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Jul 2015
Mental illnesses, they aren't real.
With time everything heals.
Why would you even inflict pain to yourself?
Why didn't you just ask someone for help.

It's a double standard but no one gets it.
You think one thing but say something else.
How can you be shocked when you find out a friend has a mental illness if you make it obvious you don't want to help.
With our words and our actions, we undermine others' problems, and for what? Because they only exist in your head?
Well if you experience one of these issues, you would see it as ignorance instead.

No one asks for depression, or anorexia.
They just happen to you.
No one asks to struggle being  around others'. These illnesses are real issues.
They happen in your head and the root may be in the mind, but it doesn't all stay there.
You feel the pain in your bones, you feel the pain in your toes, in your veins, it's everywhere.

So don't tell someone that they need to toughen up if they are having issues with their mental health.
You don't know how bad the struggle is unless you've experienced it yourself.
You don't get to say it's just in your mind and that you need to get your act together.
And you especially don't get to question why someone never came to you for help and that you could have made them feel better.
You can't shut something down and pretend it doesn't exist and expect people to trust you with their feelings.
You don't get to throw someone's problems under the bus and expect them to come to you for healing.

And don't you dare say that you had no idea someone was struggling so much when it gets to the point of death.
Because you knew, but to you it was never real, it only existed in their head.
But now they are dead and there is no going back, and you know, it could've been prevented.
Because it's hard, you know, when you go for help and all that you get is rejected.
Yeah it's hard to open up to someone else in a society where you're never fully accepted.
Because it's hard, you know, when you go for help and all that you get is rejected.
Yeah it's hard to open up to someone else in a society where you're never fully accepted.
Michelle Nyamekye
Written by
Michelle Nyamekye  Canada
(Canada)   
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