Every year about 800 000 people lose the constant war they have with themself. A stranger to you, someone who meant nothing, but that someone once was somebody else's everything.
Our mental illnesses and disorders have been so overly glorified and romanticized in today’s media, music, and social media. It has become desirable and trendy, and it’s making me sick.
Our problems weren’t discovered, closely studied, monitored, and used to give us an answer to the questions why, when, and how, just for some teens to use it as a way to evoke shame and make fun of someone.
There are over 171, 476 words used in the English language, 10,000 adjectives, 2,123 adverbs, 46 conjunctions, 77 interjections, 17,450 nouns, 26 particles, 39 prepositions, 17 pronouns, and 5,986 verbs. I bet there are a bunch of other adjectives to call your friend when they “go crazy”.
So please stop using our chemical imbalances and the result of years of traumas because you need to feel unique.
No, we aren’t okay with you using our pain and struggles as a way for you to feel edgy and special.
“I Am NoT lIkE oThEr GiRlS” No, you are lying to yourself and
others by faking and exaggerating your anxiety and your depression because it’s “SO ROMANTIC WHEN A BOY SAVES YOU”.
But truth be told;
Kissing your partner's scars isn’t adorable.
Saving someone from a suicide attempt doesn’t make you a brave hero.
Anxiety disorders don’t transform you into a poor struggling soul needing someone to save you.
Depression never turned me into a misunderstood beautiful flower, someone who’s fragile and needs protection.
Bipolar disorder is so extremely much more than “just mood swings”;
When I have a manic episode it doesn’t mean I am suddenly super productive.
Dealing with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is not “so cool or so crazy” it’s best explained as living in an unpredictable nightmare, but you can not wake up.
Being paranoid is not cool, you are in a constant fight or flight mode, and you are thinking something bad will happen any second.
Having Anorexia is not the same thing as just skipping breakfast one morning.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is not a “gift or superpower” you suddenly wanted to give to yourself with no right to do so.
Having social anxiety is not quirky, it’s debilitating.
Succeeding or failing a Suicide attempt won’t make all of your bullies suddenly stop being bullies and make them feel guilty.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is not the same as liking it when things are organized.
Bulimia is not a diagnosis you should aspire to get, you won’t turn into a beautiful thin person, you will turn into a dying mentally unstable wreck.
Being diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) doesn’t equal not knowing how to make friends and enjoying being alone.
No, You don’t have Tourette Syndrome (TS), I have never heard of a TS type where you only have trouble with “vocal tics” when someone is not doing what you ask them to. You simply just lack manners and have no idea how to read a room, your parents failed to turn you into a decent human being and you just don’t feel like working on it.
Insomnia is a lot more than staying up 1 out of 7 days a week because you “did not feel tired and was too bored to stay in bed”.
Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) is not ******* easy to live with and doesn’t mean you are weak.
My daddy issues are not **** or make me a freak in bed.
Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders are not “Only hearing and seeing things”.
Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) doesn’t mean someone is coldhearted and evil.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is not the same as having different personalities with different friend groups.
Addicts are not weak, dumb, or “only have themself to blame.”
Being burned out doesn’t equal you thinking school or work is boring.
To even get evaluated we often have to fight for years until we find a psychiatrist who takes us seriously. Some of us find ourselves dumbfounded by the answers to the questions we have had to deal with for years and stuff we thought everyone dealt with.
Others are not that lucky and have to do most of the work themself, they find out what is wrong after thoroughly reading every article on PubMed, MedScape, and WebMD they can find. Because, honestly, psychiatrists do **** sometimes.
Society has been fetishizing our mental illnesses and disorders for way too long.
You see my crazy as **** and desired until my crazy pops up out of thin air and ends with wounds, blood, traumas, antipsychotics, and paramedics.
We get belittled, invalidated, and have our symptoms dulled down because people get off to them.
I am not your manic pixie dream girl or your Harley Quinn.
If the “type” of people you get attracted to is mentally unstable girls with daddy issues, a chemical imbalance, and a lack of impulse control, you are a part of the problem.
Also, Meghan Markle won’t see the embarrassing Facebook posts you write about how you don't believe she was “really suicidal and only wanted attention”, but your suicidal friends will.
You know who’s not laughing at your jokes about how people who died or were lucky enough to survive their suicide attempt are weak and how they “took the easy way out”? Your best friend who’s barely holding on, or maybe it’s your little sister tempted by the bottle of pills in her hand, or maybe, just maybe, it’s your lover who locked themself in the bathroom and is currently gasping for air on the cold tile floor because they would rather go through their panic attack completely alone than having to ask for your help. Is your joke still funny?
We are asked: “have you ever considered how your mental illness makes ME feel? How much you are hurting me?
And yes we have. We worry about that every single day of our life. And every single hour we spend awake we are overwhelmed with the feeling that our loved ones would be so much better off if we just died, but thank you, from the bottom of our hearts for your contribution. There is nothing we love more than being reminded of how much of a burden we are.
I swear we aren’t monsters. The friends I have who are dealing with mental illnesses are some of the kindest, most selfless, and caring people I have ever had the fortune to meet. We have nothing in common except for our serotonin deficiency and we bond through our traumas.
We try our hardest to heal other broken people because we know what rock bottom feels like.
We calm them down and distract them from the breathtaking panic attacks and overpowering suicidal thoughts visiting them at 3 am, because we all know way too well how easy it is to slip in and out of your head, and how it feels to lose touch with reality.
We stay up throughout the night to keep each other safe and breathing because deep down we are all just a bunch of suicidal kids telling other suicidal kids that suicide isn’t the answer.
We check-in and remind each other to eat, take our meds and stay hydrated.
We repeatedly prove the voices in our friends' heads wrong, while we listen blindly to our own demons believing every cruel and damaging lie they feed us.
We are lost kids looking for someone to call our own and somewhere to call home.
We were all raised being told by either our mom or dad or some other adult to not talk to strangers online, because they are dangerous, and they would ruin our lives.
But my mom and dad couldn’t have been more wrong, because when I met strangers online, I didn’t find danger, I found a family.
I have felt love stronger than anything you will ever experience in your life.
We love like we have nothing to lose because we truly have nothing to lose.
We have each other’s backs and we proved that family doesn’t have to be blood.
I am forever grateful towards the ones who stuck around, and to the new ones that life brought to me. The ones who have seen me relapse probably a thousand times but never lost hope, and the ones who were never meant to stay forever. I will always have you back.
What I am trying to tell you with all of this is that we are all fighting for dear life to survive, some of us are so close to falling off the deep end all they need is one small event to tip over, and then we have those who lost their battle, who are gone but never forgotten, taken from us along the road to the place we are today, those the sickness quickly and carelessly took from us, and at the same time robbed the world of the most beautiful people we have ever met.
The world wasn’t ready for you yet,
Alexa