This article could offend you, but it's really time to stop caring so much about offending people because no matter how hard we try in this world someone will get offend. (You should still try at least a bit not to offend people on a daily bases though because then I think you will start coming off as a jerk with no filter.) I am writing this article to hopefully help those who don't quite understand mental illness understand a bit more. To inform you on what it is like for those that have it. To end some myths and common misconceptions. And overall give you a perspective on mental illness from someone who has one. Me. Shall we get started?

1. It brings it's friends.

One thing about any mental illness is that it is not a loner. It is good at making people feel alone but it always has friends to bring to this unexpected party. Some of these friends are as follows:

Anxiety is very common in all mental illnesses. You can find chronic anxiety disorder in those with clinical depression. In my case, I suffer from chronic anxiety and insomnia. When talking to those that have different mental illnesses anxiety and insomnia are most common. Anger management issues have been known to pop up. There is also social anxiety that can develop and eating disorders have been commonly found. People living with mental illnesses like OCD and bipolar disorders can also struggle with eating disorders from their need to control something, since there is the feeling of no control with their mental illness. Now I am not saying all who have OCD also have an eating disorder or those with depression all have some form of anxiety disorder, but I am saying that these things are common. So don't go assuming because someone is depressed that they also have trouble sleeping.

2. The feelings.

Now I know this GIF is very harsh, but it brings something anyone with mental illness is struggling with to attention: it feels like hell. Yes I have friends, but there are times I feel utterly alone, especially when it's so hard to explain what's going on in my head. Sometimes I don't even understand it. A lot of responses you can get when asking a person suffering from a mental illness is: I feel alone. There is a feeling of no control because sometimes you get a panic attack for no reason and your brain tells you to be paranoid about something completely irrational to feel paranoid about, and you become sad for no reason at all. Loss of control is the worst in my opinion -- you feel hopeless, numb and mad. You never would have wanted this for yourself but it happened its like hell for you. Your own personal hell. This is to those fighting the good fight. "Keep going, a walk through hell is never easy and also you are never alone in that walk."

3.Stop. Stop walking on eggshells.

There has been this common misconception people have seem to made in their heads that those with mental illnesses are extremely sensitive and must be treated carefully. This has caused metaphorical eggshells to appear around those suffering from mental illnesses. This is something I have personally experienced in my life and has stopped me from opening up to people about what I was going through for a long time. Now in the early stages, there were some things that could set me off easily, but that was 11 years ago. With the help of professionals, books and prayer, I have been able to brush off those things that could set me off and even just ignore them or not even care. But still there are people that believe they always have to walk around on eggshells, eggshells I did not put there myself, eggshells they made up. Assuming that if they say or do something that will make me the slightest bit upset, I would go running to the nearest cliff. "You are making the person feel weak and like they can never handle anything" says a member of Lee University's club Say Something, a mental illness awareness group on Lee University campus. And that leads me to the next point: treating the person as if they are fragile.

4. We are not made of glass.

Boxes filled with glass are labeled fragile. People should not be (well maybe babies). Lee student Taylor Lange points out, "Sometimes when people find out someone has a mental illness, they almost automatically treat them as if they are made of glass." It's just like my eggshell point. But in this fact, treating someone as if they are made of glass that the smallest thing could make them crack can lead to those who are fighting to get better think no one believes they are strong. No one believes they are a true human being who can take on the bad of this world. Strength is very important to someone who is struggling; it goes right next to hope in what people with a mental illness are fighting for. But that fight can be detained when those around them, friends and family treat them as if they are made of glass. Believing in someone and treating them like a human being can do more than you think. It can help make them in to the strongest substance on this planet. Like steel alloy, which is what Captain America's shield is made of, and who doesn't like the Cap?

5. Excuse me, where did you get your degree?

One of the most irritating things, and I have encountered this on many occasions is when people act like they know exactly what your mental illness is and try to diagnose you. "You are sad one minute and then happy the next. You are bipolar not depressed, your doctor got it wrong." This is a legit thing someone told me when I was 14 years old and they were 15 years old. So my doctor, who went to school for like 10 years and has been a doctor for 35 years, is wrong? Where did you get your degree? So please if you don't actually know anything about the metal illness, don't pretend to. It's annoying. "Mental Illness has become defined by this pop psychology that the media has put out there, giving people the surface view of mental illness when it's so much more and deeper than that," says Lange.

6. Please. Don't Say That.

There are many things you should not say to a person struggling with a mental illness, and I think a lot of those are common sense. But there are three of those common sense phrases that I, and a lot of studies, believe you should really try hard not to say. (Now just a disclaimer I am not saying this will set off the person; I am saying it can make you look foolish and also stop the person from trusting you.)

