They say that we find comfort in a certain kind of sadness – the type of sadness that does not subside when a problem is resolved but the type that resides in the back of your mind and whispers thoughts into your subconscious.
That feeling is a lot like depression, which involves abnormal activity of the brain's neural circuits. Depression can be represented by a plethora of symptoms, like mood swings, excessive hunger, anxiety, etc. Mental illnesses, usually a type of imbalance of the brain, are always wrapped up in a negative connotation with no bright side to be seen. It's time to create new symptoms for mental illnesses – ones that no longer treat disorders, like depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, as weaknesses or unbearable burdens.
Let's put some hope into depression.
Researchers at deCODE, a genetics company, have found a link between being creative and having a mental illness. When comparing creative professions like painters, musicians, writers and dancers to non-creative professions such as farmers, manual laborers and salesmen, creative individuals usually exhibit a higher chance of having gene variants. Creativity is using your imagination or producing original ideas, and creativity is usually used in art. In Netherlands and Sweden, researchers conducted a poll in which 35,000 people who were deemed to be creative – either through profession or questionnaire – and found that those creative individuals were 25 percent more likely to have a mental illness.
Many people with mental illnesses also struggle with feelings of worthlessness. As horrible as these feelings are, they can also help.
You can learn to feed off of your negative symptoms and turn them into a positive. The sense of never being good enough can drive you to always try your best at everything. This is not to say that you shouldn't try to overcome feelings of self-hate but understands that it will take some time because nothing good happens instantly. While working on loving yourself, you can use your mental illness to your advantage. With my anxiety, I worry about and think of every possibility, which helps me stay on top of schoolwork and housework.
The dissociation that can come with some mental disorders can allow a sort of liberation for some people.
Dissociation is when a person disconnects their thoughts, feelings and identity when becoming attuned with reality. People with dissociation disorder often describe life as though it feels like a dream or movie. This can be a horrible feeling to have and can make life very difficult. Some have found dissociation to be helpful, allowing them to turn off their feelings and forget pieces of their identity. This could mean letting go of negative memories, turning off emotions to get through bad events or overcome fear so they can help during traumatic events.
Even when I search online for good things about mental illness, nothing comes up. This is why we need to stop making people feel bad about things they can’t control. Dr. Phil once said that we need to stop treating it like an illness. By that, I think he meant that we should stop treating mentally ill people like they are mental and more like they are people.
