May is mental health awareness month. I am the face of someone who battles with mental illness. 1 in 4 people do. I am that 1. I don’t battle with just 1 mental health disorder, I have multiple. Some being generalized anxiety, bipolar disorder, and bpd. People who struggle with mental health are not scary. They are just like you, they just struggle a little bit. There are still huge stigmas around mental health. Stigmas that keep people from getting help. We need to end the stigmas. People with bpd are called manipulative. People tell someone with depression to just be happy. People tell someone with anxiety to just stop worrying. People use bipolar as an adjective. Mental health is not a scary thing. It’s something that sucks to deal with. But it is not scary. It’s not something that should keep you from being friends with someone. People with mental health just need extra support most of the time even when they push you away. Mental health is not something that is easy to deal with. I have struggled with my mental health since I was 10. It’s not fun. But those living with mental health disorders are capable of living a happy, healthy, and productive life. Just because someone has a mental health diagnosis does not make them less than anyone else. They are just as capable and just as much as a human as you are. They deserve to be treated with the same respect as you give anyone else. They do not deserve to be ridiculed for having something that is out of their control. No one with a diagnosis of a mental health disorder woke up one day and was like “I want to have anxiety and depression for a while.” That’s not how it works. People who face mental health diagnosis are scared to speak out because of what people have to say. Some people are supportive but then there are those. Those that laugh and ridicule them. Those that say things like “just quit worrying”, or “just smile, you’ll be happy.” Or they face things when people use their mental health disorder as an adjective. Examples being “the weather is so bipolar,” or “you are so OCD”. These things are not okay to say. They are just adding to the stigma. Therapy is something that needs to be normalized. Anyone could go to therapy. Even therapists. Even successful business people. Even your best friend. I go to therapy. I have gone for years and I love it. Its not sitting on a couch and being psychoanalyzed. It’s sitting in a chair talking about whatever you want to talk about without judgement. It’s having someone cheer you on when you’re getting better and someone who is there when you are struggling. Therapy isn’t scary and not everyone who goes to therapy has a mental health diagnosis. Some people go when there is more stress in their life so they can get good coping skills. Some people go when they’re life is going well but there’s still a few things bugging them. And then there are people who go because they have a mental health diagnosis and therapy helps and makes dealing with this disorder easier. Any reason to go to therapy is okay. One thing that people say is that people with mental health disorders are crazy. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Yes there are some people who are quite literally crazy. But most people are not. Most people are just like you, they just have a chemical imbalance in their brain that makes them acting and feel a little differently from you. Somethings we do may seem crazy to you but they could be ways we cope. We may do things differently then you but that doesn’t make us crazy. Not everyone does the same exact thing the same way. Just because someone does something differently then you doesn’t mean they are automatically crazy. Their brain may analyze things differently and so they do things a little different then you. Remember next time you’re going to say something like “I'm so OCD,” or “the weather is so bipolar”, that these are things real people deal with and they are not meant to be used as adjectives. Remember the next time you are going to call someone crazy that they probably just process things differently then you. Remember that people who deal with mental health disorders are real people too and they deserve to be treated as so. Hold onto hope and stay strong. Madison Rae <3
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