Dear People Who Don’t Get It,

First off, let me tell you that you don’t help anything when you just tell somebody who is having a panic attack or is having a bad day to get over it or can’t you just not think about it? What you are doing is making that person who I having the panic attack feel even worse because when they are in the middle of a panic attack they just can’t stop. Trust me, all they want to do is stop, they aren’t doing it for attention or to bother you. They are doing it because that’s the way their mind reacts to stress. Stress becomes a tool for their anxiety which fuels the negative thoughts and unreal hypothetical situations that then turns into a panic attack. When a person with diabetes has a flare up, you wouldn’t tell them to calm down and just get over it. No, you would comfort them and ask how you can help. Why is it any different with anxiety or any other mental illness? The reason you wouldn't give help is because the symptoms are made up or just not there. But speaking from personal experience trust me they are there and they are VERY real.

Panic attacks come in many forms. They all aren’t just shaking and rocking back and forth. They are zoning out, loss of appetite, fits of rage, as well as the shaking and rocking back and forth. They can also range in time, from every twenty minutes to going on for hours and not being able to sleep. I had a scale for my freak outs. I could function through them when they were lower than level 3 but 4 or higher is when the tears and the pacing would come into play.

When I reached out for help in the form of counseling, I slowly started to get better and that coupled with a prescription for medication that, though I argued against for so long, has made me be able to say that I have gone almost four months without a freak out. The reason I was so against going on medication that would HELP me was the stigma that today’s society has put on mental disorders. I was so scared that people’s opinions of me would change or that they would look at me differently if I was on the medication. What did happen was I started looking at myself differently, it lost its strong grip on me and became just a part of my life that I had more control over.

But what you don’t seem to comprehend is people have bad days. Especially when you take the added stress of college, couple that with clubs, and then add in family issues, you have a huge pile up of stress that weighs you down. But since I have the “magic” pills I shouldn’t have to feel like can’t a catch a break. Let me tell you the pills only go so far and any person with that amount of work and obligations would feel at least a little stressed. It felt like I was drowning and every time I got up for air a bigger wave came sending me under again. The strong dam that I built cracked and I cried for the first time in a long time. I didn’t give up though. I cried then got right back to doing what I had to do. It didn’t help when you would say, again asmine? You told me I wasn’t supposed to be upset because of stress or when something happens.

Next time think before you tell someone with anxiety or another mental disorder or someone just having a bad day to just get over it.

Sincerely,

Jasmine

This is just my perspective on the stigma surrounding mental disorders.