10 Things Teens With Mental Illness Want You to Know
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10 Things Teens with mental illness wish people knew

We just want to be understood.

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10 Things Teens with mental illness wish people knew
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All throughout my life I have given too much or too little to different people and I feel, in the depths of my heart, that there are only MAYBE two people in this world that understand me as much as I've given them the opportunity to. Having experienced the different abuses I have throughout the past 19 years, I never believed anyone would ever know how to be around me at all. However, there are ten things I need people who think they know me, to know.

1. Do not take it personally when I decline your invitation.

I have many people in my life who offer things to me all of the time. I am not in fear of a shortage of invitations to belong. However, the reality is that the fear of being around people in general, especially people I don't know or in public settings, scares me more than anything. I am not declining your invitation because I don't like you; it's because I'm too scared to leave.

2. I have a tendency to over-connect for fear that everyone will leave me.

I take an inch and drag it on for about seven miles. I overcompensate for what I've lost throughout my life and as a result, I think that everyone that comes into my life is someone who is going to fill those gaps. They turn into number one in my life and though I expect to be on their lists of top people they care about, most times I never make the cut.

3. I do NOT have my life figured out

Most people think that because I am speaking out about my pain that I am fully recovered and have my life back on track. The reality is that I am nowhere near that place in my life. I try to tell people not to mistake the progress they might perceive for a recovery. I have nothing figured out.

4. Don't perceive my facade as a reality

I smile in public because no one wants to be friends with the depressed girl. I fake every single interaction and feeling that I have in public because of the fact that if I were to be honest, no one would love me and I would be just a lonely depressed girl (not that I'm not that anyway).

5. Give me an opportunity to explain

I use my words to explain the feelings in creative ways that I cannot explain in ways normal people do. My behaviors and actions are sometimes so out of the ordinary that no one understands them. I do certain things because they make sense to me in regards to my past, and sometimes if I am just given the opportunity to explain, that could make all the difference.

6. Hear me

I have lived for so long without the opportunity to be heard. I take it as an insult when the person I am speaking to never listens to me and instead only inserts their own opinion about my situation. The only way I see love these days is by being heard.

7. Be honest with me

The only thing that bothers me more than not being heard is being lied to. Just because I'm hurting does not mean that I need treated with kid gloves at all times. The reality is that honesty is the only way that I may be able to continue moving forward and those who don't understand that are only in the way.

8. See me

Due to the fact that I feel like I haven't been seen my entire life, I continue placing myself in the back of crowds and conversations because I feel like I don't matter enough to even be seen. All I want is the opportunity to walk into a room and have someone, anyone, acknowledge that I was there.

9. Hug me

One hug can change an entire day. I haven't been one for hugging until I got to college and learned that whenever words weren't enough to help heal my pain, a hug always would. A hug that lasts as long as it needs to in order for the wounds that are most opened to start healing is all I've wanted for the majority of my existence.

10. Love me

I'm not sure that this is even needed to be explained. It's simple that any ounce of love is enough to change many years of abuse. Love, very surely, can change the entire world and can give me the hope I need to continue to the next day.

There are many more things that people like myself need everyone else to know, but these ten are a good start. It's a difficult life living when no one understands you and no one even tries listening to find out how they could start understanding.

If you start listening instead of pretending to care, you might just save a life.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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