Mental Illness
Mental illnesses are not a sin. They are not something to be ashamed of, and they are not something you should feel like you have to hide. Mental illnesses just mean that you don’t think the same way that the rest of the world thinks. No one should have to feel shame over having a mental health issue. People wouldn’t look down on you if you said you had asthma. They shouldn’t look down on you for having a mental illness. The big difference between “physical” problems and “mental” problems is that with mental illness, the problem has to do with thoughts and thoughts can’t be physically expressed. Otherwise, they are quite similar. Both can be treated physically, if it stems from a physical problem.
Hospitalization isn’t like what is portrayed on television. It can be nice or it can be horrible. You can have understanding staff or you can have people who mock you. Hospitalization is supposed to be a way to help control a problem, whether it is suicidal/homicidal intent, an eating disorder, or something related to psychosis. Just because a problem is controlled doesn’t mean the problem goes away. Sometimes the problems remain just under the surface and they will come back. The miraculous recovery that is promised in the movies and on tv? It’s not something that you should assume will happen with everyone who comes out of the hospital. Some people have to be hospitalized many times in their lives before they finally get true control over their problems. Hospitalization for mental illness is a bit like rehab is for drug addicts…sometimes it takes a few turns to “kick the habit”.
For some people medications are necessary. Sometimes reading people’s comments that medications aren’t necessary makes me want to scream. Some people have to have the medications to have some semblance of a normal life. Don’t assume that because a person has a mental illness that therapy alone will help. Therapy can be a great thing, but for some of us, when you don’t have the meds to go along with it, you don’t get the true relief you need. And not all of us like to take our medicines, but many of us do it anyway. If there were some way to get around taking meds and still have that somewhat normal life, I’m sure many of us would opt to go that way. Also, meds aren’t inexpensive. Two weeks of Geodon can cost more than $150. That’s a pretty big incentive for a person who hates taking their medicine to go off of it, but they still take it because they need it.
If a person has depression, they don’t have to have a situational reason behind their depression. Some people are just biologically depressed. Mocking their depression is rude. No one’s depression should be mocked. Everyone with depression has some reason to be depressed. If you don’t like their reason, then that’s your problem.
People can have more than one mental illness. Since mental illness is a difficult thing to pin-point, a doctor may find two or more problems that describe a certain individual’s mental state. Stating that they have more than one mental illness does not make a person a hypochondriac or a faker. It can just mean that their problems are more complex than a single diagnosis. Also, people who have been in and out of therapy/psychiatric care for a few years may have multiple diagnoses. Every doctor who sees the person can have a different perspective, and therefore a different diagnosis.
It’s great if you only need therapist for a year or so or not at all. Some people don’t need it for a long time. Others need it for a lifetime. Just because you can deal with your problems after some short-term therapy doesn’t mean that another person can. Yes, you may have been through something excruciating and you made it through without having to go seek help. Not everyone has your ability to recover so fast.
People who talk about their problems don’t always do it for the attention, and those who do may have serious problems of their own.
People who mock people who have mental illnesses make it that much harder for us to talk about our problems. I understand that talking about our problems might make you uncomfortable, but talking about our problems can actually ease our minds a bit.
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