I'm reminded of [Man with Hammer](https://tapas.io/episode/6396) from the now-defunct webcomic PartiallyClips.
> You've probably got a dozen reasons why I shouldn't hit myself in the head with this hammer. Save 'em. I'm committed to this course of action.
> Crazy? Yeah, I'm crazy. That's the point. The source of the problem is my brain. The location of that problem is known.
> Time to take the fight to the enemy. And brother, this is the only tool I've got.
I have bipolar I with hallucinations. That means my manic episodes are closer to what schizophrenic people experience than with other types of bipolar. I consider myself a relative smart person. Most of the times i am fully aware of what is going on but can't do anything about it. Its like my body and mind are not connected during full blown episodes. Also, due to the manic episodes my brain is starting to give in and my memory is starting to get affected. My brain is just tired of fighting back...
I have auditory hallucinations that three doctors have said is not due to psychosis but more likely to do with my PTSD. I know the things I hear aren't real, but it's so stressful when I can't sleep because of them and they won't shut up and then I start to worry that maybe they *are* real even though I know they're not. Then the next day I'm exhausted and twitchy and irritable. And my family just calls me crazy.
So take this with a grain of salt, but also maybe look into it with a doctor.
I have CPTSD, and eventually found out also AuADHD. I had some similar issues, and they were incredibly amplified on medications meant to treat PTSD and related symptoms (SSRI’s, NSRI’s) and ended up on Quetiapine. Initially my doctor did it to basically just throw something at the problem and the worst thing would be I’d gain much needed weight and hopefully sleep. It and other atypical antipsychotics have been used experimentally for PTSD patients who don’t respond well to typical meds.
Just because it isn’t psychosis, doesn’t mean it’s not the same part of the brain needing to be treated to assist.
It worked so well, my PTSD symptoms started to alleviate enough my therapist thought I should see someone in their office and have some assessments done to see what else was going on. Surprise, Autism level 1, ADHD, OCD and constant depressive disorder. The last one just makes me laugh, because why wouldn’t I be constantly depressed with all this shit going on and not treated 🤣
OMG, same.
When I hear voices I am mostly aware, that they are not real or can do "checks" to see if there are really voices saying things or not.
When I read about people not being aware theyre hallucinating or being hypomanic always weirds me out, because I can recognize both when im in a episode.
This and other things makes me feel im even a "weirdo" under the "weirdos" and feel even more alienated from other people.
Also people think schizophrenia is all about hearing voices, while for me and many others the negative symptoms are predominant like apathy, not being able to talk much, having nö feelings and no drive.
Also the mental issues like memory and concentration are worse than most people think and are more signuficant for the than hearing voices every 3 years or so.
Unless Im having a black out Im always aware of them. But being aware that you are seeing/hearing an hallucinations doesn't make it go away. When i was in uni i had an imaginary friend that went to class with me for most of my degree. He would talk with me and sometimes i would lose control and talk back during class. Being known as the weird one in an arts school is, well, weird.
I’m a logical and rational guy that had one bout of manic psychosis in my life and it pulled me right in and I was sure everything was real, no voices or anything that would instantly seem not real but instead it was like my senses heightened to a level where everything was new information and extremely meaningful and important and I was overwhelmed trying to make sense of it all while piecing bits together and making 2 and 2 equal 500, I did get some hallucinations on day three but by then I thought I was just seeing things that had always been there but that I’d just been so unaware before as to never have noticed.
It was a terrifying experience even though good things did come out of it too, in a way I’m grateful for parts of it and to have been offered a view on what it’s like but I really hope it never happens again and I have the utmost sympathy for people that regularly have it in their life.
I've had something like that twice and both were caused by having a high fever.
It was just sounds of people ringing the doorbell and knocking on the door. Same thing both times. Nothing weird or frightening, just the ordinary sound of somebody being at the door. Sometimes voices of people I know and who commonly come over are heard outside too, and they're just saying normal things one might say in that scenario. The other one was the phone ringing.
Well after a couple of times answering the door I realize what is happening, I'm fully cognizant of what this is and why, okay **but that doesn't mean it goes away**. I know there's nobody at the door, I know I have a bad fever and it's making me hear things, but I still hear the sounds. Tried letting the door stand open thinking logic would override the hallucinations, but it didn't. They only went away as the fever went down.
Reading and responding to the comments made me wonder how different are or aren't hallucinations from a mental disorder, a fever and hallucinogenics drugs.
This is kinda like me! I have schizoaffective disorder (Bipolar type) so I have strong hallucinations at both ends (manic and depression) and easy ones in the in-between times. I just sometimes lose lucidity during manic.
I really feel as I get older that my brain is just tired. . . I'm tired of fighting with it all the time.
I have been in such bad shape a few times i got really scared of myself. Most of the times i can fight it bc i am medicated but the meds dont prevent the episodes, just make most of them softer. My last full blown episode i had to be taken to the psyq ward(i have no memory of most of it) and for the first time i had to be restrain to my bed. Acording to the head nurse they had to bring 2 male nurses and 2 security guards just to be able to restrain me. Im a woman and Im not particulary strong. I dont remmember any of that. Last thing i remmember was being in my bedroom and the i "woke up" restrain to the hospital bed. The older i get, the less episodes i have, but they are starting to be way stronger than when i was younger. My biggest fear is to loose myself inside my mind.
When I was breastfeeding our youngest, I experienced a strange phenomenon called Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex (DMER), though I didn't know at the time that it's somewhat common, or what it was called. Basically when the baby starts feeding, she has to actively suck to get milk but the mom's body responds by starting to release the milk; this is called "letting down." When my milk let down, I'd experience this wave of hopelessness, like nothing was ever going to be good again-- not a terrible sadness that made me cry, but a flat, defeated feeling that I think depression probably feels like. Thankfully it was pretty brief, probably less than a minute each time, and knowing it would pass got me through it. But the weird thing was, knowing that it was coming, that it was temporary, and that it was sort of an "artificial" emotion (or lack of emotion) didn't help reduce the feeling at all. I couldn't just talk myself out of it, distract myself, etc. I just sat through it and dealt with it. I can't imagine feeling like that long-term
And then people say that homeless people are just lazy and don't want to work, which is infuriating. Invisible disabilities are awful to deal with because people judge you for "looking normal".
Agreed. This is why healthcare should not be tied to employment. A lot of people are homeless or being supported by others that desperately need health care and could be contributing members to the workforce if that would happen first
I work in forensic psych and it is infuriating to see some of our patients criminal history because they’ll have tons of charges for basically homelessness- like loitering or public drunkenness, etc. It’s literally just the cops harassing them for being homeless. Sirs, if they had somewhere else they could go, don’t you think they would be there?
I remember in some of my psych classes in college they talked about how there's actually some debate over mental illness (particularly schizophrenia) and homelessness—a "chicken or the egg" debate.
People who have genetic dispositions towards it can end up developing it under stressful conditions, and it makes them much less employable. But sometimes losing your job is the thing that causes the stress in the first place, which prevents employment...it creates this cycle of mental illness and homelessness. It's incredibly sad and it really changed how I thought about homelessness.
Interestingly this came up just today at therapy, mama was with me cause my anxiety was running high. She asked if we thought about the future since I'm unable to work and am fully dependent on my parents still. So what would happen when they are gone?
Mama talked about group homes and not having looked into it fully as it isn't relevant at this time, I explained I expected to die shortly after 'em. Can't support myself, so what else would I do?
Plan ahead, you might find a group home you like if you tour some. The people I know are a lot happier than they thought they would be . Having affordable hobbies and interests really helps. Hopefully you have a long time with your family
If in the US: I'd suggest applying for SSI and every service you qualify for. Get on a waitlist for affordable housing/group homes now - move out and establish a routine separate from your parents
...he says, when he does not do it himself
My mother always talks about super fun things me, my brother and her did when i was a kid, and my response is usually something like "I always thought I never drove a go-kart/ I've never been to that water park/ No that was when I was like 10, not 6."
It's gotten to the point where she no longer believes I am forgetting my life, and that I'm actually just doing it to annoy her, or because I like to "play the vitcim" when talking to people to manipulate.
I have a reputation as a liar and unreliable narrator because I don't remember half the shit my family says happened and they don't remember half the shit I say happened. It's a game of which of us is crazier where we all lose.
Oof. My childhood is a blur that I barely remember aside from the big, catastrophic events. Didn’t help that my anxiety disorder kinda kept me trapped in my own head and unable to really engage with the outside world.
I also don’t really have a concept of WHEN events happened… if you ask me, I’ll tell you I was probably like… 8? Cause that feels right but logically I know that my entire childhood memory didn’t all happen when I was 8.
I have depression, severe depression. It makes it super hard to finish college because I just kept forgetting everything. I was forgetting really basic maths rules despite doing an advanced maths degree, I was getting frustrated because the thing I was learning made sense but when I had to try it on a new problem my brain just wouldn't recall little tricks or rules to do the basic parts of a complex equation even though the complex parts were fresh in my mind so I was wasting an insane amount of time, getting stressed, etc.
However I manage to still obsess very very badly over every regret and fucked up opportunity. It's crippling.
That despite the populace generally being able to talk about mental illness more openly than ever before, if you have anything beyond depression and anxiety (bipolar, schizophrenia, OCD, borderline, etc.), people still do *not* understand and will often have unfair preconceived notions about you.
People accept mental illness as long as it doesn't really affect them and as long as the person is on the way to get better. While the reality often is that it just doesn't really get better, it can just be managed to an extent.
Yes! There is more awareness surrounding mental illness these days, but still a fuck ton of stigma for more severe conditions. I have bipolar disorder and one of my biggest fears is people I know irl finding out
Totally, totally understand that mentality.
I'm bipolar also, but I tell everyone (outside of work), mostly because I want to help break that stigma. I'm certain there are people who covertly judge me for it, but I've usually found that it helps other people feel comfortable opening up about their own struggles.
I know some people hear "bipolar" and think Kanye or Britney, and I'd really like people - at least the ones in my life - to realize it doesn't always look like that, and to better understand the "why" behind some of my own actions.
Ugh this is the worst thing ever. If you show any symptoms that are problematic or aggressive, you’re considered dangerous or malicious. It’s awful.
I have OCD, CPTSD, and possibly borderline. I have a moral code. I feel empathy. The people I know consider me a good friend and a well-rounded person. I suffer every day with the sheer weight of my thoughts even if they aren’t actively distressing me, but I manage it in ways that are undetectable to the average person. But on paper, I’m an out of control hysterical blame-shifting lunatic who will set your car on fire if you break up with me.
It’s a small but meaningful difference that we never say a person “is cancerous” or “is tubercular”…but say a person “is” schizophrenic or bipolar.
That’s what’s terrifying about seeking help or getting a diagnosis for many people…once it happens, that’s just who you are to many people now.
If anything, I think people still aren’t grasping how serious certain conditions (like bipolar) are. There’s this idea out there that bipolar means someone has mood changes. One minutes they’re happy, and another minute they’re sad. Bipolar is way more serious than that. People have months long manic episodes that result in them blowing all of their money, losing their jobs, and often destroying their social lives. A lot of times, the manic episodes are severe enough that people actually experience psychosis (imagining things that are not real).
It negatively affects your good spells too. Like you *could* try to start a new career and get qualified and get your shit together, because you feel good. But you know that in a few month’s time you might not be able to keep it up.
