, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t heard you. There’s just not much we can offer to help, at least me. But we are listening.

People, and by that I suppose I mean nearly everyone, just don’t understand mental illness at a fundamental level. People suffering from it, living with those suffering from it, and pretty much everyone they encounter in their daily lives. They wish for magic wands that can make it go away–medications that are “cures” rather than “managers”, psychotropic drugs without any side-effects, drugs that always work the same way for everyone at every time, unicorn and rainbow stuff. And why shouldn’t they wish for that? Mental illness really is scary. Your mom wants to wave a wand and have her smiling son back, no medicines, no side-effects. And shit, man, it sounds like you’d like that too. You’re just a little closer to the truth of the daily struggle than she is.

I wouldn’t begrudge people for wishing for things that are never going to happen–it’s a coping mechanism. Not a great one, I agree, but that’s what it is. Explaining the experience of having mental illness to someone else is a Herculean task. But it’s your family. Even if you don’t get it across, it’s worth repeated attempts.

Do your best. It’s the most any of us can hope to do. I can also say if it helps that cracked faith still manages to work pretty well sometimes, although it works differently than the pre-cracked variety.