A Few Honest Thoughts on Mental Illness

Written by my friend Ash Trent.


I wanna take a minute to talk about mental illness. I have battled with it my whole life, and maybe it would help to hear about it from someone you know. Or don’t know. Either way, I assure you that I am someone.

The shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school last week shook us all to the core. It was a visceral reality check that we wanted to reject, waiting to hear that the media overreacted and the kids were safe. What happened next was an uproar about gun control, school security and finally mental health. Adam Lanza was mentally unstable, and that does NOT make his actions on that day okay or excusable. Adam Lanza is not the issue here. We can’t undo what he did. What we can do is use it to help us prevent a repeat.

You see, mental illness is a treatable and manageable issue. However, the way it is viewed in our society puts a dark shadow over it that makes it difficult to treat and manage. I know firsthand how the insensitivity of this truth can affect someone with a mental illness. We spend our lives marginalized, minimized, ignored and kind of treated like a joke. We’re seen as melodramatic-- “Why can’t you just let it go? It’s all in your head and you’re blowing it out of proportion.” We’re seen as attention-seeking-- “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” We’re seen as trying to make our situation worse than it is-- “Everyone goes through that! Just go back to work and carry on.”

What’s worse is this is the kind of response we get both from people who truly and inarguably care about us and just don’t want to think of us suffering and from people whom we simply annoy. We get the same responses from everyone, and it hurts! What we have is not just a problem, I assure you. It’s a sickness. Where it comes from, we don’t know. Maybe we were born that way, or maybe we experienced something so terrible that it physically changed our brain chemistry and wiring. And yes, we absolutely have the responsibility to change ourselves and pull ourselves up, because there is no other option. Contrary to popular belief, however, we can’t just shake it off. There are things we need from the people who love us when we are sick.

Let’s start with a basic issue: Depression. I’m pretty sure we have all at one point experienced the godawful curse of the flu. You know, you wake up one morning and you’re just so damn tired you almost can’t get out of bed, you’re aching all over, and you just feel this fog that is intercepting your thoughts so that you can’t put them into action. You feel moody and agitated and you even entertain thoughts of telling your boss to shove that stupid project up his ass. Then, a day or two later, you start coughing and sneezing and you can’t breathe and it’s really, really gross. And it lasts for like two weeks and the whole time you just want to beat your head against the wall. Everyone thinks you’re being a total dick, and you just have to sit tight and wait for it to pass.

Imagine the flu, but you never start coughing or sneezing. Just tired, achey and cranky, and there’s really nothing you can do about it except maybe go to the doctor and eat pills that aren’t really all that effective. Sometimes it lasts a helluva lot longer than a couple weeks... and, just like the virus, you just have to wait it out. And everyone thinks you’re being a dick. That’s what a depressive episode is like. I know it’s similar, because every time it hits me I wonder for a moment if I’m getting the flu. I’m hoping I start coughing and wheezing.

A lot of times when you go through a heavy bout of depression and you try to talk to someone, they’re not exactly...understanding. You’re explaining to them why you’ve been acting a certain way, and it really, seriously is the reason you’ve been what they perceive as “a real bitch/asshole.” Hearing that...it really hurts. You’re not being an asshole or a bitch, you’ve been sick! It’s really a sickness, and you didn’t do it on purpose. Believe you me, when I get that way I would love to just buck up and get over it, and I sure as hell would if I could. I’m probably having even less fun with it than you are. And when I try to explain that I’m so sorry but I just can’t, it’s always the same shit:
“We all have bad days, but we all just deal with it anyway.”“Everyone feels like that sometimes! Just watch a funny movie, that’s what I do!”
“You were fine a couple weeks ago, I don’t know what pissed you off so bad but you better get over it.”“You’re being dramatic.”“You’re looking for attention.”“You’re making excuses.”
“Why don’t you go to a psychiatrist and see if he can give you an antidepressant?”
“Hit the gym! That always cheers me up!”