" There are so many people that have it worse than you, stop being selfish." (Or something along those lines.) A lot of people with a mental illness and especially depression feel like a burden a lot of the time and saying something like this can really mess them up. Believe me anyone with a mental illness probably wishes every day they didn't have it.

" _______ is not real." Okay, go ahead and keep thinking that; actually don't, because you are wrong. I know what I feel and trust me, it is very real.

"It's a phase." Excuse me, what?! As a video I once saw about depression said, "Depression is not something you wake up with one morning and then it's gone by the end of the day." Things like this are not a phase. Mental illness is not like teenage awkwardness or zits.

7. If you can't handle the heat, stop faking that you can.

In my life I have come across those that when they found out I was suffering from clinical depression they ran for the hills. Some may find that insulting or mean, but as a friend of mine said, "It's much better they left and than stuck around pretending to care." I see that now that if they stuck around pretending, faking it and I found out, it would hurt way worse than them leaving. Some people have seen friends straight up walk out of their lives after a suicide attempt. It hurts, yes, but would you really want someone in your life pretending to care about you? Pretending to support you? When all along they are faking it all? No, you wouldn't. So truly if you believe being there for someone in their battle is too much to handle (and I don't mean that in a sarcastic way at all) and if the heat is to much for you, do both of you a favor and get out of the kitchen because you are messing up the soufflé.

8. We want a real friend.

"Patience is important. Having someone willing to sit there with you in your suffering is a big deal. Someone who is honest with you, treats you like a friend and celebrates your victories with you helps make hope look so much more abatable," said Lange.

I am just going be straight with you. I had a friend that stopped telling me what was going on in her life, lied to me when I asked her how she was doing, and never came to me when she was upset or even upset with me. I really only saw her when I needed help. We started having surface level conversations. That friendship quickly disintegrated. It was almost like she was my second psychiatrist. I found she never told me anything because she was scared to upset me and also thought I would think her problems were small compared to mine. I would never think or say that to a person. A fear of those suffering from mental illness is when they tell their friends and even their best friends they will be treated differently. And that a reasonable fear because it does happen. I want to still be treated like a friend. I want to still hang out and talk about life. I want you to still come to me when you are going through something. And I want you to confront me when I have done something to upset you. People going through a mental illness do need support and patients from their friends. But they still want to be treated as a friend. To me, that shows you still see the person with the mental illness as a person and that gives me strength.

9. Don't demonize medication.

Medication. Now I will be the first to admit that there are issues with some and there have been incidences where it has done more bad than good. But the stories of successful medication outweighs the bad. I am not dependent on my medication; I am not my antidepressant. But it helps. Before this medication I am currently taking, I had three panic attacks a week, I would stare at a wall for three hours feeling numb, and many other bad things. Now yes, there are still occasions when I have panic attacks, but they have gone from three a week to once or twice every few months. And yes, there are still days were I stare at a wall feeling numb, but those days are far less than what they used to be. I believe God made doctors and those doctors made the meds that help many people. It is not from the devil. There is this hashtag going around called #MedicatedandMighty that is out to end the stigma on medication. Some people will go as far as accusing the person of not fighting hard enough and being weak. Look up this hashtag and see what people say. They really do a better job of explaining it. With me, I have a chemical imbalance and my medication meets me half way in my fight against clinical depression. So with that I yell at those that look at being medicated as a bad thing: I am medicated and mighty!

10. Don't call us crazy.

It seems that these days mental illness is only talked about in the nation wide scale when a mass shooting occurs. You may cringe at this but it's the truth! If you watch the news after a shooting happens, nine times out of 10 mental illness will come up. Now this is a controversial topic in a way but it needs to be discussed because it leads to the common misconceptions that mental illness = crazy. It doesn't. I could throw statics at you, quotes from well known doctors, and studies but that would have to be a completely different article in itself. Just because someone is suffering from a mental illness does not mean in anyway shape or form that that person will go crazy (or is just plain crazy) and will commit a violent crime or hurt someone. Not once has the need or desire to commit a violent act toward a fellow human beings crossed my mind. Maybe the urge to punch someone, but I firmly believe we have all encountered that one person that just gets under our skin to the point we go, "If I don't walk away now, I may hit you." Some people link it to crazy because of the emotions that are sometimes heightened due to mental illness, but as the amazing Jenny Larson said in her book on depression titled "Furiously Happy," “There’s something about depression that allows you (or sometimes forces you) to explore depths of emotion that most “normal” people could never conceive of.” I have so much more to say but I think I will leave you with this a John Oliver quote:

And I urge you to watch his take on Mental Health in America.