Mental illness looks like a smiling, happy girl. It's a teenage boy, celebrating a goal at his soccer game. It's a 50-year-old woman laughing with her friends on her birthday. It's a CEO of a leading company making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. It's an employee who just got promoted.
It's also a struggling 14-year-old who isn't ready for high school just quite yet. It's a single dad with three kids who can't catch a break. It's a college student taking 18 credits and working two jobs. It's a couple who just broke up after six years. It's someone who just lost their sister to cancer.
Mental illness is not picky. It doesn't discriminate. It doesn't warn. It trespasses. It's unwanted and it's good at hiding. Nobody can see it, because it doesn't cause a rash, it doesn't give you a fever. But that doesn't mean it's not there.
Depression, anxiety, addictions, eating disorders. They can strike anyone at any time. They can ruin lives. They come with a sense of desperation, hopelessness, confusion, claustrophobia. You become so desperate for help, whether it comes in a pill bottle or from meditation or therapy sessions every week. You feel so hopeless about getting better because your mental illness is just drowning you. With no remorse. You're confused about why this is happening, why you? Why can't it just leave you be with the happy life you had before? And you feel claustrophobic. There's no way out of this, no way to break down these walls that are slowly but surely closing in. You lose your sense of control. As if your life and everything that happens in it is out of your hands.
For some reason, it's hard for most of those who don't suffer from a mental illness to sympathize with or simply believe the victims. Even though some of our favorite celebrities like Robin Williams and Jim Carrey -- two seemingly unlikely sufferers -- have brought attention to the issue, it remains a joke to the outsiders, a fairy tale, some made up illness to get attention or find a way out of something. They don't understand that all you wish for is a way out of your illness. They don't understand that it's an embarrassment, something you don't want anyone to know about. Who wants to be the friend that breaks down in tears in front of everyone for "no reason?" Who wants to laugh about jokingly being called an alcoholic, when really, you're an alcoholic? Who wants to feel shame for eating that pizza and then find yourself shoving a finger down your throat the next minute?
Nobody. Nobody wants mental illness and everything that comes with it. Nobody wants to feel misunderstood and trapped, stuck battling this invisible monster. So next time someone tells you they have depression or an addiction or anxiety attacks or anorexia, or next time you suspect they might. Treat them with love. Love them and be their friend. Don't become an accusing, shameful, unsympathetic stranger.