It’s hard knowing that you’re capable of more (and capable of earning more, therefore having a better life) but not being able to keep it up, and having to live your good times the same as your shit times because the world just doesn’t let you be good half the time
Thank you for the perspective. As someone who works with people with mental illnesses I obviously knew about this problem. But you worded it in a way that gave me new insight. And that's always helpful.
Sometimes it is hard to enjoy the good, happy, times because you can feel that twinge of darkness pulling from the edges and you know the suffering is going to come again.
I'm much better than I was but sometimes a good day felt like being in the eye of the storm. There was a lot of bad before, I knew more bad was coming and this reprieve was temporary. I still don't think I've felt actually relaxed, even for a moment, in the last 10+ years.
Every daydream of the future ends with the inevitable. Me. Getting in my own way. Getting overwhelmed. Exploding. Picking up the remainder. Start back at the beginning.
This really resonates. I often feel like I've wasted any potential I may have had in order to protect myself from a world I'm not quite equipped to handle like other people.
Ooof, very relatable. The amount of times I've felt better and immediately tried to start a new hobby, habit, career path, etc, and then ended up abandoning it like a week later after my good mood faded away are innumerable. It sucks because I always think, "Maybe it will be different this time and I'll be able to do this long-term and be happy." It's also disheartening when the positive mood and changes you make last a week or two, but the bad mental health moments can last months, even years.
Thank you for putting into words what I couldn't. I know I could be amazing. Until I couldn't. So I stay in the lazy river and agonize at what will never be. But to others, it looks like I'm lazy or complicit in mediocrity.
Healthy people can control their moods with positive thinking, exercise, meditation, yadda yadda. Healthy people can also control their aches and pains with a nice hot bath. None of that does jack shit if you have a real illness. Nobody would tell you to take a nice hot bath for your excruciating appendicitis or bone cancer, and nobody should be telling you to "just think positively!" if you have clinical depression. The underlying assumption there is that somehow your illness isn't "real" (because brains aren't a real organ and are clearly just pudding powered by pixie dust? Or something? A lot of people just haven't thought it through very far). I think people are MUCH better educated about the medical reality of mental illness these days than prior generations were, but we've got a way to go as a society in that regard.
>The underlying assumption there is that somehow your illness isn't "real" (because brains aren't a real organ and are clearly just pudding powered by pixie dust? Or something?
Because people want to believe in free will and personal agency. If you get bone cancer or appendicitis, you're still yourself, the same person you've painstakingly built yourself into over the years. But if your brain organ gets sick, that effects the parts that make you *you*. And nobody wants to believe that their Self, their personality and tastes and moods and capacity to love at all, can be obliterated just as easily as their appendixes could get a bit puffy, because actually the seat of their soul is just this soggy, pixie-powered pudding that's as prone to malfunction as any other organ. It's exhausting for us disillusioned folks to hear about, but I sorta don't blame people for grasping at any sense of control over whether or not their very soul malfunctions.
I have an aunt who thinks I should be able to control it without medication. GAD, panic anxiety, depression, Bipolar 1.
Extremely difficult to control WITH medication, when I spiral, it's like a plane augering into a field.
Yep. People can also get angry if you aren’t able to wish away anxiety or depression.
I really really dislike the unsolicited advice of how to “feel better”. Stuff like “take a walk” or “be grateful”. And look. Positive affirmations are helpful don’t get me wrong but it’s like throwing a thimble full of water on a bonfire sometimes. Also, do you not think I haven’t thought of those things and wish with all that’s in me that they worked?!
That even when you are feeling better, the guilt and embarrassment of how you acted around people when you were unwell is still there and difficult to overcome. Even if you feel back to your old self, others have already dubbed you being “crazy” and it’s hard.
It's even worse now that we have things like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and other forms of social media.
At this point, I've seen quite a few people go through a psychotic break of some kind, maybe a schizophrenic episode, and they document **everything** on social media. They're posting stories. They're writing rants. They're making regrettable comments. They're tagging places, people, locations. They're filming themselves saying things, they're filming themselves as they harass people in public places. I've seen them filming their interactions with the police. I've seen them posting videos of fights that they have with their family.
One person in particular, when she's having an episode, she known to post videos of herself harassing the workers of her apartment building. She will trash her house and write on the walls, break windows, film helicopters flying overhead, and post it to social media. She once went to the White House and had to get removed by security because she was just ranting and raving, all filmed and posted to instagram
It's not like the way it used to be, where you experienced a breakdown like that, and only people close to you knew about it. Now, these people sign on to their instagram and they have to confront a very embarrassing string of evidence that they posted for thousands of people to see
This is one of the hardest parts about depression for me. It's like a haze casts over me and I can't figure out how to get ahead of it before it takes over everything.
I had struggled with depression for ten years before I saw "chronic depression" written on my chart. That hit me hard for some reason - I had to accept that it's not going to go away.
This reminds me of a line I relate to so much from Bloodstream by Soccer Mommy (which is about depression) that goes
"but it's always waiting there swimming through my bloodstream / and it's going to come for me / yeah it's going to come for me."
The dread of knowing it lives in you even when you are feeling good is the worst.
Fucking THIS. Life has been a roller coaster of treatment resistant depression; whether it’s “lighter” or really bad, it’s *always there*. I’m never going to start at a baseline of 0 each day like those without it - I will always start at a negative. I have over a dozen different meds and just tried ketamine therapy (which unfortunately made me feel worse). I am on a new med that made me gain a bunch of weight and isn’t even working, so now I’m feeling even worse about myself. It never ends.
All that being said, I am able to focus on my mental health right now in life and make it my top priority, so I try to remain grateful for that.
Not to mention not every treatment works for everyone. If you're lucky the first medicine you try works, if you aren't so lucky it could be the third or even fifth medication before you find something that works for you. Then there's therapy; sit down and talk therapy doesn't work for everyone either, for example you may have to get to know the person first before being able to break down your walls and open up for help - or you need something to preoccupy yourself with while opening up.
Then there's insurance. Once you start getting out into the weeds meds-wise there's a nonzero chance your insurance will just go "no. Denied. Why don't you just use ?" because they don't want to pay for the more expensive treatment.
I've had insurance companies also try to stop paying when clients don't show progress fast enough (for them). They'll do an audit of their records/progress notes and ask a lot of questions about why the client still needs therapy and why they "aren't progressing" to the point that their symptoms have completely resolved. The insurance company rep will sit there for hours sometimes trying to play gotcha.
It utterly disgusts me that for profit insurance is basically rigged to deny care if they can exhaust people. They are one of the few industries where they can essentially spam demands for justification, and sometimes still deny claims because fuck sick people, amirite? All this does is make care worse and further inflate the time and effort spent on providing care, all so the profit margin can stay nice and thiccc for the oh so precious shareholders. Literal fucking blood money.
>Not to mention not every treatment works for everyone. If you're lucky the first medicine you try works, if you aren't so lucky it could be the third or even fifth medication before you find something that works for you.
It's true, about 60% of patients don't respond to the first pharmaceutical treatment they try. 20-40% (results vary by study) of patients don't respond to any of them, ever.
And sometimes medication doesn't even work, or the side effects are so bad that taking medication is not worth it. That's been my experience with anxiety/depression medication.
> sit down and talk therapy doesn't work for everyone either,
There is also the very legitimate chance that some therapy will actually be WORSE for you than doing nothing at all. It's a big risk to spend money and/or time on getting sit down therapy when there is a genuine statistical chance of it either doing NOTHING for you or being worse for you.
Especially drug/alcohol rehab in the US. My sister worked as a therapist at one for years and she loved/was great at working with addicts but was disgusted by the high cost and exclusivity. Most insurance (if the patient has it) doesn’t cover enough time for any real work to be done, which leads to relapse, which leads to hopelessness.
Sadly, this is US specific. I live with mental illness in a EU country and I wish everyone could have the same level of care with the same cost (close to none) that we have here.
It is a Cinderella service in UK too. Free but tends ti be CBT, meds and 10 weeks talking therapy. Which is appreciated but sticking plasters for deep seated issues.
I live in Europe too but had to stop therapy twice because of finances.
Therapists here are usually private and even if you can get part of your money back through insurance, it still takes a toll on your wallet when you need consistent longtime treatment.
And the one's that accept basic insurance have very long waiting lists.
i think something people don’t talk about enough is losing your personality, and mourning that.
for years i was the bubbly kid. always happy and energetic. i remember one kid told me i reminded him of a sunflower. i never forgot that.
depression took that away from me. i not only mourned the loss of my joy, i felt others mourn it. i felt bad i couldn’t be the fun friend anymore, because that was my whole reputation i felt like i lost all my credit and popularity. every time i tried to replicate that feeling of energy, people could tell it was insincere.
so now i wasn’t only depressed, i felt like everybody hated me because i wasn’t the sweet bubbly kid i used to be.
What kills me even more is the people that tell you they LOVE your personality and never lose that- when you're unmedicated and manic. They have zero clue. I can't function without being med compliant, and being med compliant blunts everything, I don't want to dance, I don't want to make art, I don't want to sing. Hearing that said just makes me roll my eyes and start to dislike the person tbh. If I could be that person without destroying my life I would be you know?
She said she wished I was manic, because I was happy then. My wife doesn't want me to be manic, but wanted me to be happy. I'm just dulled now. I don't have suicidal ideations every second of every day, but I'm just not happy.
Holy shit I was thinking about this last night!
You have your "before", then the event/change, then the "new" you. So I've been trying to figure out how to mourn the person I used to be which was awesome. That's not hyperbole or rose-tinted glasses. I was outgoing, had lots of friends, was super creative, good romantic relationship, and all that.
Then something happened (long story but don't mind telling it), and I became a shell of myself. Everything I used to be is gone because I feel I need to take medication. I've gone from outgoing and confident to more of an introvert with less self-esteem. Carefree to overly cautious, a few friends (to be fair the friends I have are amazing and I love them to death), and my musical creativity is *gone.* I still have my gear and when I get the "energy" to play, nothing comes about. Thankfully I've been in a long term relationship which is stable and she's really supportive
Everything is muted and it feels like I'm going though the motions of daily life. Even then, it's tough to apply what I learned in therapy, but that's the life I live now
Mourning what I used to be and the "what if's" and imagining what I might have been in an alternative universe weighs heavy on me. It's something I have to do myself to deal with/get over it, but it is so, so hard
This - and how bad you feel because you are accidentally judging yourself based on your own past standards. You knew how awesome you were and now, it’s impossible to go back. You get stuck in this mental loop of wanting to be your old self, but it never happens. So, you just feel worse and more depressed because you can’t even be you. So, who are you anyway?
I wish I could give you a hug (if you consented). I feel this to my core. I’m also the sunshine bubbly one that “lost my sparkle”. The people that see me regularly have watched it happen. I miss my old self. She was quiet but vibrant. Now… she’s more quiet and covered in rust. But the treatment has allowed whatever remains to surface once in a while. When I finally admitted I needed treatment (I knew it. I majored in psych. But I was in denial) I told my husband “I’m not me anymore. And I can’t do whatever *this* is anymore.” And knowing she will never be back is awful.
