A Disease Is A Disease

I watched a video today that really touched my heart. It was a video that talked about Mental Diseases. By the end of the video I was in tears. It was so amazing to see so many people wanting to bring awareness. We all know that there was a stigma of mental illness. Cancer is a awful disease that takes the lives of to many people. When we hear about someone has been diagnosed with Cancer we immediately give our sympathy whether that be posting something encouraging post on Facebook or going to see them personally. Though if someone has been diagnosed with schizophrenia people back away. I remember watching TV with a friend and we watched a person confess that they suffered from Depression. I was deeply touched that this person shared their story on TV. The friend that I had been watching the show with said.

"It's only depression. What is the big deal?"

I could just stare at them. I never understood how people could be unsympathetic to people who suffer greatly. The thing about mental illness is that it is most of the time internal and you can't really see it on the outside until the person makes it public.

Here's my confession...

I suffered from a mental illness for five long years of my life. For five years only my parents and I knew about it. Even my parents didn't know the severity of it. I didn't tell my friends or anyone else in my family because I thought that if I told anyone about what I was going through they would become scared or freaked out and leave me. Keeping a mental illness does not make the experience any better. Very few people know about my story now. I also suffer from social anxiety disorder. If you don't know what that means it means that I live in constant fear of what people think about me. When I meet people for the the first time what goes through my head is how they are judging me and what they think. If a teacher randomly calls out students for an answer to a question can get me shaking and brain shuts down because I do not want to get that question wrong because if I get it wrong people will think i'm dumb.

After hearing about Robin William's death everyone was astonished and now awareness of mental diseases have been talked about but there is still that God awful stigma. I wish that I could tell that person that they were wrong but we don't talk anymore. I really hope that they changed their mind. That having a mental disease sucks just as much as having a physical disease. That having a severe anxiety attack sucks just as much as a seizure.

DFTBA
-AB