When someone hears the word “mental illness,” a majority of the time they either automatically assume “crazy” or “struggling.” People also like to sugarcoat the term to make it sound much more glamorous than it truly is. The fact of the matter is, having a mental illness absolutely sucks. When I had just turned 12 years old, I knew that my body was changing.
Most people would automatically assume this change would be puberty. Sadly, it wasn’t my physical appearance that was changing, I wasn’t just getting taller or going through a phase. The thoughts in my mind were getting more complex, upsetting and depressing. At the time, I had no clue what was happening. About two years later, I realized I had depression.
I will never forget the day I was clinically diagnosed with mental illnesses. It was March 13, 2012. I walked into the doctors office with my mom, checked in and got handed a piece of paper with what looked like 200 questions. Each one asked me to rate how I felt on a scale from 1 to 4 (one being not at all, four being all the time). I handed the paper back to the receptionist and waited for my name to be called. When I finally met with the doctor, she confirmed that I did indeed have depression. She sent me home with a prescription and referred me to a psychiatric therapist. As I got in the car, all I wanted to do was cry. The doctor had basically just called me crazy.
If there is anything that I have learned since being first diagnosed, it is that having a mental illness does NOT mean you are crazy. Are you different? Of course, everyone is different in one way or another. But having a mental illness does not make you “psychotic,” “crazy” or “messed up” (terms that have often been associated with mental illnesses). People who are lucky enough to not have a mental illness don’t truly understand how much it sucks to deal with one.
Depression isn’t just feeling sad. Depression is feeling completely alone, even when you’re surrounded by a whole crowd of people. It’s looking in the mirror and seeing absolutely nothing looking back at you besides an empty body. Depression is feeling hopeless even when there’s every reason to have hope. It’s having twelve hours of sleep and still feeling absolutely exhausted because your thoughts have made you become exhausted.
The thing with depression is, it can come on gradually or it can hit you like an oncoming train. People think it can be magically cured through a magical pill or talking to someone; the sad truth is, it doesn’t go away. It can be covered or pushed to the side, but it will never truly disappear.
Depression is an evil illness. It consumes your thoughts, your actions, and sometimes, you. But just because I have a mental illness, does not make me mentally ill. Depression is an awful disease, but you are never ever alone. Yes it will be stuck with you, and sometimes it’ll feel like there’s no reason to go on, but there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel. In the words of Johnny Depp, “Breathe. It’s a bad day, not a bad life.”