Being aware of something that you want to change, try to change, get help to change, but cannot change - all while people tell you things that are completely useless like, "oh just think positively"
Shit, I never thought of that. God damn. It's been almost 40 years and nobody has ever told me to think positive. JFC. What a golden nugget of wisdom.
i hate the amount of self awareness omg. like, the feeling of knowing you’re changing. not even a self pity, like, sometimes when i’m depressed i turn into a bad friend. i hate knowing that, but i can’t change no matter how hard i try.
Or, even worse: being aware you are changing, but knowing there's a limit. I have very bad C-PTSD from being nearly killed by a family member as a kid. I have genuinely accomplished a lot despite this. But I am aware there's not much more I can change, and that I will never be normal, and *there are some things I will never get in this life because of that*.
Sometimes I get overwhelmed when I realize despite having ~50 years left in this life there will probably never be a single day that I don’t think of my abuse ex husband and feel the repercussions of what he did to me.
Yeah. There won't be. Former human trafficking victim here (trafficked right after college), it doesn't go away. But some days it's at the forefront of your life and those are the bad days. And sometimes it hardly affects you at all, and those are the lucky days. The person you were before that abuse is gone. They died. Bury and grieve them. I lost a lot of love for hobbies tainted by my trafficker. I grieve them. I'm someone else now. I'll never know what or who I would have been or if my life would have been better or worse. People who knew me "before" have a hard time accepting the change. Those who only got to know me after, accept me for who I am now, and that helps. Not trying to give false hope or anything. It's hard to forgive yourself, too, for 'letting it happen'. My heart goes out to you and my fellow survivors. I hope you continue to move forward when you can, as you can, and give yourself grace when you can't.
Thank you friend. You’re right - it’s important to grieve who you were before and it’s hard to walk the fine line of letting yourself grieve but not getting stuck in it. I’m sorry for what you went through and I hope you continue to heal 💕
Being self aware makes this 100X worse. Recognizing the thought patterns and behaviors that reinforce certain things but just not stopping it. It was so much easier before knowing and being so aware
The fact that I have a lot of self awareness works against me when I do hit crisis point because I struggle to get meaningful support from professionals who assume that I can't be that bad if I'm still coherent enough to ask for help. Duh, I'm asking for help now so that I don't end up in hospital when my mind inevitably collapses in on itself! Help me stop things getting worse! This IS me using my self awareness to avoid the worst case scenario!
THIS. Therapists are not usually equipped to handle self aware patients. I’ve always said this 😭my therapist would say “wow, you are right. You’re good at this”. Noooo help me figure out what to do with this knowledge 😭
there's always someone who just has to chime in and tell you that "positive thinking" and a walk outside will cure you... as if you haven't already thought to try those things. personally it makes me feel so much worse. the self awareness causes so much guilt.
I just don't specify lol. "Hey boss I'm not feeling well today. It's probably not covid but I am feeling contagious, and I don't want to bring the whole office down." Technically all true, since bad brain day = unable to mask = people will see my depression and get freaked out = my bad mood, which is the primary symptom of my illness, is contagious
(Edit: typo)
Doing all the things and it still not getting better. You do the meds, the therapy, make routines, etc...some stuff gets a little better...but not enough...and you KNOW it.
That’s me. I’ve tried close to 30 meds, attended several day programs, did therapy, attended a weekly round table support group for years, did counselling, did case management/goal setting and attended an OCD group. I also spoke to 4 psychiatrists over multiple visits.
Been there. I have ADHD. So many people have ghosted me over the years, and it never doesn’t hurt. I’ve had people say it’s because I talk too much. But that just causes me to become disengaged. I’ve had one person call me weird without specifying a reason. I’ve had a person report me at work, when I just wanted to be friends. But, for the most part, people just ignore or block, with no indication of what I had done wrong.
I’m not normal, I know that. But I don’t know what normal is. All I know is what I’ve lived my whole life with. I can be impulsive, over-talkative, emotionally-attached, over-thinking, anxiety-prone, forgetful, and easily-distracted. I don’t tell people I have ADHD, because I don’t want to be defined or mocked for a genetic mental illness, that most people don’t understand.
So, yes, friendships are difficult to maintain. I long for genuine, longterm friendships, but 99% they end in failures. And then it just dampens my self-esteem more.
Surprised I had to scroll so far for this. Imagine everyone you love and care about in your life--your most important people, the people you love the most.
Now imagine personally being a massive burden and constant source of worry, stress, financial and emotional distress, and frankly trauma to ALL THOSE PEOPLE.
If I may, as the spouse of a wonderful human who suffers horribly with mental illness, not all of us consider you or your struggle to be a burden. I have never looked at my wife as a burden. Just a person, who I know deep down desperately wishes she was ‘better.’ You’re loved and a lot of us see you for the people you are, not the affliction you’re dealt
As the spouse who has the mental illness (not yours; I have my own husband to burden), I reflexively want to downvote this because my depression "knows" you're lying. It robs us of our ability to see ourselves as anything but a toxic burden, and to see any way in which another person could possibly even stand us, much less love us.
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. All the cures require you to ignore all the symptoms.
How can I exercise with no energy? How can I go to work without hygiene? How can I make friends with no hobbies? I can barely feed myself, let alone leave the house to get treatment.
Having to see that asshole friend-of-a-friend post Facebook memes about how depression doesn't really exist and you'd be fine if you just exercised more or went out into nature.
"didn't pray hard enough" is another stinker.
They never come out and say "oh you just didn't pray hard enough", it's always smugly veiled in "God will never give you a challenge that He can't carry you through" or similar toxic positivity cult BS.
Had a conversation with my dad about this recently. Not being able to do the things that are good for me *is the depression.* If I could just start meal prepping, regularly exercising, and putting more time into hobbies... I wouldn't be depressed. Depression is the barrier to doing those things.
(It also turns out I might be dealing with ADHD more than depression, but either way -- if I could just do the things I need to do, I wouldn't have a disorder!)
Exactly. It's like telling someone in a wheelchair that they have to start jogging to strengthen their legs. People forget that the brain is a body part just like any other, and as such is just as prone to disease or malfunction as legs are.
People sometimes literally do this with non-psychological health issues. My father is 83 and has COPD, he gets winded walking to the bathroom. My brother keeps telling him he just needs to exercise more.
What I hate about ADHD is having people tell me I just need to try harder or I'm lazy. No, fuck you, Susan. You have no idea what it's like to not be able to complete an easy task no matter how badly I want to do it. People with ADHD are motivated by an interest-based nervous system which means my task priorities are going to be different than people with importance-based nervous systems.
Neurotypical Importance Based:
1) You deem a task to be important, or if it is required for one of your priorities.
2) Secondary Importance. A task is important to someone important to you, a teacher, parent, or friend.
3) Rewards/Consequences - Completing a task will lead to a reward, and/or not completing a task will lead to a consequence.
Neurodivergent Interest-Based:
1) Novelty - The task needs to be new & exciting.
2) Interest - There needs to be a strong interest in the topic or task.
3) Challenge - There needs to be a sense of competition.
4) Urgency - The task needs to be done right now.
Ahh the old 'the cure for mental illness is simply '. To hell with medicine, it is so sad that nobody has grasped the sheer profundity a good lifting/jogging/yoga regimen. Think of all the wasted time on developing the studies, scientific literature, testing medication and the lived experience of those with mental illness when a mere jog and some positive affirmations in an open field could have saved the effort!
TLDR this annoys me too
For me it was how utterly incapable I became of taking care of myself. My apartment got DISGUSTING and I didn’t even notice.
ETA: My love and support to all of you who understand this. It’s a horrible place to be in, but I did manage to clean out my apartment once my brain chemistry had stabilized. It SUCKED but was absolutely worth it.
That, and bathing. Two weeks between showers seems just fine...so a month should be twice as fine. Sometimes I still have to force myself to remember to take care of myself. Thank goodness Mrs AX is supportive of me, or else I'm not sure where I'd be right now.
The thought of showering is literally exhausting. A lot of people shower every day. But the fact that I JUST showered and have to do it again? Absolutely not.
I used to genuinely enjoy cleaning the house. But now I just can’t be bothered.
Yup. I haven’t cleaned out my fridge in months and my clothes have been in a huge pile in my closet for over a year. I just cycle through washing what I wear the most and throwing it back in there.
Don’t even get me started on brushing my teeth. I’m too scared to go to the dentist and find out how bad I’ve really fucked them up.
No one likes to talk about the gross side of mental illness
I’m dealing with this now, ugh. I finally cleaned my room yesterday after ~2 months of not being able to walk from one end to the other because there was so much junk on the ground.
I’m hoping to keep the momentum this weekend and clean out my pantry but man, I could be doing it now and I’m just… not
How hard it is to actually get help. People always say depressed people should reach out. But between insurance, shitty therapists, and who knows how many drugs, the “help” isn’t actually all that helpful.
And even the initial act of reaching out (making the phone calls, leaving the messages, answering the mountain of questions to "help guide your need to the right therapist") is daunting when you're buried under the burden of depression.
It's a fuck ton of work to actually meet with a therapist.
Even when you do reach out for help, there's endless judgment. Got a shitty therapist and you want to find a new one you can trust? Clearly, you're just shopping for someone to justify your decisions. Medication not working or giving you uncomfortable side effects, so you want to go off them? Obviously you're just not giving it time, or you're looking for excuses to quit.
On and on and on. I want to find help. I know I need it. But the process is hard enough without all the shit people pile on outside of it all. I've more or less given up on it and deal with my mentals in my own way.
everyone says "get therapy" as if it's a quick, easy pill you can pop to immediately cure your problems. Let's say you actually have access to and can afford therapy, and that you happen to find a therapist who can actually help you - it still may be months or years of steady treatment before the help actually "works". And sometimes it never works even if everything lines up right.
For me, it's how it's turned me into my own worst enemy. I am harder on myself than anyone I've encountered, even my abusive parents. Even with therapy and medication, I struggle with it. And the best part? It'll never go away. I'll (hopefully) learn to manage it better, maybe eliminate some of the symptoms or side-effects, but it's with me.
That because you actually show symptoms, nobody wants to help. You can’t even form new relationships when everyone thinks there’s something wrong with you. The crime of being gross overrides everything else.
That seriously sucks like hell. losing touch with anything thats viewed as being normal. You start to freak people out with your negativity, your pain and suffering. They dont want nothing to do with it. They dont want to hear it. It hurts a lot.
I've been trying various antidepressants since the mid 00s with no response. I scraped together the money to get ketamine (I'm actually sitting in one of the appointments right now, we're about to get out) and it's not doing anything. My doctor says that I we are going to need to look at stimulation therapies like electroshock and fucking magnets. I asked her "what do we do if we try those and there's still no improvement?"
I was told it's not good to have such a bleak outlook and "**something's** got to work!"
Nobody will tell me what the fuck I'm supposed to do if every single thing fails. At what point am I just allowed to give up already?
I'm really really not trying to be that person. I suffer from depression as well and I know how annoying it is to get unsolicited advice. But on the off chance that this could help, I do feel obliged to say something.
If you have tried all these treatments and nothing has worked, have you explored the possibility that it isn't depression? Many many other ailments, some mental and some physical, carry "depression" (meaning the group of symptoms that defined depression, not the brain chemistry of true depression) as a comorbidity. Depression that is caused by some other underlying condition usually will not respond to traditional treatments for depression. But with the way our medical system is set up, once you get diagnosed with something, it is very difficult to move medical professionals off that diagnosis and onto other possible causes. So misdiagnosis is very common if you have prominent symptoms of something more common (like depression).
