Should we be less open about mental illness?

[queerape]

I have had depression and PTSD for 10 years. The fad of people claiming to me mentally ill makes me second guess all the suffering I went through, because I worry people will think I am just making my conditions up because I put in so much effort to be high functioning. It takes a ton of my energy to be put together, I can’t do it like that nor can I choose not to have to put this energy in like trenders can. I was barely functional for 5 years of my life, it took me 9 before I could properly independently manage it

 

[Psyduck]

"How you doin"

"Ugh im so depressed"

Answer to yer question is yes

 

[heyilikeyourmom]

If I don’t tell people I’m a violent sexual deviant with boundary issues, they’re still gonna find out eventually. Still, maybe it’s kinder not to warn them since there’s nothing they can do about it anyway. And it’s not like there can be much of a dialogue about it when only one person in the van isn’t gagged.

 

[Dom Cruise]

I always have been and probably will always be in the camp of "mental illness is an explanation, not an excuse". Use it to explain, never to excuse because that's where the lazy, entitled pricks come in.

That's what it comes down to, it's simply not an excuse for bad behavior.

I have a cousin who is bipolar who I haven't spoken to in coming up on 8 years due to mistreatment of me and from what I've learned from speaking with another cousin who's interacted with them after I did they still remain a toxic, malicious person and there's simply no excuse for that.

 

[Rice Is Ready]

Yes and we should stop taking our medications too! I did years ago and I feel fine!!

 

[heyilikeyourmom]

Yes and we should stop taking our medications too! I did years ago and I feel fine!!

Tfw you’re off your meds and online

 

[clusterfuckk]

I agree to a certain extent. As other posters have mentioned, mental illness has now become an excuse for shitty people to continue to be shitty with no repercussions. It almost feels like so many people are claiming to have it, that they outnumber the people who do not have it, making it appear to be the norm. Its a slap in the face to people who are struggling to hold it together every day and live some sort of 'normal' existence. Many times these people (me included) don't want people to know they have a legitimate mental illness and not a 'made for social media' one.
Every asshole who had a bad day bleats their hearts out on SM about how much they are suffering, because someone misgendered them ffs.
That is not a mental illness; unless you count not knowing anything about biology and what sex organs mean a mental illness.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

The problem is mental illness gives pity points. If stuff like depression and anxiety were treated as obstacles that can be debilitating, they wouldn't be an attention seeker's wet dream. Many, many people have these and live or try to live normal lives.

Many genuinely mentally ill people don't want pity or attention, they are being hurt by the ones pretending or exaggerating their problems. Hell, the fakes on Twitter and Tumblr can end up confusing the legits and causing them to spiral further downhill.

For someone suffering from mental pain, those hugboxes seem comfy at first. Everyone seems nice and supportive. The pain blinds the rational part of the brain, so they can't see that the crowd of attention whores in the hugbox are detrimental to someone with already poor mental health.

Be open but not with your brain sliding out your ears.

 

[mr.moon1488]

I'm not really sure. Here's the issue. From what I've seen in forensic psychology, there are a lot of people who still never seek help, however on the flip side, I've seen a lot of people who just instantly run off to the psychologists office every time something goes bad in their life. I think more than anything, psychological problems need to be treated like any other medical issue. You don't go around talking about yourself as some kind of class that needs saving if you have serious hemorrhoids, but you do still go to the doctor.

 

[Damn Near]

There's a very wide and temperate middle ground between acknowledging mental illness and wallowing around in it like a hog in shit

 

[Petronella]

I have had depression and PTSD for 10 years. The fad of people claiming to me mentally ill makes me second guess all the suffering I went through, because I worry people will think I am just making my conditions up because I put in so much effort to be high functioning. It takes a ton of my energy to be put together, I can’t do it like that nor can I choose not to have to put this energy in like trenders can. I was barely functional for 5 years of my life, it took me 9 before I could properly independently manage it

Hard agree, my dude. I hope things look up for you.

 

[ArnoldPalmer]

Well, there are some things that I take issue with. The first, being that openness is the wrong word. I think people should be less public about it. It requires a certain degree of openness for treatment to be possible, as jumping into someone's head isn't exactly possible.
Another thing is that nobody seems to understand that there's a threshold between "mental illnesses", and "personal problems". Many people treat responding negatively to negative stimuli as a mental illness, because socially, it is expected that you shrug off every bad thing that happens to you, and put on a face for the world, lest you make someone else upset with your misery. For instance, I don't think that depression is a mental illness, unless you've got absolutely no reason to feel sad. It's the most overdiagnosed, overtreated thing that the medical world has ever seen, and I think that sometimes, people deserve to be unhappy.

That and PTSD is a fandom unless you've been in war. Cyberbullying didn't give you PTSD.

 

[JambledUpWords]

On one hand, I’m glad more people are open about their mental issues. I think because of it, people are more educated about certain mental illnesses, and it has become just as legitimate a disability, like physical disabilities are.

