Simple answer? “Just be happier, it’s not that hard.”
Difficult answer? “It’s very, very hard.”
This isn’t an easy topic to sit down and write about. Not everyone can handle talking about mental illness, or even reading it. This may even be a triggering piece to some. I’m not going to sit here and pretend it’s something that it isn’t. But what I will say is that mental illness isn’t something to joke about.
How do I know?
I suffer from it. My family does. My close friends. And most likely, half the people in your life do, too.
Anxiety manifested within me at the early age of five. For a long time, mental illness became a stigma in my life that people refused to acknowledge, including my own parents. Everyone would tell me that I was just weird and that I was just worrying about what everyone around me thought of me. If someone was having a bad day and didn’t feel like talking to me I’d worry it was my fault. “Not everything is about you,” is my favorite line my mother used to say to me. “Stop worrying so much, you’re getting annoying,” was my other favorite line from my friends.
There’s also depression that followed. It felt like someone physically cut a hole out of my heart and head and it confused me for a long time. The lines continued with “Be happy” and “Don’t be negative.”
It’s 2018 and my only question is when is the stigma against mental health actually going to go away? We’ve been fighting it, begging for people to understand it’s not just something we choose. We are born with it. It develops over time due to circumstances, due to parental backgrounds, due to whatever reason it manifested itself to begin with. People write their gut-wrenching stories about the pain they feel, about what it’s like inside of their heads, how they’re screaming for air but can’t manage to get any through. That’s what a mental illness is like. It’s an anchor chained to your leg, dragging behind you. Sometimes you forget that it’s there, and you walk among the world as if nothing is wrong. But sometimes, something bad will happen or you’ll fall and the anchor falls on top of you, crushing you and your spirit.
We’re different, people with mental illness. We’re all born with different thoughts and ideas. Our upbringing will vary, and our relationship with our parents and peers will alter how your brain feels. But one thing I can say for certain is we understand each other. I’m tired of my friends telling me not to feel sad. I can’t help it. I work so hard to pretend I can get through a day without anxiety creeping its way up my arms like bugs, or depression smacking me hard in the face. Not everyone’s minds were built to withstand a mental illness.
You don’t blame a person with Down Syndrome for being born with it, do you? You don’t tell them to stop having a disability–you help them in any way you can and listen to what they need. If someone’s in a wheelchair, do you tell them to stand up and stop asking for attention? No, you help them reach something high up or wheel them to class like a kind person. In a day and age where we claim to be better than the generation before us, why haven’t we started being better? I shouldn’t have to hide what I feel for fear of others disapproval. I’m allowed to have a bad day, especially if I can not help it.
My name is Nickey. I’m 21 years old and I have been diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Depression.
If you can’t handle that or understand that I’m not like you just because my brain functions a little bit differently, then that’s where you need to look in the mirror and talk to yourself and ask how you should change. I’m taking the steps to better myself. Are you?