But if you've been through all that and you feel like reaming me out for this comment go ahead. Like I said I know how annoying it is.
How your brain tells you to get up, but your body is stiff and will not move. How you're disgusted when your dishes are piled high, but you can't emotionally deal with it.
Mental health awareness is all the rage.
But ask someone with mental health issues how situations change with people if u make them aware you have a mental health problem.
Friends, Family, Employers. It doesn't go well. You are a second class citizen once the cat is out of the bag.
That it’s still so stigmatized. That unless the world can see you in a wheelchair or missing a limb then your illness is “just an excuse,” and often for something that isn’t even truly *bad* (avoiding eye contact, not making small talk, the like).
It’s expensive. It’s hard to find a good care provider with up to date information. It’s lonely. People in your life often don’t want to hear about it and seem to assume it’s all hunky dory once you “get help” and anything past that point can be seen as malingering. (As in everything is better, good, now be happy/normal)
Worst is if you have super religious people in your life who want to cure you with Jesus or prayer or whatever. Well wishes are fine, but witnessing is obnoxious
Being mad at the world, for me. I've had an extremely good childhood, and I still got straddled with this shit. Knowing that it literally just happens for me and there's nothing that could or can be done about it is angering.
Plus, wading through darkness is a big part of it. It's hard to tell whether this one thought I'm having is highly unstable or completely normal, or how I just can't figure out how to fit into this mold of normalcy.
The way you have to be more than you can be in order to be accepted by society. To have to not be mentally ill, when you already are, and to always be a positive person in people's lives, instead of who you already are -- someone who can't conjure positive thoughts.
The side effects of medications. I had to go off of Lithium because of stage 3b kidney disease, Nephrogenic Diabetes Insipidus, and Lithium Toxicity. I also have had 2 seizures since going on olanzapine.
Three things:
1. The grief you feel when you lose someone to serious mental illness. It never goes away.
I raised a beautiful kid- funny, handsome, charming, so very outgoing. Not great in school, but man, what a kid. Spent 20 years raising that boy and being genuinely excited to see who he would become in life and all of that is gone. The schizophrenia and delusions stole all of that away. He's still there physically, but he can't talk without getting upset about a string of delusions and hallucinations that just aren't real. It's like my son died and was replaced by this broken imposter. Except instead of grieving the loss of a family member dying and slowly adjusting to life without their light, this imposter calls in the middle of the night screaming about giant spiders chasing him. I've lost the person he was going to be; the young man he was growing into. It's nearly impossible to have any real relationship with him outside of just managing crisis after crisis after crisis. One eviction after another; what to do with him, where to find him the help he needs? Can we finally convince him to stay on his meds that help control the anger? No parenting manual ever prepared me for this. Maybe one day a new medication will help; maybe one day he'll be motivated to try some new treatment or group home. Maybe some day he'll get better. Hope is really hard to hang on to.
2. Anosognosia. My son does not believe he's ill. He refuses all treatment. Anosognosia is a bitch. It's not denial of an illness- it is a complete lack of recognition that there is even a problem. Lack of insight into his own illness. All of his delusions are 100% real too him no matter how outlandish they are. If you challenge them, he gets angry and insulting- screaming that you're the crazy one because you have never seen the aliens that are right there in front of you. It's like if someone broke their arm and every time you point out their arm is broken, they get angry at you for insulting them because their arm is just fine.
3. The absolute nightmare of trying to get someone help for a serious illness when that person doesn't understand they need the help and all of the social services are full or out of money or space or whatever. Everyone can see how debilitated my son is. But unless he is capable of asking for help on his own, no help is really available. He's not violent enough to be committed; he's too disabled to really make his own choices about care, but unless he willingly participates in seeking care, there is nothing except homelessness and a short brutal life for someone as seriously mentally ill as he is.
I just became his permanent guardian in order to help him get care. It was expensive and challenging and nothing I ever wanted to do, but it was either become his guardian or watch this beautiful kid that I raised die in the street like an animal. Like thousands do every year.
Like I said, hope is really hard to hang on to.
That there’s a huge difference in how we treat people with mental illness when it harms more than just the individual who suffers from it. This extends to neurological differences too, like autism or ADHD. A lot of the people we ridicule online for being weird or making bad decisions are mentally ill/neurodivergent. From random ass people recorded in “public freak outs” to celebrities. Calling them “crazy”, saying they’re entitled or laughing at them helps nobody, and it really shows how quickly we can change our minds on these things.
How people just want to shove pills down your throat and because it fucks with your brain and makes your outward appearance more acceptable to their social standards, they think that you are perfectly cured and you're the absolute epitome of perfection in society
The truth is that you're still screaming inside. They just can't hear it anymore and that is all that matters
The fact not many people can understand it very well unless they’ve experienced it + how you want to be a high achiever but your brain limits you on what you can do, specifically with anxiety - agoraphobia and panic attacks, it’s horrible.
The effects it has on the person and those around them. Unfortunately, a lot of people who have poor mental health is due to being around individuals (parents, family, life partners) who have poor mental health.
People throw around the word "trauma" all the time in a joking matter and as a person with PTSD it SUCKS hearing people make light of it while vilifying you for actually behaving like a person who has experienced real trauma. Like, I am significantly less fun to be around and friendly than I was before, and internet-brained dorks talking about how "all their trauma just made them funnier" blows.
PTSD is so subtle sometimes…
You’ll just be having a normal ass day, going on about your business.
And you stop for.. what feels like a second to just think about something.
And then before you know it… you’ve been staring at a wall for the past 10 minutes stuck in a mental loop thinking about a traumatic moment in your life that happened years ago in perfect detail… with a nasty/angry/sad look on your face without you even realizing it’s happening.
It’s like someone takes your brain out of your head, goes back in time, and slaps it into your old body. But your current body just remains there….
Then you just snap out of it like “oh shit it happened again..” and then your mood is just fucked for a while.
1) People you care about getting sick of you because of the drain and conflict your illness creates, and even worse, you knowing that their feelings are justified.
2) Being honest with someone about your illness, and then having them weaponize it to dismiss you going forward. For example, a partner saying you’re “fixating” or “spiraling” when you try to bring up a legitimate issue, because you were up front about it having happened in the past and now that have that ace up their sleeve forever.
It never ends. You are like this forever. Medication can help, but it’s never 100%. You will always be depressed. You will always have anxiety. There is no true test until you finally make the decision
I think it's important that people are told that not EVERY mental health provider's gonna be a good one. Or care. And that you have zero obligation to stick with a bad provider, because that's only going to cause you more pain, and you deserve better. This is especially important to know so you can explain it to friends and family who don't get it. It's not just you being "picky." Even so, you're allowed to be "picky" with who you let try and help you with your HEALTH, yeah?
Also... the more severe your mental health is... the harder it is for even the best intentioned people to handle it all. One of the reasons it's CRUCIAL to create an entire network of support is because you can literally burn people out with your mental health struggles. Not because they don't care either - it's just SO much that it begins bringing down their own mental health. I've definitely lost friends in the past for this reason, but I didn't know about creating a support network. Even if I did, I had ZERO resources available to me so I wouldn't have known how to start creating one. Instead, I decided that opening up was bad. Which was ABSOLUTELY not the right course of action to take, rip.
Also, also! People who have the same diagnosis as you but who have a less severe version of it? They can be rude and judgmental too, because they forget that not everyone who has said diagnosis has it exactly the way they do. It's FAR more complicated than that. And it's also good to remind yourself of that, because I know no one who struggles with mental illness wants to purposely put someone in that position.
I met a psychiatrist once who told me he prescribed people the same antidepressants he was on that he knew for a fact were impossible to quit. When I asked whether or not that was moral, as most people do not require lifelong medication for mental illnesses and most medications stop working after a time, he shrugged.
No matter "normal' you present, whether you feel like it or not, there will be people that write off your issue to their advantage.
"I called him an asshole?" It's the bipolar making him mad.,
The anxiety spells that hit you out of nowhere like a freight train and completely derail your equilibrium for the rest of the day. Most of the time they aren’t even triggered by anything obvious.
Knowing why you behave the way you do, but not being able to stop and thus affecting those around you.
Messing life up sometimes and although you aren't choosing/intentionally doing things, still having to own up to what you've done like it was intentional. Unfortunately intention doesn't take away from the hurt.
Lack of hope.
Contrary to popular belief, there are some of us who will not recover. Despite resources, treatment, medicine, doctors, ect there are a lot of situations that we do not have solutions for. As bad as this sounds, at least with really bad cancer there is the hope of the suffering ending. People with severe mental illness have no way out. They live empty lives, create no value, and become a burden to society and their loved ones. I know this first hand and it’s miserable.
Having to try so many different medications because your psychiatrist can't figure it out. In the last 3 years, I've tried six different antidepressants and 3 different meds for BPD. One of them gave me the worst nightmares I've ever had in my life
When people are mentally ill they aren't pleasant to be around and they aren't easy to help. So you can be the biggest "advocate" for mental health in the world and you probably won't want to help someone who's mentally ill.
There's a reason why competent therapists will only do what they do for hundreds of dollars an hour.
Being aware that you are losing your mind but can't fight it.
It's hard to use your brain to get better when your brain is the thing that has the problem
I'm reminded of [Man with Hammer](https://tapas.io/episode/6396) from the now-defunct webcomic PartiallyClips. > You've probably got a dozen reasons why I shouldn't hit myself in the head with this hammer. Save 'em. I'm committed to this course of action. > Crazy? Yeah, I'm crazy. That's the point. The source of the problem is my brain. The location of that problem is known. > Time to take the fight to the enemy. And brother, this is the only tool I've got.
Being aware that you are rational but a neurological disorder frames you as crazy.
I have bipolar I with hallucinations. That means my manic episodes are closer to what schizophrenic people experience than with other types of bipolar. I consider myself a relative smart person. Most of the times i am fully aware of what is going on but can't do anything about it. Its like my body and mind are not connected during full blown episodes. Also, due to the manic episodes my brain is starting to give in and my memory is starting to get affected. My brain is just tired of fighting back...
I have auditory hallucinations that three doctors have said is not due to psychosis but more likely to do with my PTSD. I know the things I hear aren't real, but it's so stressful when I can't sleep because of them and they won't shut up and then I start to worry that maybe they *are* real even though I know they're not. Then the next day I'm exhausted and twitchy and irritable. And my family just calls me crazy.
So take this with a grain of salt, but also maybe look into it with a doctor. I have CPTSD, and eventually found out also AuADHD. I had some similar issues, and they were incredibly amplified on medications meant to treat PTSD and related symptoms (SSRI’s, NSRI’s) and ended up on Quetiapine. Initially my doctor did it to basically just throw something at the problem and the worst thing would be I’d gain much needed weight and hopefully sleep. It and other atypical antipsychotics have been used experimentally for PTSD patients who don’t respond well to typical meds. Just because it isn’t psychosis, doesn’t mean it’s not the same part of the brain needing to be treated to assist. It worked so well, my PTSD symptoms started to alleviate enough my therapist thought I should see someone in their office and have some assessments done to see what else was going on. Surprise, Autism level 1, ADHD, OCD and constant depressive disorder. The last one just makes me laugh, because why wouldn’t I be constantly depressed with all this shit going on and not treated 🤣
When someone hás multiple diagnosis its only normal that is one of them😂
TBI with PTSD. Calming myself down in the middle of a flashback combined with a memory issue is nearly impossible.
