I don’t have a conscious memory of myself without anxiety. It was so present in my life, it never occurred to me that the level of nervousness I experienced was abnormal.
I can clearly remember being five-years-old, lying in my bed the night before kindergarten, with my heart pounding in my chest, dripping with cold sweat, my stomach turning. This was something that happened frequently. I don’t remember when I started to realize that other people weren’t experiencing what I was.
When I did realize that it was abnormal, I spiraled downward. If I had anxiety disorder, I had a mental illness. If I had a mental illness, I was crazy. Nobody could know.
In high school, I came to terms with the idea that I had anxiety, but I was not my anxiety. I had depression, but I was not my depression. Yet in the back of my mind, I knew that I could never get help, because then I’d have to admit something was wrong with me, and my life as I knew it would be over.
Freshman year of college, I got medication, and the medication helped. Yet, I was still afraid. What if my life became dependent on this bottle of pills? Now, I talked about my anxiety with more openness. But I wouldn’t get counseling, because then I’d really hit rock bottom.
When I hit rock bottom, I went to counseling. After 10 years of mental suffering and a mentally abusive relationship that left me in pieces, I finally reached several realizations.
There are three sides to mental illness, and only two are ever really talked about enough. The purpose of this piece is to show young people the third side.
The first side is stigma. Stigma is what drove me away from treatment. The fear that people would see me as an out of control lunatic or an incapable weakling. I was afraid for my future in college, my future job, my future relationships. All of them, I believed, would be damaged if I openly acknowledged that I had a problem. The truth?
Living with an untreated mental illness will, without a doubt,damage your future in college, your job, your relationships, and your life. Acknowledgment and treatment will not.
Think of it as if you broke your leg. If you were to break your leg and refuse to get medical attention, the leg won’t heal and will no doubt become more painful. Mental illness is no different. If you continue walking on that untreated “broken leg,” don’t expect it to feel any better.
The second side is acceptance. There is a romanticized culture surrounding mental illness. Particularly among artistic — or wanting to be artistic — groups that believe pain is beautiful. Art, music, writing, your personal self-description, hinges on the fact that you have a mental illness.
I understand this culture. Why? Because it’s easy. It is unbelievably easy to sit in a group of alike people, twist pain into a pretty poem, and become one with your pain. Let me be exceedingly clear: your depression, your anxiety, your bipolar disorder, your eating disorder…, etc., is ugly. It does not contribute to your talents or your person. It does not make you more interesting. It will not give you a life of satisfaction. It will do nothing for you but foster the idea that you are your mental illness, and that is a stigma that needs to be defeated. You can spray perfume on that broken leg, but it’s still broken even if it smells nice.
The third side? Treatment. Treatment is scary. Treatment is expensive. Treatment is accessible. Do the research, and you might find that treatment is even more accessible then you could’ve thought. Know your insurance, because most cover counseling and medication to some extent. Know that treatment does not mean you will always be okay, and you can always get more help as needed. The leg might heal, but you still need to go back if you fracture your pelvis. Know what your university or job offers — many universities have a counseling service that is free, some offices near colleges will cover the expenses, many places of employment have similar connections.
Affordability may seem scary, but this is an investment in your health, and if you look around, you’ll find options are out there. Know support groups, because there are many free support groups that are alive and well. Find out what your church, temple, or university offers. Do not settle for a broken leg, because the bottom line? You don’t have to walk on a broken leg.
