#- online friends ???? i dont feel the need to mask my mental illnesses in front of them cuz they arent in my life?

[innie-s]

of mental health visibility

As I’m sitting here in a nice apartment, fresh out of a shower with my hair clean and a face mask on, hot coffee in hands feeling content in my life, it almost seems impossible that only six months ago I was a crying ball of sadness lying on the floor and thinking of ending this misery… It almost seems like a dream I had, that it never happened. But it isn’t and it did. That’s how depression works.

I never though I’d be sharing this online (in this manner), you see, so please excuse a bit of awkwardness. I’ve always been rather open about my mental health state, never really tried to hide it, and yet not many people know or realise. I’d blame that on them not being educated enough but that’s not the problem either, I think. The cause of that lies in a much deeper issue – and that is the invisibility.

You see, there’s one thing to say “I’m ill.” while coughing your lungs up or having a broken leg, and quite another to say “I’m ill.” while smiling and generally showing no symptoms of any discomfort. The invisibility of mental illness isn’t always a bad thing, sure, but it is a bit inconvenient when you need special treatment and people simply don’t believe you. You would never question a physically disabled person needing help up the stairs, but when a person who seems completely okay tells you they cannot do a task because they feel terrible, you’d think them lazy or looking for excuses. Oh, how many times have I heard “Just start – that’s the most difficult thing, from there it’ll flow.” Oh yes. If I could only start. For you, as a neurotypical, having difficulties starting might mean that you have to give yourself a little push or simply sit down and do the thing. For me, it means overcoming five different weights holding me down while constantly hating myself for being like this because look at them, they can do it, why can’t I? It’s sitting down in front of my computer with my thesis open and watching it with dread while shaking and crying because I would love to write the thing that’s been sitting in my head for days now but not being able to. There’s a chain on my hands and they just won’t move, no matter how much I tell them to. My head is spinning a little and the words don’t make sense. It’s finally giving up and starting a new episode of that TV show I was watching or scrolling tumblr until I get to my own posts from the day before. I call that procrastination but it’s so much more, really. It isn’t just putting work off until the last moment, it’s also hating yourself for it more and more every day while being physically unable to do it.

We all understand and accept that the society has a bit of a problem accepting mental illness. We all know that it’s still a bit of a taboo, and although it is spread quite wide we still seem to think that it either doesn’t exist or that it only exists in the most escalated forms of “crazy people who belong to a mad house”. This has been changin lately, for which I am gratefull, but the outcome has been confusing to say the least. Neurotypical adults call their children lazy while completely overlooking symptoms of depression or labeling them as a typical pubescent behaviour (When did it become normal for every other 13-year-old to have cuts up their arms and down their legs? When did it become typical for primary school children to starve themselves because of forced body images? When did it become common to oversleep and romantic to be sad all the time?), we have been called adicted to the internet by people who don’t feel that the only way to express themselves and feel accepted and loved is via internet friendships with people who go through similar things every day. We have been told “It’s going to be alright.” by people who refuse to listen to us and help.

I don’t think our parents understand that when you condition us into thinking there’s something wrong with us, it will stick. I don’t think our teachers understand that calling us lazy or stupid will only ever make us believe we really are. I don’t think adults realise that when they dismiss our symptoms we will grow up thinking we really aren’t ill. There’s nothing wrong with us. We are not lazy and we are not stupid. We are ill. And in many cases we battle that illness without any help, support or guidance and sometimes we lose. Sometimes it’s just too much to deal with and we don’t have the strength to do it. And afterwards adults will say “Such a shame!”, “What a brilliand mind that was.”, “Such potential in that young person.”, and “Didn’t they know they were loved?”.

Now I myself am an adult and rather educated one as well. I can’t say I’ve never dismissed mental illness. I can’t say I came to my knowledge because I cared about others so much I started learning. I wasn’t born educated on the matter and I had to go through some pretty bad experiences myself to even start considering mental illness as a real threat.  I’ve only come to terms with my own issues 4 years ago when they became big enough for me to actually consider therapy. At that time I knew nothing and it took me a bit to overcome the way I was thinking of mental health issues and accept that I might be one of “those people” as I used to think about them (us). It took me quite some time to battle my own prejudice towards the idea of being mentally ill and I still haven’t made my peace with it completely. And still as I face a task I simply cannot do, I question myself. Am I being lazy right now? Do I actually need help with this or am I just calling for attention? Am I being stupid right now? Isn’t it just that I’m incapable/not clever enough/not strong enough to do this thing? I don’t think I’ll ever overcome this need to be “normal” and to prove that I don’t have this limitation.