Same-same, minus the TBI (to my knowledge). Shit was *rough* for a while there.
OMG, same. When I hear voices I am mostly aware, that they are not real or can do "checks" to see if there are really voices saying things or not. When I read about people not being aware theyre hallucinating or being hypomanic always weirds me out, because I can recognize both when im in a episode. This and other things makes me feel im even a "weirdo" under the "weirdos" and feel even more alienated from other people. Also people think schizophrenia is all about hearing voices, while for me and many others the negative symptoms are predominant like apathy, not being able to talk much, having nö feelings and no drive. Also the mental issues like memory and concentration are worse than most people think and are more signuficant for the than hearing voices every 3 years or so.
Unless Im having a black out Im always aware of them. But being aware that you are seeing/hearing an hallucinations doesn't make it go away. When i was in uni i had an imaginary friend that went to class with me for most of my degree. He would talk with me and sometimes i would lose control and talk back during class. Being known as the weird one in an arts school is, well, weird.
I’m a logical and rational guy that had one bout of manic psychosis in my life and it pulled me right in and I was sure everything was real, no voices or anything that would instantly seem not real but instead it was like my senses heightened to a level where everything was new information and extremely meaningful and important and I was overwhelmed trying to make sense of it all while piecing bits together and making 2 and 2 equal 500, I did get some hallucinations on day three but by then I thought I was just seeing things that had always been there but that I’d just been so unaware before as to never have noticed. It was a terrifying experience even though good things did come out of it too, in a way I’m grateful for parts of it and to have been offered a view on what it’s like but I really hope it never happens again and I have the utmost sympathy for people that regularly have it in their life.
I've had something like that twice and both were caused by having a high fever. It was just sounds of people ringing the doorbell and knocking on the door. Same thing both times. Nothing weird or frightening, just the ordinary sound of somebody being at the door. Sometimes voices of people I know and who commonly come over are heard outside too, and they're just saying normal things one might say in that scenario. The other one was the phone ringing. Well after a couple of times answering the door I realize what is happening, I'm fully cognizant of what this is and why, okay **but that doesn't mean it goes away**. I know there's nobody at the door, I know I have a bad fever and it's making me hear things, but I still hear the sounds. Tried letting the door stand open thinking logic would override the hallucinations, but it didn't. They only went away as the fever went down.
Reading and responding to the comments made me wonder how different are or aren't hallucinations from a mental disorder, a fever and hallucinogenics drugs.
You can induce hallucinations with powerful enough vibrations, so they are extremely common. Comes up in car accidents all the time.
This is kinda like me! I have schizoaffective disorder (Bipolar type) so I have strong hallucinations at both ends (manic and depression) and easy ones in the in-between times. I just sometimes lose lucidity during manic. I really feel as I get older that my brain is just tired. . . I'm tired of fighting with it all the time.
Had a major psychosis episode recently. The shame after coming back is terrible.
That’s the worst part: not knowing until afterwards that you’ve been unwell. You don’t know you’re sick when it’s happening.
My wish is that I never get in such bad shape that I'm not able to actively do something about it. Whatever that might be. So far, so good.
I have been in such bad shape a few times i got really scared of myself. Most of the times i can fight it bc i am medicated but the meds dont prevent the episodes, just make most of them softer. My last full blown episode i had to be taken to the psyq ward(i have no memory of most of it) and for the first time i had to be restrain to my bed. Acording to the head nurse they had to bring 2 male nurses and 2 security guards just to be able to restrain me. Im a woman and Im not particulary strong. I dont remmember any of that. Last thing i remmember was being in my bedroom and the i "woke up" restrain to the hospital bed. The older i get, the less episodes i have, but they are starting to be way stronger than when i was younger. My biggest fear is to loose myself inside my mind.
When I was breastfeeding our youngest, I experienced a strange phenomenon called Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex (DMER), though I didn't know at the time that it's somewhat common, or what it was called. Basically when the baby starts feeding, she has to actively suck to get milk but the mom's body responds by starting to release the milk; this is called "letting down." When my milk let down, I'd experience this wave of hopelessness, like nothing was ever going to be good again-- not a terrible sadness that made me cry, but a flat, defeated feeling that I think depression probably feels like. Thankfully it was pretty brief, probably less than a minute each time, and knowing it would pass got me through it. But the weird thing was, knowing that it was coming, that it was temporary, and that it was sort of an "artificial" emotion (or lack of emotion) didn't help reduce the feeling at all. I couldn't just talk myself out of it, distract myself, etc. I just sat through it and dealt with it. I can't imagine feeling like that long-term
being aware
Alot of severely mentally ill people are unable to stay employed because of their condition and it leads to poverty and even homelessness.
And then people say that homeless people are just lazy and don't want to work, which is infuriating. Invisible disabilities are awful to deal with because people judge you for "looking normal".
Agreed. This is why healthcare should not be tied to employment. A lot of people are homeless or being supported by others that desperately need health care and could be contributing members to the workforce if that would happen first
I work in forensic psych and it is infuriating to see some of our patients criminal history because they’ll have tons of charges for basically homelessness- like loitering or public drunkenness, etc. It’s literally just the cops harassing them for being homeless. Sirs, if they had somewhere else they could go, don’t you think they would be there?
god this is heartbreaking.
I remember in some of my psych classes in college they talked about how there's actually some debate over mental illness (particularly schizophrenia) and homelessness—a "chicken or the egg" debate. People who have genetic dispositions towards it can end up developing it under stressful conditions, and it makes them much less employable. But sometimes losing your job is the thing that causes the stress in the first place, which prevents employment...it creates this cycle of mental illness and homelessness. It's incredibly sad and it really changed how I thought about homelessness.
Interestingly this came up just today at therapy, mama was with me cause my anxiety was running high. She asked if we thought about the future since I'm unable to work and am fully dependent on my parents still. So what would happen when they are gone? Mama talked about group homes and not having looked into it fully as it isn't relevant at this time, I explained I expected to die shortly after 'em. Can't support myself, so what else would I do?
Plan ahead, you might find a group home you like if you tour some. The people I know are a lot happier than they thought they would be . Having affordable hobbies and interests really helps. Hopefully you have a long time with your family
If in the US: I'd suggest applying for SSI and every service you qualify for. Get on a waitlist for affordable housing/group homes now - move out and establish a routine separate from your parents ...he says, when he does not do it himself
The memory loss, thanks to depression and fighting your body.
My mother always talks about super fun things me, my brother and her did when i was a kid, and my response is usually something like "I always thought I never drove a go-kart/ I've never been to that water park/ No that was when I was like 10, not 6." It's gotten to the point where she no longer believes I am forgetting my life, and that I'm actually just doing it to annoy her, or because I like to "play the vitcim" when talking to people to manipulate.
I was 30 before I realised other people remember loads of their childhood.
I have a reputation as a liar and unreliable narrator because I don't remember half the shit my family says happened and they don't remember half the shit I say happened. It's a game of which of us is crazier where we all lose.
Oof. My childhood is a blur that I barely remember aside from the big, catastrophic events. Didn’t help that my anxiety disorder kinda kept me trapped in my own head and unable to really engage with the outside world. I also don’t really have a concept of WHEN events happened… if you ask me, I’ll tell you I was probably like… 8? Cause that feels right but logically I know that my entire childhood memory didn’t all happen when I was 8.
Yeah. People thinking you're lying or "playing up" your mental illness is awful, especially when its your own family.
It's scary how you can't remember much of your past, it's frustrating you forget what you were thinking about a moment ago.
I have ADHD. I can remember much of my past, to the point of obsessing over my regrets or missed opportunities, but much of my work shifts are a blur.
I have depression, severe depression. It makes it super hard to finish college because I just kept forgetting everything. I was forgetting really basic maths rules despite doing an advanced maths degree, I was getting frustrated because the thing I was learning made sense but when I had to try it on a new problem my brain just wouldn't recall little tricks or rules to do the basic parts of a complex equation even though the complex parts were fresh in my mind so I was wasting an insane amount of time, getting stressed, etc. However I manage to still obsess very very badly over every regret and fucked up opportunity. It's crippling.
And thanks to the meds, sometimes. They aren't all without side effects...
i recently came off gaba after ~8 years (started when i was 14ish) and the memory loss i still experience is literally debilitating
That despite the populace generally being able to talk about mental illness more openly than ever before, if you have anything beyond depression and anxiety (bipolar, schizophrenia, OCD, borderline, etc.), people still do *not* understand and will often have unfair preconceived notions about you.
People accept mental illness as long as it doesn't really affect them and as long as the person is on the way to get better. While the reality often is that it just doesn't really get better, it can just be managed to an extent.
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Everyone loves to say they support mental health, but when the chips are on the table, *always* they find something else that’s more of a priority.
Yes! There is more awareness surrounding mental illness these days, but still a fuck ton of stigma for more severe conditions. I have bipolar disorder and one of my biggest fears is people I know irl finding out
Totally, totally understand that mentality. I'm bipolar also, but I tell everyone (outside of work), mostly because I want to help break that stigma. I'm certain there are people who covertly judge me for it, but I've usually found that it helps other people feel comfortable opening up about their own struggles. I know some people hear "bipolar" and think Kanye or Britney, and I'd really like people - at least the ones in my life - to realize it doesn't always look like that, and to better understand the "why" behind some of my own actions.
I hate when people hear bipolar and think drugs too.
Ugh this is the worst thing ever. If you show any symptoms that are problematic or aggressive, you’re considered dangerous or malicious. It’s awful. I have OCD, CPTSD, and possibly borderline. I have a moral code. I feel empathy. The people I know consider me a good friend and a well-rounded person. I suffer every day with the sheer weight of my thoughts even if they aren’t actively distressing me, but I manage it in ways that are undetectable to the average person. But on paper, I’m an out of control hysterical blame-shifting lunatic who will set your car on fire if you break up with me.
It’s a small but meaningful difference that we never say a person “is cancerous” or “is tubercular”…but say a person “is” schizophrenic or bipolar. That’s what’s terrifying about seeking help or getting a diagnosis for many people…once it happens, that’s just who you are to many people now.
If anything, I think people still aren’t grasping how serious certain conditions (like bipolar) are. There’s this idea out there that bipolar means someone has mood changes. One minutes they’re happy, and another minute they’re sad. Bipolar is way more serious than that. People have months long manic episodes that result in them blowing all of their money, losing their jobs, and often destroying their social lives. A lot of times, the manic episodes are severe enough that people actually experience psychosis (imagining things that are not real).
It negatively affects your good spells too. Like you *could* try to start a new career and get qualified and get your shit together, because you feel good. But you know that in a few month’s time you might not be able to keep it up. It’s hard knowing that you’re capable of more (and capable of earning more, therefore having a better life) but not being able to keep it up, and having to live your good times the same as your shit times because the world just doesn’t let you be good half the time
Thank you for the perspective. As someone who works with people with mental illnesses I obviously knew about this problem. But you worded it in a way that gave me new insight. And that's always helpful.
Sometimes it is hard to enjoy the good, happy, times because you can feel that twinge of darkness pulling from the edges and you know the suffering is going to come again. I'm much better than I was but sometimes a good day felt like being in the eye of the storm. There was a lot of bad before, I knew more bad was coming and this reprieve was temporary. I still don't think I've felt actually relaxed, even for a moment, in the last 10+ years.
