A mental illness is a real illness. Mental illnesses can be as detrimental as internal bleeding. Depending on the disorder and severity, it can kill you.

People say mental illnesses cannot be seen. While its true that mental illnesses occur in the brain and we cannot see the damage without medical imaging, we can see the illness in a person's behavior. For example, someone who has anxiety may constantly be biting their nails or fidgeting. Someone with depression may not be eating or feeling the need to do simple daily tasks.

People can easily see physical illness or injuries so it's easier to accept them and understand their pain or discomfort. Mental illness isn't that easy to spot. Either way both are very real and both are very serious. Mental illnesses are valid excuses to miss school or work, just the same as a physical one.

My coworker has anxiety like I do, and she had a doctors note saying she liked to work in a specific area so her anxiety wouldn't act up. The managers did not care. She was forced to work where they put her. It's not fair because if someone had a note saying they couldn't do this task because their injury was physical, there would have been no issue.

I just want to bring to light how important mental illnesses are and how they are not any less real than a physical injury. Some cases mental illnesses can be worse than any physical one. Mental illness is like a bruise on the brain. All I'm trying to get across is the next time someone opens up and says they have this mental disorder, do not blow it off. Take it as serious as you would anything else. They can't help it, and they wish they could fix it.