As World Mental Health Day is today, it’s best to consider ways to understand how to cope with our individual struggles. You might be somebody who is fortunate enough to be able to live a normal, healthy life or you might be somebody who struggles with a mental illness whether quietly or openly, or anywhere in between. Another thing to consider is to be compassionate to any loved ones that may be suffering with their own personal struggles as it may also affect their daily functioning and overall well-being. I am one of those people, and I am currently working to recover and to lead a good life as I cope with my stresses and moods. As a young adult woman who suffers from said struggles as well, I believe it’s important to highlight certain reasons why life feels hard to live when you’re dealing with something as horrifying as mental illness whether it’s to educate people who have not gone through such or to further assure those who are that they are not alone and they are capable of healthy coping. I understand that everybody who has personally dealt with this issue has their own story and own specific difficulties and I am not speaking for everybody who has ever had a mental illness, but my goal is to highlight specific reasons why generally, based on my own personal experiences and others, in order to educate those who may not know specifically why mental illness is so horrifying to deal with.
1) You never know what is real and what isn’t.
I will keep my specific illnesses vague in order to try and relate more to a wider spectrum of people who have to deal with these struggles, but that being said part of my symptoms include dissociation and psychosis. Psychosis is defined as the “condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not.” Examples of this include delusions/false beliefs, hallucinations, and can lead to sleep problems, lack of motivation, and social withdrawal. Because of this, on top of dissociation (“the disconnection or separation of something from something else or the state of being disconnected”), you feel as if you are out of your body and watching yourself from afar, sort of as if you were on a stage of autopilot. This can also happen in anxiety as well when you have a panic attack bad enough that your mind starts to fixate on details that might or might not be real but paranoia isn’t going to let you think otherwise because your mind is already busy enough with the mental gymnastics.
2) You make strong efforts just to do the littlest things.
I once had a friend who told me that it’s hard enough to find motivation to do something as simple as make your own bed, but when you do you feel a sense of accomplishment. However, let’s not forget the weighing feeling of how difficult it is to even do the mundane task. This kind of feeling is what leads to things such as procrastination and mental exhaustion. It’s hard enough to get through just one day when you feel fatigued and exhausted and just want it to be done and dealt with. That’s why you feel the accomplishment when you do eventually get around to make your bed, because you were able to do that. To anybody else, it’s a mundane start of the day. To me and many others, it’s a sense of feeling like you accomplished at least something no matter how small.
3) You’re afraid of hurting those closest to you so in turn you shut them out.
One of the worst things you can do while you have a loved one dealing with mental illness is to take things personally. From that I mean if they told you that some things you might say to them in some effort to cheer them up, they honestly tell you that they don’t feel better or it doesn’t always help. Be compassionate to a friend, family member, or any such who may be quietly suffering, because they may be holding in their feelings so they don’t let their mental illness affect your overall mood and they do not want to feel like a burden. This is why we isolate ourselves from the people who might genuinely care about us because we are so afraid of being a burden and difficult to deal with. One of the worst things I could ever feel is feel like I’m making somebody else suffer through my own suffering. Also, it’s generally inconsiderate to make somebody else’s baggage all about you just because of any minor inconvenience you might’ve had happen to you. Be compassionate to anybody quietly suffering. It’s why I’ve shut out people in the past and refused to share any of my vulnerability because I never wanted to upset anybody with my own struggles, so I would quietly suffer on my own. At times I still do, but I’ve tried to avoid self-destructing myself like that.
4) You feel hard to love.
You know the saying. “How can you love anybody when you can’t even love yourself?” Because of depression and abandonment issue trauma, I feel like I’m too difficult to be loved by anyone. When you’re in that mindset, you feel locked in your own self-consciousness and self-loathing as if you’re trapped in a cellar and your illness is your captor. You feel like you are unable to be loved, you even feel you don’t deserve to be loved by others. That’s one of the many scary things that depression can do to you, you self-loathe yourself so much that your self-esteem tears down. There are nights where you are crying alone to sleep wondering why it’s so hard to befriend others and to be around people. It’s a common theme with severe cases of social anxiety, you feel as if nobody wants anything to do with you so in turn you build a thick wall for yourself in an attempt to do damage control.
5) You develop toxic tendencies without even realising it.
Look, I am not saying that all mentally ill people are toxic. I am not saying that all toxic people are mentally ill. However, I’m not denying that it can happen as a dangerous combination. It’s worse when you develop said toxic traits without even realising you are. In fact, you don’t even necessarily have to be a toxic person in general, you could be a well-intended individual who does exhibit some toxic behaviours whether subtle or blatant. When you are craving love and validation and seeking assurance, you’ll start to notice later on that you cling to new friends and current ones to an unhealthy degree, only to turn them away faster because it all comes off as overly clingy. Again, this may not what you intended, but just remember: intent isn’t always translated in the result. Throgh this, your intent is only your own perception of what you meant to do, not what actually happened. It’s the same principle with self-fulfilling prophecies. This is a term I’ve heard in numerous occasions during therapy sessions and psychiatric appointments. A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, for example, worrying so much that people will abandon you that you end up driving those people away, therefore that prediction comes true whether it was intended to or not. (Note: Even if you are aware and are suffering, never use mental illness as a reason to justify your toxic behaviour, it is not an excuse. By doing so you are further perpetuating a stereotype that mentally ill people are abusive and violent, so don’t.)
