The closest person in the world to me struggles with anxiety and depression. I watched a close friend’s depression eat him alive while I struggled from the sidelines to let him know it would be okay. I’ve had to talk someone down from a panic attack and nearly talk someone “off the ledge” so to speak. These disorders and diseases are very real things, and simply because they aren’t necessarily visible from the outside does not give you the right to downplay them as if they are something minuscule.

Because so many people have mistaken mental health issues for adjectives used to describe well-founded sadness or sleepless nights, I’ve decided to compile a list of 5 common mental disorders and give you what it is and what it is not.

Depression

Is: Months, even years of hopeless sadness. Depression makes getting out of bed and doing daily activities seem like the most difficult thing in the world. The hopelessness and despair that is depression can drive its sufferers to self-harm, and often “successful” attempts at suicide. Even in what seems like an objectively happy occasion, those with depression find it hard to experience anything but sadness. Depression can be both unfounded and triggered by life events.

Is not: The sadness you feel from not making a high school sports team, or your boyfriend breaking up with you after a couple of weeks.

If it is a temporary, well-founded bout of sadness, you are not depressed. You are sad.

Panic Attacks

Is: The feeling that your chest is tightening, your body is sweating and your mind is convinced that you are going crazy and/or dying. Panic attacks are generally accompanied by one or more types of anxiety. Panic attacks involve dizziness, nausea and physical trembling and shaking.

Is not: The feeling you got when you got close to hitting a car, or when you talked to the person you have a crush on for the first time.

If it is controllable, founded from a panic/fear-invoking situation and is not accompanied by a multitude of physical and mental signifiers, you are not experiencing a panic attack. You are scared or nervous.

Bipolar Disorder

Is: Going from periods of mania to periods of depression. Manic periods include high energy, high irritability, engaging in high-risk behaviors, having difficulty sleeping and racing thoughts, among many others. This is followed by a depressed period, where you are hopelessly in despair, have no motivation to complete everyday tasks and other symptoms of depression (that I’ve already described). People who have bipolar disorder are subject to psychotic symptoms as well, and those are different depending on which state you are in. (For example, a psychotic episode during a manic episode may make you believe you are a rich celebrity who can do no wrong, but during a depressive episode can make you feel as if you are have committed a terrible crime).

Is not: A mood swing you feel as a result of a fight with your girlfriend. It is not your mom being nice to you and then yelling at you for not cleaning up your dishes.

If it has reason, lacks severity and does not control your entire life, you are not bipolar. You are a normal human being with changing moods.

Eating Disorders

Is: The constant, all-consuming fear that you do not look the way you should. People with eating disorders are not solely stick-thin women. Eating disorders are present in men, women and non-binaries of all shapes and sizes. Eating disorders can come in the form of anorexia, bulimia, binge eating and the like. People with eating disorders feel disgust and shame with the way that they look. There is not one specific body type that accompanies an eating disorder.

Is not: Your friend who is skinny from her high metabolism, or somebody skipping lunch.

Your friend who is really skinny but eats all the time does not “look anorexic”. You can’t look like an eating disorder. (S)he looks like a thin (wo)man.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Is: A lot of different things, ranging from being absolutely disgusted by dirt and germs, needing things to be in a tediously orderly fashion, repeating rituals over and over again and so many more. Rituals, cleaning, organizing and the like can take up to hours a day, getting in the way of work, school and other commitments. Generally, happiness or accomplishment doesn’t come with completing the ritual or behavior, but a very brief period relief from the anxiety they cause can occur. Usually, nothing can be performed until that the OCD person needs to do has been completed (sometimes multiple times over).

Is not: You color coding your school planner or wanting to keep your dorm room spotless.

If you can stop the task without experiencing a panic attack, don’t feel the absolute NEED to perform the task, you do not have OCD. You are just organized/appreciate tidiness.

Mental disorders control lives, and too many times, take them. You comparing your justifiable mood swing to bipolar disorder, or saying you are “so OCD” because you like to keep your clothes folded invalidates people who have to deal with these terrible diseases on a daily basis. If you don’t understand what depression, anxiety or the like feel like, consider yourself lucky. But don’t use that privilege to try minimalize other people’s struggles to describe your temporary problem.

You wouldn’t say that you have cancer when you are feeling sick. You wouldn’t say that you have coronary heart disease when you get a quick bout of heartburn, or that you suffer from paralysis when you arm falls asleep, so stop treating mental illnesses that way. They are just as real, legitimate and terrible as any other type of disease. Just because you don’t experience the dangers and horrors of them does not mean they do not exist, and just because you can’t see them on the outside does not mean they are not there.