On the other hand, there are many exceptional individuals out there that abuse mental illness, by claiming it to excuse terrible behavior. Another way it’s abused is from those that self diagnose and decide not to seek professional help afterwards, and claim any treatment is “ableist”. Trust me, if these people that used mental illness as a personality trait actually had the mental illnesses they claim, they’d probably wish it could go away. For example, autism is a hip thing to diagnose yourself with, because it’s viewed as “quirky” and not debilitating (at least in the case of high functioning autism). This cannot be further from the truth in cases of real autism. Even for high functioning autistics, it requires years of therapy and lots of patience to get an autist that appears “normal”. On top of it, the social issues are there for life, and autists will always be behind in terms of social development and behavior compared to the rest of the population (hence many autistics acting younger than they actually are). No amount of smarts can cover up lack of social skills, and as a result, many autistics face unemployment in greater numbers than the general population. The people that fake these kinds of disorders will only make it harder for people with the diagnosis to seek treatment, since their problems are seen as less severe than they actually are.

Tl;dr Exceptional individuals ruin things for everyone

 

[soft breathing]

If there's a reason to talk about it - yes, sure, you should be open about it.

Inform your future partner that there's something not quite right with you.
Inform your boss if it's impairing your ability to give 100% at your workplace.
But also - get help. Don't just roll around in the pity points and suffering - actively work on getting better; for your own sake.

And don't fucking turn it into a suffering contest or romanticize it though; like so many love to do.

Having a mental illness is not fun, it's not quirky, it's not cute and it's especially not romantic or makes you special - it fucking sucks. For you and everyone around you.

 

[Foghot]

Pepole with no personality with access to the web shitted up that question long ago, i'm afraid.

The real question would be how could we make pepole acknowledge that they aren't and never will be anything else than losers unless they start working on themselves all around, but that would require entire entertainement branches to stop glamorizing life ruining mental illnesses, mainstream social media to stop existing altogether and goodwill from extremely flawed pepole. Mental illness has been over-trivialised and it just saddens me to think that snowflakes who overreact by posting "i have X illness asspat me UwU" because they didn't clip one of their nails right think they have deep mental issues while pepole with legit problems just struggle with no way to express it cause they'd fear being lumped together and mocked with these douchebags.

EDIT: corrected typos

 

[LazarusOwenhart]

I don't think anybody should suffer in silence, but building your entire identity around that illness and then using it to manipulate people is another matter entirely.

 

[UnclePhil]

If someone asks "How are you?" and it's a genuine question, not the rhetorical casual greeting kind, go for it. If you're having a discussion with someone about anxiety, depression, etc. and exchanging experiences, go for it, but avoid monopolizing the conversation with your own sadbrains. If you're talking to a therapist or psychiatrist, spill it because that's what you're paying them for.

Don't use it as a crutch. Don't use it make yourself into a super-special person. Don't mope around and miss work and make every excuse to be lazy because of it. Don't drag an entire room down with you. And don't post pity-party vaguebook shit on Facebook. Your health matters as much as everyone else's, but everyone else has their own pain and stress to deal with.

 

[snailslime]

no. it's just that attention whores without mental disorders love to pretend they have them, and think that flexing them is cool

 

[Mrs Paul]

Depression and anxiety are really much more common than people believe, but the notion that they're "just part of one's personality" pisses me off, quite frankly. Being depressed sucks donkey balls, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. And people who go around with the whole, "well, why do you take pills -- it'll just change your personality?" have no business commenting, because they don't know jackshit about mental illness.

But it shouldn't be used as an excuse to be a dick. If you truely, surely, can't be expected to follow the rules because of your illness, and if you're so far gone that you can't be held responsible for your actions, then you have no business going around unsupervised. And those people I truely, deeply feel sorry for.

If you CAN control your actions, however, you can't just say, "well, I can't help it, I'm sick!" And especially don't try and speak for others -- "they can't help it, they're depressed/anxious/blah blah blah" when said person didn't even ASK for your help, or even said specifically, they didn't want special treatment. I've seen this too -- someone mentions that they have a mental illness, or they're autistic, or whatever, but they say, "hey, I don't want special rules, I want to be treated like everyone else", and some SJW thinks otherwise.

That's part of the problem. Compassion is one thing and understanding is one thing. Being patronizing, or using it to try and get pity, or get out of trouble -- you're a douchebag.



And also, when people talk about autism and "quirkyness", then freak out at parents who express a wish for a cure, they really need to be more aware of people farther down on the spectrem. Non-verbal, throwing things, self-harming, screaming, etc. It's rare, but it's scary. And to claim that's just "being quirky", well....fuck you very much.


(Sadly though, it's not always easy to get help, at least with our fucked up healthcare system. THAT is for a totally different thread, though)

 

[Strong Tomato]

It seems that having certain mental illnesses has become trendy over the years, in a similar way that being a part of the LGBT community has. Claiming to have one or more to make you more quirky or add to your personality has sadly been normalized by teens and some younger millenials thanks to the internet. Just because you have a bad day every once in a while doesn't mean you need a sweater with "lol hi anxiety" or something similar written on it, or that you need a list of all of your supposed mental illnesses in your about me section of your social media profiles. This is the kind of shit that really nerds to stop, in my opinion. On one hand, it's making people more aware of the peoblem, but on the other it's making people take it less seriously, which makes it harder for those people who are actually suffering from mental illness.

I want to blame the internet for making it this way, really. I'm not sure that people actually just go out in public and talk about their mental problems with random people in person, because no one fucking cares. But they love to brag about it online because it gets them attention from all the other attention seeking people.

Basically I think it's good that people are more aware as it can help people that actually deal with this stuff, but it's kind of a double edge sword because of the rest of the people not taking it seriously.