Listen, with all due respect, we know [most of] you mean well, and we really and truly do love you for it. But we don’t need you to tell us to get over it, because we know it’s not that easy and honestly it feels really bad when we’re told we can just... do that. We know you really believe we can, and we know you can’t understand what we’re going through. We know it hurts you to see us hurting so much, and it scares you that we’re so angry. I promise you that if it were that easy we totally fucking would do all of that. But it takes time, and honestly the best frontline combatant for us is support.

Support doesn’t mean we want you to do things for us when we can’t. Support doesn’t mean we want you to tell us that everything we’re doing is fine, acceptable or okay, because sometimes it just really isn’t. Support means saying, “I know I can’t understand, and I’m not going to pretend I can, but I’m always here to listen if you need to talk,” and then following through with that.

I’ve touched on Depression here, and I want to point out that there are tons of other mental illnesses, none of which are really any better or worse than Depression. Anxiety disorders (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder), Schizophrenia, Personality Disorders, Bipolar Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorders (although those are more developmental disorders than illnesses), they all feel this way in one way or another. And all of the popular responses from loved ones on the subject hurt like hell.

It gets worse, though. Not only is our legitimate sickness disregarded by people who care, it’s even further disrespected by people who don’t. Even our insurance companies and employers refuse to recognize it. When we need to apply for disability, for instance, sometimes our diagnoses are regarded as “untreatable,” or even worse “not valid,” or they are considered “not debilitating.” A lot of health insurance companies don’t cover mental health, no matter how much money you pay them. Let me tell you, I would work my ass off if I could. I’m not taking work off because I feel like it, I’m taking work off because I’m seriously terrified I might snap and hurt myself. I’m sleeping in through my first four hours of my shift because I literally can’t make myself get up. That’s not just because I’m sad or scared, it’s because it has physical manifestations that make me super tired and very sore. Remember the flu analogy?

When we already feel tired, sad, scared, run down and tired, it just fans the flames when we are so misunderstood and invalidated. People want to know why we’re acting this way, and the answer is a simple “I just don’t know.” It’s a very real sickness, and no one should ever have to apologize for being sick. And yet we are always apologizing so profusely when we’re already feeling bad about ourselves for seemingly no reason. To be pegged as a bitch/asshole, lazy, stupid, entitled, or otherwise weak when you just don’t feel good is not a walk in the park. After all this invalidation, when we do snap, people are left wondering why. What the hell was wrong with that asshole? Probably not enough God. Probably lack of gun control. Probably not enough school security.

I disagree. I think that if our insurance companies covered mental health treatment, if our society didn’t treat us like lepers, or if we weren’t treated as drama queens by the people we want so badly to hear us, we might not spiral quite so far. We get tired of explaining ourselves. We get tired of our cries for help falling on deaf ears. It hurts, and for some of us it makes us unreasonably angry, and then we lose control and people get hurt. Most often ourselves. All the ignorance and insensitivity only adds to what the sickness already does all by itself. We do all we can, and now it’s your turn, everyone. A difference isn’t going to be made in the mental health cause if it’s only the mentally ill calling for a change, any more than it’s going to help if the cows picket the beef industry.

I’m hoping that some people who know me will read this, and realize that this is my life. I have tried time and time again to make something of myself, and it’s just so very hard when I am not afforded the chance to do so because of the challenges I face. I do not consider this an excuse; you all see that I keep trying and I promise I’m nowhere near giving up. I see the struggles I face every day, obviously, and when I see these things in the news, most recently the Newtown tragedy, I know that it’s because so many people lead lives like mine. I know that this has all been said and that some who read this won’t take this seriously either. I just really hope, from the bottom of my heart, that you are reading this as coming from someone you care about, or even would like to know better, and I hope that it makes you think. Let’s treat each other differently, whatever obstacles we face. Let’s open our eyes, and let’s allow love to be the cure.