Okay so….
Why is it that a lot of people automatically attribute being depressed, being suicidal, starving yourself, ANXIETY, wanting to die, wanting to kill yourself, wanting to cut or hurt yourself, as mental illness?
Just because someone feels and does these things, does not mean they are “mentally ill”.
Just because I want to kill myself, just because I’ve tried to, does not make me sick in the head. I chose to try that, I choose to cut myself, I choose to say and think rationally that I would rather drop dead. What is “ill” about that? Because I don’t really want to live anymore, I have to be sick? Because I cut myself I have to be sick? No, I think it’s just very closed-minded people that think because someone is not “normal” like them, then everyone else is “not normal”. I hate people….. there’s so much better they could be doing, but instead they are ignorant (or perhaps simply stupid) of themselves and others, refusing to see clearly anything but their own viewpoint.
There are [reasons] we do the things that we do.
Maybe some of you do have a mental illness, and there are things that lie out of your control, that isn’t your fault. That aside, maybe some of you do not have a mental illness, and do some of those things and more. There is a reason (within our control) we do the things that we do. And it’s different for everybody.
Human lives are valuable, we have the ability to do a lot of good even through the bad stuff. It’s important to understand that. But also important to understand, that people will kill themselves if their bad things, are bad enough to them. That’s why people should be focusing on the more important things, instead of labeling and being highly ignorant of what feeling those things actually mean.
Depression does not have to mean depressed.
And depressed does not mean depression.
Having anxiety does not make you mentally ill.
Being suicidal, self-harming, et cetera, does not mean mentally ill.
The list could go on….
It’s not “normal” to the ignorant people out there, and so we are “not normal” to a large portion of the world. Unfortunately, most of the world is ignorant in this respect. They weren’t taught how to deal with people in our kinds of situations, but that’s no excuse, because all of those people, do not make even small strides to try and understand what it’s like, being like some of us.
Tired of ignorant people, and yet we must endlessly deal with them, because it’s impossible to educate everyone.
~Oathkeeper
4 comments
Agree! The idea of mental illness is mainly a social construct, and is broadly defined by whatever makes a person a “nonfunctioning” or “noncontributing” or “dangerous” member of society. For instance, one of the most common diagnostic tools for a “mental illness” is whether it interferes with someone’s ability to contribute to the community (by holding a job) or participate normally in the community (by socializing, etc). You want to self-terminate? That’s bad, and makes you a noncontributing member. You don’t respond to social shame or the distress of others? That must be corrected. You can’t hold a job, leave the house, or require others to care for you? Bad, bad, bad.
In a sense mental illness can be a useful societal designation, since when looking at society in macro people have an incentive to correct noncontributing behaviors for the good of the community. But with the degree of overpopulation and redundancy now, it’s less useful imho.
Society will try to fix those issues but end up making it worse. Like exactly where you were going with that, in another example, you have social anxiety and it is very hard to interact with people, the grand mass will only say “well join a big crowd and get the fuck over it”, or some shit like that, that is just not helpful. Depressed? Take some meds, instead of you know, finding what cures it for you. Lets shove these meds down your throat so you can be “normal” ugh…. hate this place
So true. Society likes to cure the symptoms instead of the “sickness”. They would rather medicate you and pay someone who isn’t really interested to listen to you, than make any attempt to help with the underlying problem(s). Another thing, it’s important to understand that nobody’s depression is lesser than another’s. Maybe your mother died and you think I’m petty and attention seeking when I can complain for hours about little things. Fact is, I’ve had a terrible past but it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. What bothers me is now, and all those little problems add up to just as much as yours if we feel the same way. Stereotypes suck.
Agreed. I feel help is an entirely different matter, quite a complicated one at that. But exactly right, it is not right to, for example, read two posts here, and decide which one is just plain worse off, because in reality, both of those posters are here, and are probably near the same place: self-harm, wanting to die, seems to be the main theme. It’s not right to place someone’s problems higher than another’s, simply because everything is subjective. My problems make me want to kill myself, to another, they might not be as bad. I’ll never understand how people can be so blind.