For many people having a mental illness is a part of their normal every day life and they seamlessly live their lives and you would. Never notice unless they told you. But the stigmas that goes with these illnesses are sometimes just along the line as if you told them you have an std. The looks and ways that we give and treat people with are not kind and keep them silent without realizing this is something they can't help. I am one of these people. I am a person living with a mental illness.

When I was in high school is when things changed for me. I started getting sick, hating school even though I had plenty of friends and was not struggling in classes, I even started to hide away in myself during school so that I wouldn't have to talk to anyone outside of the occasional person. By far the worst was the constant sick feeling I had in my stomach. I would be physically ill with no reason. The doctors visits, trips to the hospital, test, even people's words had me feeling like I was making all of this up and it was in my head. It wasn't until someone decided that maybe this was a psychological problem and I needed to get it checked out. A few visits with him and I had an answer as to why I was feeling like this and how to help. I felt so amazing. I wasn't crazy and it wasn't all in my head. I now knew this. But just because I now knew this doesn't mean that other did.

See the bad thing about a mental illness is that most people you look at them and they look fine, they look normal so why can't you do what things that others do. Just because it doesn't trigger an outward appearance doesn't mean that it isn't very real. Some people will forever look at you and tell you that it's for attention and you shouldn't be treated any different no matter if their behavior is triggering you. They won't understand when you react a certain way or why you simply can't. Sometimes it's your own family who does this.

At the same time I don't want to be treated differently or handled gingerly. Most of us don't. We just want to be normal. But we want people to understand when we can't do something that you can or when we seem to withdraw from a situation and not be involved. We just some days want a hand to hold ours and tell us we will make it through. On our bad days we want to know you stand by us and understand that we are trying.

So please stop telling us to just get over it or it's not a big deal because to some of us getting out of bed that morning is this hardest struggle of our day. And if we could just "get over it" we would. We want you to understand us and understand that we can still do anything you can do and sometimes better.