Mental Illness VS Physical

I think I just bought a house so what I’m trying to say is that life has a lot of changes and if you happen to have mental illness it kind of feels like your insides are changing all of the time without you and you have no control.

So outside changes may not be so welcome. I deal with change first by freaking out second by relying on my friends and family to help me stop freaking out and third by just adapting.

Having mental illness means that you have to. adapt to your body every second of every day. So adapting to outside situations isn’t really that different. The only differences is you have a little bit more control over the way you do it.

Sometimes when I apply for jobs I get sad because it like you need 3 to 5 levels of experience for the entry level job and I’m like man can I use my experience points in Pokémon go and they’re like no you can’t and I’m like but I have a Squirtle. So today I went for a job interview and I’m in communications, that’s what I do outside of mental health advocacy. So I went into my job interview and I told him that I had a mental illness. This is probably a weird job interview tactic. If you want to sleep with someone, you don’t tell them that you snore but my policy on this is that mental illness is such an integral part of my life not only on my resume because a lot of people ask why did you get into mental health advocacy and the simple answer is because I am sick.

The other reason I tell them is because it’s likely to pop up in a job situation at some point during another. Can I promise that between the hours of 9 to 5 for the next 1 million years of my life I won’t have a panic attack? I can’t but I can promise that I will handle it in the most professional manner that I can.

And so if your an employer and one of your employees comes to you with mental illness, try to be understanding if someone has to take days off to see the psychiatrist try to think of it as someone try to take days off to see their diabetes doctor and you have to remember that it’s not a weakness to have something like guide to have to regulate yourself it’s actually a strain you have to be a little bit tougher you have to understand yourself a little bit better than everyone else.

Is if you’re struggling in your job and you’re struggling because of your mental illness, talk to your boss about it. Try to work around it, they want to work with you, they want you to succeed.

I actually had a boss that switched all of my shift afternoon shift so that I could switch medications without worrying about missing shifts in the morning and that was something really special because he cared and he understood that it was something that I had to do to better myself and hopefully they understand for you too.

From the perspective of someone who has mental illnesses. I’ve been seeing some posts saying that people who are against self diagnosis are ablest and classiest. That’s bullshit, and let me explain why:

MENTAL ILLNESSES ARE MORE THAN JUST A LIST OF SYMPTOMS – Mental illnesses are serious conditions that manifest in many more ways than just some external symptoms. They affect how you view the world, your physical brain chemistry, how you are affected by different variables, how you deal with your problems, and how you behave (or will not behave) in a given situation.

MENTAL ILLNESSES HAVE OVERLAP OF SYMPTOMS – if you are not a trained professional, it is very easy to assume you have one condition or disorder, when it may be something else entirely, something you may not have heard of.

IT MAY BE MORE THAN ONE CONDITION – if you have a mental illness, you rarely have just one. Misery loves company, and it’s very common to have two or more related disorders. It’s also common to have a specific condition, but tendencies of another.

ONLINE QUIZZES AND TESTS ARE UNRELIABLE – because mental illnesses are complex, there is no one objectively correct test you can take to pinpoint what illness(es) you have. There is also no online quiz to observe your behavior and recognize behavioral patterns, or to tell you if you have more than one illness.

PROFESSIONALS ARE PROFESSIONALS FOR A REASON – unless you have a degree in psychology/psychiatry/mental health counseling, you do not have the same level of knowledge of the human mind and of mental disorders that a professional has. They study for years and years to be able to identify and treat mental illnesses. They don’t just memorize a list of illnesses and their symptoms. They learn how the mind works, the chemistry behind it, and how disordered thinking works to determine what the issue is.

YOU CANNOT EXAMINE YOURSELF AND YOUR BEHAVIOR TO THE SAME DEGREE A PROFESSIONAL CAN – if you do enough therapy you’ll hopefully learn to be more self-aware of your actions and thoughts, and try to think about your problems and behavior logically. But a professional will be able to look at your situation objectively: they will look at behavioral patterns, family health history, your reactions to stress, AND any symptoms you display before making a decision.

UNLESS YOU ARE TRAINED TO, YOU DON’T KNOW THE VARIOUS TREATMENT OPTIONS AND HOW TO PERFORM THEM – I’m talking beyond the obvious, like medications. There is more than one kind of therapy and treatment, and if you’re not educated in the field, you won’t be able to determine which will be best for you. Professionals have an objective perspective, but they also have an understanding of how a mental illness works, the theory/history behind various kinds of treatment, and how to change treatment if necessary based on your response to it.

SELF DIAGNOSIS TRIVIALIZES MENTAL ILLNESS – there are still many, many people out there who don’t think mental illnesses are real, or that people who suffer from them just need to “get over it.” People taking an online quiz or reading a Wikipedia article to reach a diagnosis de-legitimatizes the severity of the condition. Giving the impression that a mental illness diagnosis is something that can be reached without a doctor gives off the impression that it’s not something serious, and some people will take it as validation that mental illnesses are just made up.

SELF DIAGNOSIS ULTIMATELY ACCOMPLISHES NOTHING – that’s right, I said nothing. Say for argument’s sake that you successfully diagnose yourself. Now what? You’re not licensed to administer medication, and you cannot perform therapy on yourself. So what’s the point? The fact that you proudly say so on your blog and make excuses for not wanting to do things? How does that help? Which brings me to my next point:

MENTAL ILLNESSES ARE MEDICAL CONDITIONS – they are NOT fashion statements or convenient labels. They must be treated the same way as a physical illness would be because they are every bit as serious. You aren’t doing the mental health community any favors when you claim to know this shit all by yourself.

THE RESOURCES ARE OUT THERE – There are many, many free/low-cost resources out there for mental health, if money is an issue (most schools now have a counselor or psychologist on staff, ffs). Here is a small list for you if you live in the US:

At times, life gives her pain (etc.) and many people would think that she would easily break down just that simple. But truthfully, she doesn’t at any point in her life! She is breaking down inside nor out. She remains strong no matter what life brings her. She won’t let it break her again! Not the way it did to the person she used to be.

She is even way more awesome than anyone would ever think. Part of being so awesome from: everything in her past, memories, life lessons she learned, family, friends, inspirations (people she looks up to), everything that has helped her be the person she has become, and so much more… And she is and always will believe that she can’t wait to share all that with the world as there is so much that the works can learn from…

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