I live my life as an open book--for lack of a better, less cliche way to describe it. Anyone remotely close to me knows that I take medicine to try and curb my mental illnesses. At first, I was scared to be labeled as someone who struggles with both anxiety and depression, but I was not aware just how common that actually is. Once I became more comfortable with the idea of having these illnesses I began to learn how to deal with on a day to day basis. I saw them impacting my life on a lesser scale and I no longer let my life be dictated by them. But, with this progress in my recovery, I began to see new problems pop up.

The stigma behind mental illness is no secret, although many like to pretend it is. It is beginning to be "fixed" as people are educating themselves on various topics that include mental illnesses, but this seems to be (at least to me) mainly impacting those in which their mental illnesses are evident. Don't get me wrong, this is a large stride that is necessary in the process of making mental illnesses acceptable. But, for those of us that may not embody depression and anxiety in the classic ways, it makes our struggle less valid in some ways. If we are not missing classes, if we are making good grades, or if we are out socializing many people assume we are being dramatic about just plain old regular stress that everyone experiences. Everyone does experience extreme stress at some point or another in their life, but although we may not show it we suffer from it every day.

Having a high-functioning mental illness makes it even harder than it already is to gain understanding (and perhaps sympathy on some level) from those around us. Teachers and peers are typically understanding if they are opened up to about mental illness and the problems they cause in our lives, but it seems to be taken less seriously if the person is high functioning. People don't understand why we have to take medication if we seem to be happy every day. And not only do we lack understanding from those surrounding us, we also begin to feel imposter-like to ourselves as well.

If we are making it through days, weeks, and even months without a panic attack or a major depressive episode why should we be wasting our (or likely our parents) money on medicine? Why should we take a chunk of our therapist's time when someone else who is in more need could be using it? Having a high-functioning mental illness makes it hard to validate not only our use of resources such as medicine and counseling, but identifying as someone who has the illnesses as well.

Not only should we pay attention to the people who outwardly show signs of a battle with mental illness, but those who have a smile on every day and manage to live a fairly "normal" life. By doing this we will allow those of us who have a high-functioning mental illness to realize that we deserve to be better and make a full recovery as well.