I think people have this idea of mental illness as something that can be overcome rather than something that someone may live their entire life with. Can you recover from a bad period of it? Yes, but might you have to be on medicine your entire life? Yes. Are there symptoms you might have to put up with daily? Weekly? Yes. Are there ways it’ll impact the way you have to live your life, making your life look completely different from someone else’s? Yes.
Some mentally ill people can live life like everyone else. They can drive, have a 9:00 to 5:00 job, take care of the tasks that we’ve now dubbed “adulting,” have relationships. Some can only do one of those things, some can do none. Who’s more valid here? And the answer is none. No one is more valid here, but I think we need more representation and understanding of the people who can’t pull off living life like someone who is healthy.
A lot of the time if someone can’t live life like everyone else because of mental illness they’re seen as lazy, or to be wallowing in it, or living in the past, but that’s not it. Mental illnesses come with symptoms, debilitating symptoms, scary symptoms, annoying symptoms, frustrating symptoms.
Sometimes I can’t get out of the bed till the afternoon. Sometimes I can’t feed myself. I can’t drive. I can’t work a 9:00 to 5:00 job. Am I suddenly a failure because of all this? No, and anyone else struggling with this isn’t either. I have symptoms and illnesses that are causing all these issues in my life, traumas that have made me incapable of functioning like someone else who might’ve had a fairly stable life.
It is good to applaud those who can find workarounds with their illnesses, actors we see who have depression who do have families and work, or people in our lives who are still going despite it. But it’s also good to recognize that just because someone else can live like that it doesn’t mean everyone can. Sometimes mental illness is ugly. Sometimes it’s not getting out of bed and going to work despite being sad. Sometimes it’s frantically doing distress tolerance skills and grounding exercises for a week in an attempt to not hurt yourself because you think you’re dreaming. Sometimes it’s staying up for three days straight, and then having nightmares when you do finally sleep. Sometimes it’s not feeling anything despite everyone telling you how you should feel. Sometimes it’s being hounded by your traumas on loop day in and day out even as you try to live you life as is. Sure, sometimes it is getting yourself to drink a glass of water, opening your curtains, washing your face, and maybe washing your hair over the bathtub. Sometimes it’s going for a five minute walk, or changing into your favorite shirt, or maybe baking your favorite treat, or petting a cat, or listening to a song you really like. Sometimes it’s talking to your therapist, or psychiatrist, or using a coping skill, and other times it’s barely hanging on to life, and not functioning like everyone else is.
Mental illness can be ugly. Really ugly. And I want people to recognize more of the ugly without bringing down the people who are experiencing it. We’re not monsters, we’re not lazy, we’re not insane. We just need to live our lives differently, and that’s okay.
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