6) You feel trapped and suffocated by your mental illness.
This is the same general idea with emotional fatigue and exhaustion. Now imagine this as the times where you find it hard to get out of bed so you stay in there for hours even if you’re long past waking up. It’s the emotional manifestation of keeping yourself in a dark room because you have no energy to go out. It’s especially the same principle with depressive episodes I go through where everything feels bleak and it’s as if nothing will get better. During these stages I feel as if my future is nothing but a black hole of nothingness so I wonder what is the point of going on. Yeah, it’s that exact feeling of being trapped by your own demons.
7) You’re constantly stuck in your own emotional rollercoaster.
Imagine this if you will: you’re riding on one of those extreme rollercoasters with the extreme curves, turns, and twists, even at times when you are upside down going at rapid speed. Regardless of whether or not you like rollercoasters or not is irrelevant, because most people would agree that getting into those sharp, downward dips when going down is nervewracking. Now imagine that it how your emotions are functioning. There are times when you’d be in the best state of mind or your highest point which is common in manic episodes in bipolar disorder. Then imagine you are crashing down into those low periods, some of which feels unexpected and out of place. To this I say that Deadpool said it best, “Life is an endless series of train-wrecks with only brief, commercial-like breaks of happiness.” If that isn’t a perfect enough summary of what my mood swings are like, I don’t know what is.
8) People take advantage of your own vulnerability.
If you’ve ever had somebody tell you that you are strong solely because of how much pain you have dealt with, don’t look back. Just walk away. People like this will take advantage of your weaknesses in order to exploit your situation as a way of control. If you’ve ever been in a situation like this, at first you go along with it because there’s somebody who is paying attention to you, you feel you are being admired. According to mentalhealth.gov, people with severe mental illnesses are over 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than the general population. This is the type of situations that leads people to domestic violence and end up becoming victims by their abusers.
9) It’s not just a black and white issue.
I’ve said it before in this article and I’ll say it again because is bears repeating: Mental illness isn’t just a “black and white” issue. That’s what’s so complex about mental health. People have their own stories, struggles, and experiences. However, the problem is that some people still see mental health as an issue that isn’t as hard to fix. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work like that. You can’t just “cure” me. People don’t just instantly feel better and never fall back again. Relapses do happen, and it’s okay. There are times where we as a society should realise that recovery isn’t always linear, people work in their own pace just as they’d do in life. Mental health itself is not as simple as that.
10) At times you feel marginalised.
Schizo, mental, bipolar, “totally-OCD.” Who hasn’t heard of this before? There’s a reason why there needs to be more awareness on the issue of mental health and that is that there is just as big of a stigma on it as you’d expect. For a long time, it was considered popular belief that mentally ill people are violent or that they are unstable. No. That is just a toxic mindset that people end up letting seep into their heads and is actually harmful to those who are legitimately suffering from mental illness, especially the more rare and severe ones that aren’t as talked about in the media as much as general anxiety and depression. This isn’t even including the subject of problematic portrayal of mental illness and disorders that has been normalised for a while in our mainstream pop culture at the sufferer’s expense.
11) Certain triggers come without any warning.
You ever had that one time where you instantly think of a memory you didn’t want to remember or an embarrassing moment? Think of it this way: there are times where triggers work in that strange way where nothing specific is triggering at the moment, but your mind does that same thing with what I just said. I’ve had panic attacks over memories of trauma that I’ve dealt with and it has at times went as far as to spiraling myself into further depression and anxiety.
Mental illness is scary enough as is to deal with, especially when we feel so alone and broken that you feel you’re just another lost cause. But I want you, the reader, to take a look at yourself, especially if you have had such experiences. You may have been bent, but you’re not broken. Remember that. You may be tired right now, but you won’t remain lifeless. You may have been scarred, but you aren’t disfigured. I know I am depressed, but I haven’t given up. Guess what, neither have you. I can’t stress this enough that you are loved, you are not a waste of space, you are just as valuable as you deserve to feel. Many of you have been practicing self-care and I could not be any prouder. People who know a person who may be suffering with a mental illness, show that you care and just remember that just their best isn’t always the same as your definition of best. Point is, they genuinely are trying, and having somebody to talk to is greatly appreciated. To everybody else: Clean your room, cook that meal, talk to that friend, do that healthy thing that helps you keep your energy. Yes, sometimes in life you may be alone, but that is not the same as loneliness. It especially does not mean you are alone when dealing with these issues, there are people who love you and want to give you their compassion. I love you and I’m proud of you. Keep on fighting you brave, badass soldier.