Over the years, I’ve heard a wide variety
of things said about people with mental illness. Often, these
statements have been directed at me by family and friends, but just as
often they’ve been directed at others, too. So, I wanted to address and
examine some of these statements, why they’re harmful and help continue
to perpetuate the stigma of mental illness, and how people can better
educate themselves to avoid causing further harm.
1. “It’s all in your head.”
This
is easily one of the most common things I’ve heard. It’s also one of
the most clueless and dismissive. I typically hear it from people who
simply don’t want to acknowledge the existence of mental illness for one
reason or another, whether it be because of their religion or for their
own convenience or whatever. But the fact of the matter is that mental
illness is not just all in our heads. It’s not something we’ve made up.
It’s not a fiction to gain attention and sympathy. It’s not an excuse to justify being lazy
or awful people or anything else like that. Mental illness is real.
It’s an illness of the brain, a kind of brokenness that causes your own
mind to betray you and lie to you. Of all the things that can be said to
someone who struggles, this might well be one of the most painful and
most harsh, exactly because it’s so dismissive of a real problem.
2. “Have you tried prayer/meditation/yoga/insert your favorite remedy here?”
Many
of us who live with mental illness have sought out help.
(Unfortunately, many more haven’t and continue to suffer in silence —
but that’s a topic for another day.) We’ve looked to our religions,
we’ve looked to exercise and physical activity, we’ve looked to
home-brew remedies and we’ve looked to the medical community for help.
The trouble with mental illness is that the experience is unique to every individual, even if the diagnosis is the same. Depression,
for example, looks different for one of my friends than it does for me.
Because depression is an illness of the mind, its shape, its color, its
flavor is affected by the individual’s personal experiences. The things
they’ve lived through, the traumas, the abuses, the social interactions
they have with others… all these and more color what effects depression
has on you. Your depression may be more or less severe based on all
these circumstances but also based on the nature of the physiology of
your own brain and body.
There are so many factors that play into
mental illness that it’s nearly impossible to trace and track the
influence of them all. As a result, your chosen route to wellness
probably isn’t going to look like anyone else’s. You may choose a
mixture of medication, physical activity and religion. Someone else
might choose something entirely different. And your method of treatment
may change over time, as well. Mental illness is a moving target. It
changes over time, requiring changes in medication, additional
modifications to your lifestyle, and so on.
So
when someone asks you if you’ve tried such and such remedy? Politely
inform them it’s not that simple and, if possible, use it as a jumping
off point for an educational conversation about mental health in general and your illness in particular.
3. “You just need to suck it up and push through it.”
This
is another of those almost adorably naive statements people make
because they’re under the impression that living with a mental illness
is similar to dealing with “normal” levels of depression, anxiety
and fear borne out of life circumstances and situations. In many of
those cases, it is, in fact, possible to “suck it up and push through”
because there’s an identifiable problem to be solved. Once the
appropriate steps have been taken to deal with the situation, much of
the stress and emotions associated with said situation can disperse and
go away, and the people involved can get back to living their lives.
Not
so with mental illness. Typically with mental illness, you experience
all the same emotions as you would when faced with a difficult or
painful life situation, only you don’t have the life situation. There’s
no identifiable problem, there’s nothing to solve, there’s no tangible
opponent to face down with a steely resolve in your eyes. There’s only
debilitating despair and pain and anguish and no reason whatsoever for
it. You just know you feel like it’s the end of the world, and after a
while, you just wish the pain would end. You’d pick yourself up if you
could and push through it, but you’re in the darkness and there’s no
sign of light, no sign of relief, no end to the pain to be found
anywhere. Your life feels hopeless, so what’s the point of even
fighting. All that gets you is more pain and prolongs the suffering.
Suck it up and push through it, you say? Would that it were so easy.
These
are just three examples of things that have been said directly to me.
There are many others, and I may highlight some of them later. Bear in
mind that I call attention to these statements not to make anyone feel
guilty about saying them but to help you understand just how unhelpful
such statements are. They gloss over the burden of what it’s like to
carry a mental illness, to live with it every day, and just add to the
sense of guilt we already carry with us because we feel weak and like a burden on those we love.
Think
about your words; think about the effect they may have on someone who
struggles; try to place yourself in their shoes for a while and walk in
them. Maybe in so doing, you’ll begin to develop a sense of empathy for
what it’s like to be unable to escape a mental illness and have a better
understanding of how you can come alongside a person with depression
and help them along. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from
living with my own illness, it’s that you can never have too many
friends, too many supporters, too many in your inner circle upon whom
you can rely at a moment’s notice.
Credit source: https://themighty.com/2018/12/things-you-need-to-stop-saying-mental-illness/?utm_source=newsletter_mental_health&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_mental_health_2018-12-11
On my side: OH MY GOD I THANK THIS AUTHOR FOR VERBALIZING IT FOR ME. GOSH ðŸ˜ðŸ˜
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