Many people have suggested therapy to me. And I have suggested therapy for many people myself. I believe therapy can be a very helpful thing. Yet I never went myself and I’ve been called a hypocrite for it. My deal with therapy is simple – will it help a person who is open about their problems, doesn’t bottle them inside, is honest to themselves even if the truth is sometimes uncomfortable and has trust issues the size of the sun? What can therapy of a self-conscious person do – will it help me if I dont need to talk about it (I vent to friends/the internet therefore I dont need any other person listening to me) and dont need advice (I know what to do with myself and I’ve been helping myself for years now)? Would therapy give me something more, can they help more? I don’t pretend I can do this alone but I also don’t feel the need to pay a professional just to tell me what I already know. There’s also the fact that I will not talk, I will not open up about this, I will not show weakness. I will not trust a person who does this as a job, I will never believe they care about me personally, why would I go there to sit and stare at the wall? The day I will go to a professional is the day I will feel so low I’ll accept that I need medication.

There’s a bit of an issue with medication. Meds are for the crazy ones, yes? The moment you get pills you’re automaticaly labeled as a basket case. The moment you have a note saying anxiety/depressive disorder, OCD, psychosis of any kind, personality disorder, etc, that’s that. You’ve been labeled. It all became real. And people will treat you differently, not because they want to be rude but because they pity you and don’t know what else to do. There’s a popular opinion that you have to get better to stop using the pills, yes? As if your brain has a better chance at healing than, let’s say, your respiratory system (will you tell an asthmatic to try and stop using their inhaler?), your pancreas (will you tell a diabetic to try and stop injecting insulin?) or your eyesight (will you tell me to try and stop wearing my glasses?) Can you imagine coming up to a disabled person and telling them to just stand up and walk, see, I can do it, why couldn’t you? No? Then why do you tell me to just start thinking of nice things and find something to do and soon I’ll be feeling better?

And you know what the worst part of this is? That the people who need the medication live with the same prejudice. And so they don’t go to a doctor or they refuse to take the pills or they stop taking them the moment they feel better because they think the deal is to stop needing them. It is not. You are allowed to need them and there’s nothing wrong with accepting help, be it from a person or a little bit of hormonal boost. God knows sometimes I feel like asking for them (and I just might this year before exams and writing my thesis, actually).

But then I get better, as I am now, and I start questioning whether I’m actually ill or if I’m just pretending. And that’s how I know I haven’t escaped any of the prejudice I just desribed and I will have to try a little bit harder to get rid of the idea that I’m really just a poser. Doesn’t help that my own mental health is fine compared to some of the people I know. I’ve never tried to kill myself. I’ve never thought of hurting myself. I already said I’ve been helping myself for years now – and it’s true. I recognize when I’m low and an episode is about to start and I get help (seeing as I’ve found the source of my episodes I also know how to get rid of them). And sometimes they’re bad enough to last days but usually it’s merely minutes and then I’m okay. And everytime I come out of them stronger and stronger and I havent had one in such a long time I don’t even remember what they feel like.

(February. I had the last one in February when I failed an exam and I realised I wouldn’t be able to finish my bachelor’s this year. That one almost broke me, I’ve always had this idea that uni will be the first thing I won’t fail and then I went and failed it. There was a possibility for me to make it – it would’ve been hard, it would’ve cost me a lot – mostly my mental health. And so I didn’t. I didn’t fight, I gave myself a month to heal a bit and to realise this isn’t the end of the world and I didn’t dissappoint anybody except myself – and then to forgive myself. And I came to the conclusion that it might not be ideal but it’s what it is and it’s okay. Maybe I would’ve been able to fight through it. But I felt like I wasn’t and I gave myself a free pass on that one. And I don’t regret my choice for I feel healthy, calm and comfortable now.)

I still get mild ones, mostly before exams. I’ll never get rid of that, I’ll always have a bit of a struggle with procrastinating and then hating myself for it. I used to hate myself for quite a lot, and then I worked that out. I stopped blaming myself for my problems and I came to peace with the reasons of them. I had issues with many things and I’m happy school is the only one left. I have hope that I’ll get over that one as well, sometime, maybe. It’s fitting, really, as school was the first one I recognized and the rest only appeared once I started digging into it.

I’m a lucky person. I know what to do to myself, how to help myself and sometimes even how to help others. Not everyone has that. Some have pushed the idea so deep into their mind that they simply cannot find it anymore, some think it humiliating to show weakness, some reject the reality and some don’t, they realise what’s happening to them and they don’t know how to ask for help or have conditioned themselves into thinking they don’t deserve help, that they’re not worth it. And the few who come and ask for help sometimes find that the help they’re getting isn’t enough.

What I wanted to accomplish with this text (Essay? Speech?) is not only spreading awareness of mental health issues but also to show the people who have it that they’re not alone and even a person who is presenting themselves as strong as I am can suffer from it. I wanted you to realise you’re not weak for experiencing this in whichever form and strength you do. And that there is help to get and it’s not humiliating to ask for it. And if you read this and you feel like it has nothing to do with you, please consider your friends, parents, coleagues, spouses, children. I strongly believe you have a person who’s going through it somewhere around you, and they might be needing your help.