At eight years old, I was preparing myself for my first summer at a sleep-away camp, a camp where I would continue to form memories and friendships and step out of my comfort zone. At eight years old, I didn’t know what experiences this foreign place would bring me. All I knew is that the uncertain feelings were making me ill. I sat through appointment after appointment, I had blood taken and ultrasounds of the sharp pain I was describing in my stomach.
No matter which doctor I went to, none of them could see anything wrong, but that’s the thing about mental illness… you can’t see it. What I was experiencing was my first dose of what was going to be a long road of generalized anxiety disorder.
Recommended for you
I, along with one in every four young adults aged 18 through 24, experience a mental illness in my day to day life. When I try to explain my panic attacks or what makes me anxious to people, the most typical response I get is “Wow, I never would have guessed, you seem so normal.” That’s the thing about these one in four young adults: you might have never guessed it.
They are homecoming princesses and sports captains, thriving within their friend groups and families or not. They are kept to themselves. Reserved. They're the people you see twiddling their thumbs. Anything that was just described is a physical appearance, and that does not portray someone with a mental illness.
It makes most people nervous to get up in front a class and present on a topic they memorized the night before. Sometimes, you feel like you truly need to be by yourself and are overwhelmed by a myriad of people. But have you ever had to leave a frat party because you physically couldn’t catch your breath with all of the people surrounding you? Do you have to use not one, not two, but three planners to organize your tests, homework, and presentations? Does the pain of facing people and school physically exhaust you to the point where you stay in bed all day?
Think about phrases we hear on a consistent basis: “I’m literally having a panic attack right now.” “____ gives me so much anxiety.” “_____ makes me want to kill myself.” People’s mental health should not be used as a measurement of your exaggerations. Until you have experienced the actual feelings that the 25 percent of people aged 18 to 24 go through on a daily basis, fight through the side effects of daily medication, and sit through hours of intense therapy, my mental illness is not going to be your adjective.
The first week of October is Mental Health Awareness Week. Instead of using these common phrases, encourage your friends, who you think might actually have a mental illness, to talk to someone. We need to break the stigma and know that it is okay to not be okay. Mental illness is extremely prevalent in our society, and with the help of one another, we can help those one in four young adults get the help they need.