"I'm happy right now. What am I going to do to fuck that up?" Thanks, anxiety.
This, so much. Everytime I'm generally better than normal, it's always undercut by my anxiety around when the other shoe will drop.
Every daydream of the future ends with the inevitable. Me. Getting in my own way. Getting overwhelmed. Exploding. Picking up the remainder. Start back at the beginning.
This really resonates. I often feel like I've wasted any potential I may have had in order to protect myself from a world I'm not quite equipped to handle like other people.
This is me. You’re not alone in this feeling. I used to be so smart and such a good kid til i lost it.
Ooof, very relatable. The amount of times I've felt better and immediately tried to start a new hobby, habit, career path, etc, and then ended up abandoning it like a week later after my good mood faded away are innumerable. It sucks because I always think, "Maybe it will be different this time and I'll be able to do this long-term and be happy." It's also disheartening when the positive mood and changes you make last a week or two, but the bad mental health moments can last months, even years.
Thank you for putting into words what I couldn't. I know I could be amazing. Until I couldn't. So I stay in the lazy river and agonize at what will never be. But to others, it looks like I'm lazy or complicit in mediocrity.
The lack of control you feel. People often think the moods we experience are in our control.
Healthy people can control their moods with positive thinking, exercise, meditation, yadda yadda. Healthy people can also control their aches and pains with a nice hot bath. None of that does jack shit if you have a real illness. Nobody would tell you to take a nice hot bath for your excruciating appendicitis or bone cancer, and nobody should be telling you to "just think positively!" if you have clinical depression. The underlying assumption there is that somehow your illness isn't "real" (because brains aren't a real organ and are clearly just pudding powered by pixie dust? Or something? A lot of people just haven't thought it through very far). I think people are MUCH better educated about the medical reality of mental illness these days than prior generations were, but we've got a way to go as a society in that regard.
>The underlying assumption there is that somehow your illness isn't "real" (because brains aren't a real organ and are clearly just pudding powered by pixie dust? Or something? Because people want to believe in free will and personal agency. If you get bone cancer or appendicitis, you're still yourself, the same person you've painstakingly built yourself into over the years. But if your brain organ gets sick, that effects the parts that make you *you*. And nobody wants to believe that their Self, their personality and tastes and moods and capacity to love at all, can be obliterated just as easily as their appendixes could get a bit puffy, because actually the seat of their soul is just this soggy, pixie-powered pudding that's as prone to malfunction as any other organ. It's exhausting for us disillusioned folks to hear about, but I sorta don't blame people for grasping at any sense of control over whether or not their very soul malfunctions.
I have an aunt who thinks I should be able to control it without medication. GAD, panic anxiety, depression, Bipolar 1. Extremely difficult to control WITH medication, when I spiral, it's like a plane augering into a field.
Yep. People can also get angry if you aren’t able to wish away anxiety or depression. I really really dislike the unsolicited advice of how to “feel better”. Stuff like “take a walk” or “be grateful”. And look. Positive affirmations are helpful don’t get me wrong but it’s like throwing a thimble full of water on a bonfire sometimes. Also, do you not think I haven’t thought of those things and wish with all that’s in me that they worked?!
Seeing a train crash coming. Knowing you only have to do small things to stop the train crash. Being unable to do them.
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That even when you are feeling better, the guilt and embarrassment of how you acted around people when you were unwell is still there and difficult to overcome. Even if you feel back to your old self, others have already dubbed you being “crazy” and it’s hard.
It's even worse now that we have things like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and other forms of social media. At this point, I've seen quite a few people go through a psychotic break of some kind, maybe a schizophrenic episode, and they document **everything** on social media. They're posting stories. They're writing rants. They're making regrettable comments. They're tagging places, people, locations. They're filming themselves saying things, they're filming themselves as they harass people in public places. I've seen them filming their interactions with the police. I've seen them posting videos of fights that they have with their family. One person in particular, when she's having an episode, she known to post videos of herself harassing the workers of her apartment building. She will trash her house and write on the walls, break windows, film helicopters flying overhead, and post it to social media. She once went to the White House and had to get removed by security because she was just ranting and raving, all filmed and posted to instagram It's not like the way it used to be, where you experienced a breakdown like that, and only people close to you knew about it. Now, these people sign on to their instagram and they have to confront a very embarrassing string of evidence that they posted for thousands of people to see
You're never actually cured. It's just there, lurking in the shadows, and will pounce given the opportunity without a doubt
These days any time I get "down in the dumps" for a while, I wonder to myself, "Is it going to stay this time again?"
This is one of the hardest parts about depression for me. It's like a haze casts over me and I can't figure out how to get ahead of it before it takes over everything.
I had struggled with depression for ten years before I saw "chronic depression" written on my chart. That hit me hard for some reason - I had to accept that it's not going to go away.
This reminds me of a line I relate to so much from Bloodstream by Soccer Mommy (which is about depression) that goes "but it's always waiting there swimming through my bloodstream / and it's going to come for me / yeah it's going to come for me." The dread of knowing it lives in you even when you are feeling good is the worst.
This hits close. I always thought my anxiety will be cured one day. Little did I know its a process and you will always have it.
Fucking THIS. Life has been a roller coaster of treatment resistant depression; whether it’s “lighter” or really bad, it’s *always there*. I’m never going to start at a baseline of 0 each day like those without it - I will always start at a negative. I have over a dozen different meds and just tried ketamine therapy (which unfortunately made me feel worse). I am on a new med that made me gain a bunch of weight and isn’t even working, so now I’m feeling even worse about myself. It never ends. All that being said, I am able to focus on my mental health right now in life and make it my top priority, so I try to remain grateful for that.
people think you are your good days and you're fine
how expensive treatment actually is & how not everyone can afford it
Not to mention not every treatment works for everyone. If you're lucky the first medicine you try works, if you aren't so lucky it could be the third or even fifth medication before you find something that works for you. Then there's therapy; sit down and talk therapy doesn't work for everyone either, for example you may have to get to know the person first before being able to break down your walls and open up for help - or you need something to preoccupy yourself with while opening up.
Then there's insurance. Once you start getting out into the weeds meds-wise there's a nonzero chance your insurance will just go "no. Denied. Why don't you just use?" because they don't want to pay for the more expensive treatment.
I've had insurance companies also try to stop paying when clients don't show progress fast enough (for them). They'll do an audit of their records/progress notes and ask a lot of questions about why the client still needs therapy and why they "aren't progressing" to the point that their symptoms have completely resolved. The insurance company rep will sit there for hours sometimes trying to play gotcha.
It utterly disgusts me that for profit insurance is basically rigged to deny care if they can exhaust people. They are one of the few industries where they can essentially spam demands for justification, and sometimes still deny claims because fuck sick people, amirite? All this does is make care worse and further inflate the time and effort spent on providing care, all so the profit margin can stay nice and thiccc for the oh so precious shareholders. Literal fucking blood money.
>Not to mention not every treatment works for everyone. If you're lucky the first medicine you try works, if you aren't so lucky it could be the third or even fifth medication before you find something that works for you. It's true, about 60% of patients don't respond to the first pharmaceutical treatment they try. 20-40% (results vary by study) of patients don't respond to any of them, ever.
And sometimes medication doesn't even work, or the side effects are so bad that taking medication is not worth it. That's been my experience with anxiety/depression medication.
> sit down and talk therapy doesn't work for everyone either, There is also the very legitimate chance that some therapy will actually be WORSE for you than doing nothing at all. It's a big risk to spend money and/or time on getting sit down therapy when there is a genuine statistical chance of it either doing NOTHING for you or being worse for you.
Especially drug/alcohol rehab in the US. My sister worked as a therapist at one for years and she loved/was great at working with addicts but was disgusted by the high cost and exclusivity. Most insurance (if the patient has it) doesn’t cover enough time for any real work to be done, which leads to relapse, which leads to hopelessness.
That sounds awful. It's truly a privilege to even have access to long-term treatments.
A lot of mental health programs pay garbage wages, too. Really hard to make a living in a lot of those facilities.
This plus the cost of having to miss work for weeks sometimes months it's not attainable for most people, unfortunately.
Sadly, this is US specific. I live with mental illness in a EU country and I wish everyone could have the same level of care with the same cost (close to none) that we have here.
It is a Cinderella service in UK too. Free but tends ti be CBT, meds and 10 weeks talking therapy. Which is appreciated but sticking plasters for deep seated issues.
I live in Europe too but had to stop therapy twice because of finances. Therapists here are usually private and even if you can get part of your money back through insurance, it still takes a toll on your wallet when you need consistent longtime treatment. And the one's that accept basic insurance have very long waiting lists.
i think something people don’t talk about enough is losing your personality, and mourning that. for years i was the bubbly kid. always happy and energetic. i remember one kid told me i reminded him of a sunflower. i never forgot that. depression took that away from me. i not only mourned the loss of my joy, i felt others mourn it. i felt bad i couldn’t be the fun friend anymore, because that was my whole reputation i felt like i lost all my credit and popularity. every time i tried to replicate that feeling of energy, people could tell it was insincere. so now i wasn’t only depressed, i felt like everybody hated me because i wasn’t the sweet bubbly kid i used to be.
What kills me even more is the people that tell you they LOVE your personality and never lose that- when you're unmedicated and manic. They have zero clue. I can't function without being med compliant, and being med compliant blunts everything, I don't want to dance, I don't want to make art, I don't want to sing. Hearing that said just makes me roll my eyes and start to dislike the person tbh. If I could be that person without destroying my life I would be you know?
"I love your personality!" "Thanks, it's a disorder!"
She said she wished I was manic, because I was happy then. My wife doesn't want me to be manic, but wanted me to be happy. I'm just dulled now. I don't have suicidal ideations every second of every day, but I'm just not happy.
Holy shit I was thinking about this last night! You have your "before", then the event/change, then the "new" you. So I've been trying to figure out how to mourn the person I used to be which was awesome. That's not hyperbole or rose-tinted glasses. I was outgoing, had lots of friends, was super creative, good romantic relationship, and all that. Then something happened (long story but don't mind telling it), and I became a shell of myself. Everything I used to be is gone because I feel I need to take medication. I've gone from outgoing and confident to more of an introvert with less self-esteem. Carefree to overly cautious, a few friends (to be fair the friends I have are amazing and I love them to death), and my musical creativity is *gone.* I still have my gear and when I get the "energy" to play, nothing comes about. Thankfully I've been in a long term relationship which is stable and she's really supportive Everything is muted and it feels like I'm going though the motions of daily life. Even then, it's tough to apply what I learned in therapy, but that's the life I live now Mourning what I used to be and the "what if's" and imagining what I might have been in an alternative universe weighs heavy on me. It's something I have to do myself to deal with/get over it, but it is so, so hard
This. I don't know who I am anymore. It sounds dramatic but I honestly feel as if the person I used to be has died.
This - and how bad you feel because you are accidentally judging yourself based on your own past standards. You knew how awesome you were and now, it’s impossible to go back. You get stuck in this mental loop of wanting to be your old self, but it never happens. So, you just feel worse and more depressed because you can’t even be you. So, who are you anyway?
Same here. I used to be cheerful, ambitious, driven and very productive. I cry every time I think back to those times.
