There is a fallacy floating around for what seems like an eternity that mental illness is different from a physical illness, that they are separated. The fact is that the brain is an organ, and when it becomes ill, the entire body experiences it. Why is a migraine or paralysis somehow validated over the pain of a deep depression, hallucination, or raging mania? How?
When did it become okay to accept that if someone were to experience a period of depression, they understood chronic depression or mental illness as a whole? It isn't permissible to say that because we have had a migraine that we understand brain cancer, because it isn't. Mental illness is persistent. When I meet someone who is living with a chronic mental illness I sense a kinship between us, we know what it is to live with something that we fight to prove as valid, that we know there are skeptics. This skepticism is dangerous, it keeps those who need care away from it. It silences the voices of those who are suffering.
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Since I began dealing with mental illness, especially during and after my break down, I have lost friends and lost respect for people. How is it that when people are critical of those with mental illness or walk away it is self care, but when someone walks away from someone with cancer or a debilitating physical illness they are a monster? One illness is prioritized and validated over another.
What could I possibly say to anyone who doesn't believe that a mental illness, one that deeply and severely effects a physical organ is real and physical? I know when I am spinning out of control, when I am having an episode my whole body aches. I feel the dull, persistent ache in my hips. My digestive system becomes unpredictable. I have headaches and migraines. My vision is blurry. I feel drunk all the time, or clouded over, heavy and without possibility for movement. I am sensitive to light and touch and texture. The inside of my clothes irritate my skin. I lose sleep. My immune system weakens. How is this not physical? It is. And when I drag a blade across my skin, it isn't a choice. It is a symptom that I am sick, that something is out of balance. I bleed, and the pain is deep in my skin. The scars show all the times I have been sick. I cut in those moments because it feels like my whole body is bloated, and I need to release some of the pressure. Physical.
I am not completely sold on the idea that mental health is entirely subjective. Yes, there is some subjectivity involved. But constant thoughts of death, of harming oneself or another is not healthy. When I am at my sickest, and it brings me shame to say this [something I have NEVER disclosed before] is the depth of darkness I reach. I am delusional, I believe that I can kill myself and others, and get away with it. I fantasize how I would do it. How I would end the life of someone else through torture. In those moments I am the perfect killer. I am an educated women of a minority of sorts, no one would suspect an educated, Jewish, lesbian. I am smart, I can escape being caught. These thoughts go against everything about me. They are poison. They are delusions, but they are still there. I am angry and delusional in those moments, at the same time invincible. I am the most suicidal after this. I think about how I have carried myself and existed, and I am filled with shame. I am ashamed that I have leaned on people, convinced, even now, that my phone call, text, or email causes dread and annoyance in those people. I wish that I had never entered their life, promising myself that I will sever ties and drop out of existence. I hate myself. I want to die and them not to know. Mental illness is real.
So the vulnerability I have here, what I am typing is real. My experience is real. If you don't live it the understanding you may have is only on the surface. Mental illness is messy. It is gross. It is burdensome and haunting. I wish my family, so often I wished this, that my family were spared from me, the pain I cause. I want to run away and become homeless. I am ill. This is my sickness. These are moments and times that I can't function. I can't see people. I can't move. I can't go to work. How could I possibly tell my employer this, or a professor? How do I explain that I am so delusional that crafting an email is so mentally taxing that I'm nauseous. Easy. You can't. This is my illness. It is real.
Lastly, a word of kind, unsolicited advice. You are important. What you experience is real and valid. I know it hurts, that it is paralyzing. I know. I am here with you. And it's okay to walk away from someone, to tell them goodbye. If they invalidate you, if they become so annoyed that you are the one that is ashamed, you can turn away. It is okay. You are important. You do you. You will find those who are unwavering in their love for you. And you will find them in the most unlikely of places. I think of the people I have met in the five years I have been battling this, knowing that our relationship may be fleeting but my bipolar disorder will always be there. I asked a friend not too long ago if she believed me when I disclosed the discrimination I faced because of my mental illness. She said she believed me from the beginning and will to the end. I don't know if she knows the affection and compassion and the love I have for her. I don't know if she feels the same. But I know the acceptance from her, the validation has been transformative. I think that if it hadn't been for her belief in my words and experiences I would have not graduated, I would have walked away. I thought about suicide so much, over and over. I never told anyone. I was silent. But I wasn't alone. I wasn't alone when we went for Thai food. I wasn't alone when I sat on her couch and read. I wasn't alone when I sat at her desk and had lunch. I wasn't alone when I was texting her at night. I wasn't alone. I thank her, with every part of me. Regardless of who I am in her life, she changed me. She held me up. I was never alone.
