Mental illness ranking

One of the many questions that arise after an initial mental illness diagnosis is “how bad?” In my case, I begrudgingly accepted that I had bipolarity. Hereditary clues and telltale symptoms hastened my acknowledgment of the illness, however reluctantly. But what I was slower to grasp was the severity of my case. Most people with a mental health tag, I think, want to know how their situation ranks. Is it mild, bad but manageable, or awful and crippling?

The answer to this question — which can never be fully verified — informs how sufferers see themselves concerning illness and, importantly, how they approach the obstacle. Further, people’s estimated severity “score” will help them contextualize their circumstances with the plight of others grappling with illnesses.

So there are degrees of mental illness. For simplicity’s sake, let’s not even consider mixed diagnoses. Let’s just assume that there is a bucket of people with schizophrenia, a bucket of people with anxiety, a bucket of people with bipolarity, and so forth. Within those respective silos, you’ll find a range of experiences.

A 1 to 10 scale is a flawed, almost absurd way to gauge the severity of a person’s mental illness. It’s virtually impossible to assign an exact number for each individual because that would require a complete understanding of the curve, a neuro-omniscience of sorts. A doctor with a dozen patients might be able to formulate a scale, but he couldn’t readily share that information amongst his clients. For a person to be an “8,” others need to be “7s” and “9s.” You can’t get inside people’s heads. And, even if you could, how do you compare people’s experiences? A person that’s empirically a “6” on the anxiety scale, for instance, may feel that they inhabit the same anxiety quotient of a person who’s objectively a “9.”

In my sobriety travels, I have encountered a wide range of self-described alcoholics. In meetings, for example, you’ll observe hardcore alcoholics alongside people that also identify as alcoholics, but haven’t had the same wear and tear. The hypothetical hardcore alcoholic may drink a bottle of vodka per day for several decades. This person has left a trail of self-destruction in his wake — car wrecks, a divorce or two, legal trouble, and various physical ailments. On the other end of the spectrum, there may be a young…

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