I’m mentally ill… So what? You might ask. What? well… I didn’t really know…
Being mentally ill is one of those things everyone knows except for the patient and, believe it or not, it hadn’t sunk in for me until yesterday.
I had a huge crisis and went back to self-harming. Moreover, I tried once more to raise the alarm by showing my scars to people. Unfortunately, my boyfriend was the one who had to cope with that psychotic behaviour this time.
I know it’s not fair. I know it’s not right, and I’m trying to change. However, deep inside me I was still asking myself: “why am I not able to stop? If I’m capable of doing so many things… why can’t I stop, it’s my fucking fault. I should try harder. I’m not taking therapy seriously. I must be doing something wrong. Maybe the meds aren’t working. Maybe my will isn’t strong enough. If it’s not going to stop I might as well kill myself right now.”
All these thoughts created a self-punishing environment, and that doesn’t help at all. It makes you more anxious and it can make you feel 3 times as guilty.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sorry that I worried my boyfriend. I never meant to stress him out, but this is a symptom of a DISEASE. Proof of that fact is that I’m not able to stop that compulsive behaviour.
This isn’t a line to justify my appalling actions. The point of this is: I keep going around trying to make people conscious about my disease, but they don’t need to understand, I DO!
I hadn’t grasped that publishing my secret around was another symptom. I didn’t take it seriously, I never thought it was so bad because, I thought, “IT WAS STILL BEARABLE.”
“IT’S NOT SO BAD BECAUSE I’M STILL ALIVE AND I CAN TAKE IT,” “THE SCARS AREN’T DEEP ENOUGH, THEY’RE ONLY SCRATCHES”
It took me two years to conclude that feeling awfully is a very good reason to take this seriously and put my recovery up on the priorities list.
If you’re like me, you might think your problems aren’t that important, or they don’t really matter because you look fine on the outside, or maybe because you’re still functional. You might get to think THEY DON’T EVEN EXIST.
Well… If you’re struggling everyday and keep getting frustrated because you can’t change your behaviour no matter what you do, or you get back to alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, destructive relationships, or however you want to name it; you might be ill.
If you’re in the path of recovery or therapy you might already know this, but take into account that YOU’RE DOING THE BEST YOU CAN. You’ve lived your whole life in this way, and there’s no permanent/magical solution for it.
Don’t fool yourself: this is NOT an easy illness to bear with, no matter what your relatives say (instance, my parents don’t think mental health is important – and they’re health specialists.)
“I know people who are prone to spending a million quid at once because they get as anxious as you,” said my psychiatrist once. That gave me an idea of how hard it is to deal with this rubbish.
YOU’RE A WARRIOR and, if you’re reading this, it means YOU’RE STILL FIGHTING the battle for your mind.
There are many levels of stress and anxiety, but no one else on earth knows how bad it can get but yourself.
YOU’RE AS IMPORTANT AS EVERYONE ELSE. DON’T DISCRIMINATE YOURSELF ONLY FOR BEING YOU.
XX
nocureforme 