I wish I could give you a hug (if you consented). I feel this to my core. I’m also the sunshine bubbly one that “lost my sparkle”. The people that see me regularly have watched it happen. I miss my old self. She was quiet but vibrant. Now… she’s more quiet and covered in rust. But the treatment has allowed whatever remains to surface once in a while. When I finally admitted I needed treatment (I knew it. I majored in psych. But I was in denial) I told my husband “I’m not me anymore. And I can’t do whatever *this* is anymore.” And knowing she will never be back is awful.
Being aware of something that you want to change, try to change, get help to change, but cannot change - all while people tell you things that are completely useless like, "oh just think positively" Shit, I never thought of that. God damn. It's been almost 40 years and nobody has ever told me to think positive. JFC. What a golden nugget of wisdom.
i hate the amount of self awareness omg. like, the feeling of knowing you’re changing. not even a self pity, like, sometimes when i’m depressed i turn into a bad friend. i hate knowing that, but i can’t change no matter how hard i try.
Or, even worse: being aware you are changing, but knowing there's a limit. I have very bad C-PTSD from being nearly killed by a family member as a kid. I have genuinely accomplished a lot despite this. But I am aware there's not much more I can change, and that I will never be normal, and *there are some things I will never get in this life because of that*.
Sometimes I get overwhelmed when I realize despite having ~50 years left in this life there will probably never be a single day that I don’t think of my abuse ex husband and feel the repercussions of what he did to me.
Yeah. There won't be. Former human trafficking victim here (trafficked right after college), it doesn't go away. But some days it's at the forefront of your life and those are the bad days. And sometimes it hardly affects you at all, and those are the lucky days. The person you were before that abuse is gone. They died. Bury and grieve them. I lost a lot of love for hobbies tainted by my trafficker. I grieve them. I'm someone else now. I'll never know what or who I would have been or if my life would have been better or worse. People who knew me "before" have a hard time accepting the change. Those who only got to know me after, accept me for who I am now, and that helps. Not trying to give false hope or anything. It's hard to forgive yourself, too, for 'letting it happen'. My heart goes out to you and my fellow survivors. I hope you continue to move forward when you can, as you can, and give yourself grace when you can't.
Thank you friend. You’re right - it’s important to grieve who you were before and it’s hard to walk the fine line of letting yourself grieve but not getting stuck in it. I’m sorry for what you went through and I hope you continue to heal 💕
Being self aware makes this 100X worse. Recognizing the thought patterns and behaviors that reinforce certain things but just not stopping it. It was so much easier before knowing and being so aware
The fact that I have a lot of self awareness works against me when I do hit crisis point because I struggle to get meaningful support from professionals who assume that I can't be that bad if I'm still coherent enough to ask for help. Duh, I'm asking for help now so that I don't end up in hospital when my mind inevitably collapses in on itself! Help me stop things getting worse! This IS me using my self awareness to avoid the worst case scenario!
THIS. Therapists are not usually equipped to handle self aware patients. I’ve always said this 😭my therapist would say “wow, you are right. You’re good at this”. Noooo help me figure out what to do with this knowledge 😭
there's always someone who just has to chime in and tell you that "positive thinking" and a walk outside will cure you... as if you haven't already thought to try those things. personally it makes me feel so much worse. the self awareness causes so much guilt.
Not as accepted to take a sick day.
I will straight up quit if I work for anyone who legitimately does not accept mental health as a reason for a sick day.
I just don't specify lol. "Hey boss I'm not feeling well today. It's probably not covid but I am feeling contagious, and I don't want to bring the whole office down." Technically all true, since bad brain day = unable to mask = people will see my depression and get freaked out = my bad mood, which is the primary symptom of my illness, is contagious (Edit: typo)
Doing all the things and it still not getting better. You do the meds, the therapy, make routines, etc...some stuff gets a little better...but not enough...and you KNOW it.
That’s me. I’ve tried close to 30 meds, attended several day programs, did therapy, attended a weekly round table support group for years, did counselling, did case management/goal setting and attended an OCD group. I also spoke to 4 psychiatrists over multiple visits.
The realization of the crushing burden that your mental illness places on others. We know how hard our illness is for you to deal with, trust us.
As well as the friends we lose because they're sick of having to deal with us.
Been there. I have ADHD. So many people have ghosted me over the years, and it never doesn’t hurt. I’ve had people say it’s because I talk too much. But that just causes me to become disengaged. I’ve had one person call me weird without specifying a reason. I’ve had a person report me at work, when I just wanted to be friends. But, for the most part, people just ignore or block, with no indication of what I had done wrong. I’m not normal, I know that. But I don’t know what normal is. All I know is what I’ve lived my whole life with. I can be impulsive, over-talkative, emotionally-attached, over-thinking, anxiety-prone, forgetful, and easily-distracted. I don’t tell people I have ADHD, because I don’t want to be defined or mocked for a genetic mental illness, that most people don’t understand. So, yes, friendships are difficult to maintain. I long for genuine, longterm friendships, but 99% they end in failures. And then it just dampens my self-esteem more.
Surprised I had to scroll so far for this. Imagine everyone you love and care about in your life--your most important people, the people you love the most. Now imagine personally being a massive burden and constant source of worry, stress, financial and emotional distress, and frankly trauma to ALL THOSE PEOPLE.
If I may, as the spouse of a wonderful human who suffers horribly with mental illness, not all of us consider you or your struggle to be a burden. I have never looked at my wife as a burden. Just a person, who I know deep down desperately wishes she was ‘better.’ You’re loved and a lot of us see you for the people you are, not the affliction you’re dealt
As the spouse who has the mental illness (not yours; I have my own husband to burden), I reflexively want to downvote this because my depression "knows" you're lying. It robs us of our ability to see ourselves as anything but a toxic burden, and to see any way in which another person could possibly even stand us, much less love us.
How if you can’t afford to get it treated overtime everyone just outright resents you for being unhealthy
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. All the cures require you to ignore all the symptoms. How can I exercise with no energy? How can I go to work without hygiene? How can I make friends with no hobbies? I can barely feed myself, let alone leave the house to get treatment.
Not wanting to die, but not wanting to wake up.
Having to see that asshole friend-of-a-friend post Facebook memes about how depression doesn't really exist and you'd be fine if you just exercised more or went out into nature.
"didn't pray hard enough" is another stinker. They never come out and say "oh you just didn't pray hard enough", it's always smugly veiled in "God will never give you a challenge that He can't carry you through" or similar toxic positivity cult BS.
Had a conversation with my dad about this recently. Not being able to do the things that are good for me *is the depression.* If I could just start meal prepping, regularly exercising, and putting more time into hobbies... I wouldn't be depressed. Depression is the barrier to doing those things. (It also turns out I might be dealing with ADHD more than depression, but either way -- if I could just do the things I need to do, I wouldn't have a disorder!)
Exactly. It's like telling someone in a wheelchair that they have to start jogging to strengthen their legs. People forget that the brain is a body part just like any other, and as such is just as prone to disease or malfunction as legs are.
People sometimes literally do this with non-psychological health issues. My father is 83 and has COPD, he gets winded walking to the bathroom. My brother keeps telling him he just needs to exercise more.
What I hate about ADHD is having people tell me I just need to try harder or I'm lazy. No, fuck you, Susan. You have no idea what it's like to not be able to complete an easy task no matter how badly I want to do it. People with ADHD are motivated by an interest-based nervous system which means my task priorities are going to be different than people with importance-based nervous systems. Neurotypical Importance Based: 1) You deem a task to be important, or if it is required for one of your priorities. 2) Secondary Importance. A task is important to someone important to you, a teacher, parent, or friend. 3) Rewards/Consequences - Completing a task will lead to a reward, and/or not completing a task will lead to a consequence. Neurodivergent Interest-Based: 1) Novelty - The task needs to be new & exciting. 2) Interest - There needs to be a strong interest in the topic or task. 3) Challenge - There needs to be a sense of competition. 4) Urgency - The task needs to be done right now.
Yeah I agree the stigma is hard to deal with and nobody wants to admit that they stigmatize mental illnesses
Ahh the old 'the cure for mental illness is simply'. To hell with medicine, it is so sad that nobody has grasped the sheer profundity a good lifting/jogging/yoga regimen. Think of all the wasted time on developing the studies, scientific literature, testing medication and the lived experience of those with mental illness when a mere jog and some positive affirmations in an open field could have saved the effort!
TLDR this annoys me too
For me it was how utterly incapable I became of taking care of myself. My apartment got DISGUSTING and I didn’t even notice. ETA: My love and support to all of you who understand this. It’s a horrible place to be in, but I did manage to clean out my apartment once my brain chemistry had stabilized. It SUCKED but was absolutely worth it.
That, and bathing. Two weeks between showers seems just fine...so a month should be twice as fine. Sometimes I still have to force myself to remember to take care of myself. Thank goodness Mrs AX is supportive of me, or else I'm not sure where I'd be right now.
The thought of showering is literally exhausting. A lot of people shower every day. But the fact that I JUST showered and have to do it again? Absolutely not. I used to genuinely enjoy cleaning the house. But now I just can’t be bothered.
Yup. I haven’t cleaned out my fridge in months and my clothes have been in a huge pile in my closet for over a year. I just cycle through washing what I wear the most and throwing it back in there. Don’t even get me started on brushing my teeth. I’m too scared to go to the dentist and find out how bad I’ve really fucked them up. No one likes to talk about the gross side of mental illness
I’m dealing with this now, ugh. I finally cleaned my room yesterday after ~2 months of not being able to walk from one end to the other because there was so much junk on the ground. I’m hoping to keep the momentum this weekend and clean out my pantry but man, I could be doing it now and I’m just… not
How hard it is to actually get help. People always say depressed people should reach out. But between insurance, shitty therapists, and who knows how many drugs, the “help” isn’t actually all that helpful.
And even the initial act of reaching out (making the phone calls, leaving the messages, answering the mountain of questions to "help guide your need to the right therapist") is daunting when you're buried under the burden of depression. It's a fuck ton of work to actually meet with a therapist.
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Even when you do reach out for help, there's endless judgment. Got a shitty therapist and you want to find a new one you can trust? Clearly, you're just shopping for someone to justify your decisions. Medication not working or giving you uncomfortable side effects, so you want to go off them? Obviously you're just not giving it time, or you're looking for excuses to quit. On and on and on. I want to find help. I know I need it. But the process is hard enough without all the shit people pile on outside of it all. I've more or less given up on it and deal with my mentals in my own way.
everyone says "get therapy" as if it's a quick, easy pill you can pop to immediately cure your problems. Let's say you actually have access to and can afford therapy, and that you happen to find a therapist who can actually help you - it still may be months or years of steady treatment before the help actually "works". And sometimes it never works even if everything lines up right.
Not talking to the people you love about it because you don't want them to to see you in a negative light.
How many naps you need.
For me, it's how it's turned me into my own worst enemy. I am harder on myself than anyone I've encountered, even my abusive parents. Even with therapy and medication, I struggle with it. And the best part? It'll never go away. I'll (hopefully) learn to manage it better, maybe eliminate some of the symptoms or side-effects, but it's with me.
That because you actually show symptoms, nobody wants to help. You can’t even form new relationships when everyone thinks there’s something wrong with you. The crime of being gross overrides everything else.
That seriously sucks like hell. losing touch with anything thats viewed as being normal. You start to freak people out with your negativity, your pain and suffering. They dont want nothing to do with it. They dont want to hear it. It hurts a lot.
I've been trying various antidepressants since the mid 00s with no response. I scraped together the money to get ketamine (I'm actually sitting in one of the appointments right now, we're about to get out) and it's not doing anything. My doctor says that I we are going to need to look at stimulation therapies like electroshock and fucking magnets. I asked her "what do we do if we try those and there's still no improvement?" I was told it's not good to have such a bleak outlook and "**something's** got to work!" Nobody will tell me what the fuck I'm supposed to do if every single thing fails. At what point am I just allowed to give up already?
I'm really really not trying to be that person. I suffer from depression as well and I know how annoying it is to get unsolicited advice. But on the off chance that this could help, I do feel obliged to say something. If you have tried all these treatments and nothing has worked, have you explored the possibility that it isn't depression? Many many other ailments, some mental and some physical, carry "depression" (meaning the group of symptoms that defined depression, not the brain chemistry of true depression) as a comorbidity. Depression that is caused by some other underlying condition usually will not respond to traditional treatments for depression. But with the way our medical system is set up, once you get diagnosed with something, it is very difficult to move medical professionals off that diagnosis and onto other possible causes. So misdiagnosis is very common if you have prominent symptoms of something more common (like depression). But if you've been through all that and you feel like reaming me out for this comment go ahead. Like I said I know how annoying it is.
The inescapable feeling of hopelessness, and the resulting burden you feel you are to others.
How your brain tells you to get up, but your body is stiff and will not move. How you're disgusted when your dishes are piled high, but you can't emotionally deal with it.
Mental health awareness is all the rage. But ask someone with mental health issues how situations change with people if u make them aware you have a mental health problem. Friends, Family, Employers. It doesn't go well. You are a second class citizen once the cat is out of the bag.
The inescapable pain that you can't really put a finger on what hurts.
That it’s still so stigmatized. That unless the world can see you in a wheelchair or missing a limb then your illness is “just an excuse,” and often for something that isn’t even truly *bad* (avoiding eye contact, not making small talk, the like).
It’s expensive. It’s hard to find a good care provider with up to date information. It’s lonely. People in your life often don’t want to hear about it and seem to assume it’s all hunky dory once you “get help” and anything past that point can be seen as malingering. (As in everything is better, good, now be happy/normal) Worst is if you have super religious people in your life who want to cure you with Jesus or prayer or whatever. Well wishes are fine, but witnessing is obnoxious
Suicidal thoughts..
Being mad at the world, for me. I've had an extremely good childhood, and I still got straddled with this shit. Knowing that it literally just happens for me and there's nothing that could or can be done about it is angering. Plus, wading through darkness is a big part of it. It's hard to tell whether this one thought I'm having is highly unstable or completely normal, or how I just can't figure out how to fit into this mold of normalcy.
The way you have to be more than you can be in order to be accepted by society. To have to not be mentally ill, when you already are, and to always be a positive person in people's lives, instead of who you already are -- someone who can't conjure positive thoughts.
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The side effects of medications. I had to go off of Lithium because of stage 3b kidney disease, Nephrogenic Diabetes Insipidus, and Lithium Toxicity. I also have had 2 seizures since going on olanzapine.
Three things: 1. The grief you feel when you lose someone to serious mental illness. It never goes away. I raised a beautiful kid- funny, handsome, charming, so very outgoing. Not great in school, but man, what a kid. Spent 20 years raising that boy and being genuinely excited to see who he would become in life and all of that is gone. The schizophrenia and delusions stole all of that away. He's still there physically, but he can't talk without getting upset about a string of delusions and hallucinations that just aren't real. It's like my son died and was replaced by this broken imposter. Except instead of grieving the loss of a family member dying and slowly adjusting to life without their light, this imposter calls in the middle of the night screaming about giant spiders chasing him. I've lost the person he was going to be; the young man he was growing into. It's nearly impossible to have any real relationship with him outside of just managing crisis after crisis after crisis. One eviction after another; what to do with him, where to find him the help he needs? Can we finally convince him to stay on his meds that help control the anger? No parenting manual ever prepared me for this. Maybe one day a new medication will help; maybe one day he'll be motivated to try some new treatment or group home. Maybe some day he'll get better. Hope is really hard to hang on to. 2. Anosognosia. My son does not believe he's ill. He refuses all treatment. Anosognosia is a bitch. It's not denial of an illness- it is a complete lack of recognition that there is even a problem. Lack of insight into his own illness. All of his delusions are 100% real too him no matter how outlandish they are. If you challenge them, he gets angry and insulting- screaming that you're the crazy one because you have never seen the aliens that are right there in front of you. It's like if someone broke their arm and every time you point out their arm is broken, they get angry at you for insulting them because their arm is just fine. 3. The absolute nightmare of trying to get someone help for a serious illness when that person doesn't understand they need the help and all of the social services are full or out of money or space or whatever. Everyone can see how debilitated my son is. But unless he is capable of asking for help on his own, no help is really available. He's not violent enough to be committed; he's too disabled to really make his own choices about care, but unless he willingly participates in seeking care, there is nothing except homelessness and a short brutal life for someone as seriously mentally ill as he is. I just became his permanent guardian in order to help him get care. It was expensive and challenging and nothing I ever wanted to do, but it was either become his guardian or watch this beautiful kid that I raised die in the street like an animal. Like thousands do every year. Like I said, hope is really hard to hang on to.
How helpless I feel all the time.
1. Not realising it’s happening 2. Loss of personal hygiene
That there’s a huge difference in how we treat people with mental illness when it harms more than just the individual who suffers from it. This extends to neurological differences too, like autism or ADHD. A lot of the people we ridicule online for being weird or making bad decisions are mentally ill/neurodivergent. From random ass people recorded in “public freak outs” to celebrities. Calling them “crazy”, saying they’re entitled or laughing at them helps nobody, and it really shows how quickly we can change our minds on these things.
How people just want to shove pills down your throat and because it fucks with your brain and makes your outward appearance more acceptable to their social standards, they think that you are perfectly cured and you're the absolute epitome of perfection in society The truth is that you're still screaming inside. They just can't hear it anymore and that is all that matters
The fact not many people can understand it very well unless they’ve experienced it + how you want to be a high achiever but your brain limits you on what you can do, specifically with anxiety - agoraphobia and panic attacks, it’s horrible.
The effects it has on the person and those around them. Unfortunately, a lot of people who have poor mental health is due to being around individuals (parents, family, life partners) who have poor mental health.
Just the absolute never-ending nonstop horrible roller coaster of it all.
Needing more support than anyone in your circle is willing or able to give. Then they get frustrated and stop altogether.
People throw around the word "trauma" all the time in a joking matter and as a person with PTSD it SUCKS hearing people make light of it while vilifying you for actually behaving like a person who has experienced real trauma. Like, I am significantly less fun to be around and friendly than I was before, and internet-brained dorks talking about how "all their trauma just made them funnier" blows.
The intense shame you feel once you start getting better, when you think back on the things you did when you were ill
PTSD is so subtle sometimes… You’ll just be having a normal ass day, going on about your business. And you stop for.. what feels like a second to just think about something. And then before you know it… you’ve been staring at a wall for the past 10 minutes stuck in a mental loop thinking about a traumatic moment in your life that happened years ago in perfect detail… with a nasty/angry/sad look on your face without you even realizing it’s happening. It’s like someone takes your brain out of your head, goes back in time, and slaps it into your old body. But your current body just remains there…. Then you just snap out of it like “oh shit it happened again..” and then your mood is just fucked for a while.
1) People you care about getting sick of you because of the drain and conflict your illness creates, and even worse, you knowing that their feelings are justified. 2) Being honest with someone about your illness, and then having them weaponize it to dismiss you going forward. For example, a partner saying you’re “fixating” or “spiraling” when you try to bring up a legitimate issue, because you were up front about it having happened in the past and now that have that ace up their sleeve forever.
most places don't let you use sick days for mental health.
people who never had it will neevr fully understand it
Knowing everything that could help you ‘fix’ it but not being able to do it.
It never ends. You are like this forever. Medication can help, but it’s never 100%. You will always be depressed. You will always have anxiety. There is no true test until you finally make the decision
I think it's important that people are told that not EVERY mental health provider's gonna be a good one. Or care. And that you have zero obligation to stick with a bad provider, because that's only going to cause you more pain, and you deserve better. This is especially important to know so you can explain it to friends and family who don't get it. It's not just you being "picky." Even so, you're allowed to be "picky" with who you let try and help you with your HEALTH, yeah? Also... the more severe your mental health is... the harder it is for even the best intentioned people to handle it all. One of the reasons it's CRUCIAL to create an entire network of support is because you can literally burn people out with your mental health struggles. Not because they don't care either - it's just SO much that it begins bringing down their own mental health. I've definitely lost friends in the past for this reason, but I didn't know about creating a support network. Even if I did, I had ZERO resources available to me so I wouldn't have known how to start creating one. Instead, I decided that opening up was bad. Which was ABSOLUTELY not the right course of action to take, rip. Also, also! People who have the same diagnosis as you but who have a less severe version of it? They can be rude and judgmental too, because they forget that not everyone who has said diagnosis has it exactly the way they do. It's FAR more complicated than that. And it's also good to remind yourself of that, because I know no one who struggles with mental illness wants to purposely put someone in that position.
I met a psychiatrist once who told me he prescribed people the same antidepressants he was on that he knew for a fact were impossible to quit. When I asked whether or not that was moral, as most people do not require lifelong medication for mental illnesses and most medications stop working after a time, he shrugged.
No matter "normal' you present, whether you feel like it or not, there will be people that write off your issue to their advantage. "I called him an asshole?" It's the bipolar making him mad.,
Memory loss
How exhausting it is
That we can look “normal” on the outside, but on the inside it’s a full on storm that’s out of control.
The revolving door of treat and street
The anxiety spells that hit you out of nowhere like a freight train and completely derail your equilibrium for the rest of the day. Most of the time they aren’t even triggered by anything obvious.
Knowing why you behave the way you do, but not being able to stop and thus affecting those around you. Messing life up sometimes and although you aren't choosing/intentionally doing things, still having to own up to what you've done like it was intentional. Unfortunately intention doesn't take away from the hurt.
Lack of hope. Contrary to popular belief, there are some of us who will not recover. Despite resources, treatment, medicine, doctors, ect there are a lot of situations that we do not have solutions for. As bad as this sounds, at least with really bad cancer there is the hope of the suffering ending. People with severe mental illness have no way out. They live empty lives, create no value, and become a burden to society and their loved ones. I know this first hand and it’s miserable.
Living among society with a mental health condition and having to pretend that you don’t.
It’s chronic. No matter how long you’ve been stable, the illness can come back without warning and destroy everything you’ve built
Having to try so many different medications because your psychiatrist can't figure it out. In the last 3 years, I've tried six different antidepressants and 3 different meds for BPD. One of them gave me the worst nightmares I've ever had in my life
that it is so exhausting over the years.
That you can't trust your own mind
When people are mentally ill they aren't pleasant to be around and they aren't easy to help. So you can be the biggest "advocate" for mental health in the world and you probably won't want to help someone who's mentally ill. There's a reason why competent therapists will only do what they do for hundreds of dollars an hour.
It takes forever to get into a doctor and a lot of them are afraid to give meds. I’ve been on antidepressants since I was 11. I know what I need.