When you're sick, people take care of you, at least that is the expectation. Someone makes you soup, someone brings you your ginger ale and puts the TV on the bathroom floor so you don't have to worry that your stomach bug will ruin your carpets. My parents did those things for me

My dad got me gallons of ice cream when I had to get oral surgery, my mom would take me to and from doctor's appointments when I was sick and both parents would pick up my work from school.

My parents took care of me when I was in the hospital after a seizure, and there were many, and my dad always made the over half our drive for the billion times I had to see my neurologist.

This is what we expect.

But what we don't expect or see is people being taken care of and respected when they have a mental illness.

The difference between me saying I can't go near flashing lights because it increases my chance of a seizure, and me saying I can't do a certain thing because it causes me paralyzing anxiety, is very very different.

First comment I get a rush of concern, and immediate removal from the situation.

Second comment, I get “get the hell over it” or “just do it.” I can't just do it.

I can't just flip a switch that says “anxiety attack: on or off.” That's not how this works.

And people don't realize it.

Having a mental illness is bad, too. And I'm not saying this to belittle someone's physical disease, because I definitely don't think that's okay either, but belittling my anxiety and depression is not okay in any respect.

I suffer from anxiety that I can hide pretty well. I am 100 percent an extrovert who just needs to be alone sometimes, and I am also 100 percent anxiety ridden when I meet new people.

Sometimes my hand shake so much that I would rather not eat the dinner in front of me, or drink the water offered to me, because my hands shake so profusely much that it is just less embarrassing.

I also suffer from depression. This has luckily lessened since it began, but I still have nights I get back to my room and my roommate is asleep and I would rather lay on my floor and stare at the light coming through the crack in my door then get into bed because the energy it takes to make it that far is just too much. I have days when I hate everything I love. And it's not because I'm grumpy, it's because I don't have the strength to make it out of bed and into normal clothes so I hate that these things don't just come to me.

But no one notices. And I prefer it that way. But when I tell people I have these diseases, I get a lot of looks.

I either get pity, or weirded out, or just downright confused.

I don't need pity. I am not weird. And yes it may be confusing that someone who talks as much as I do has all of these issues, but it is true.

People with these mental illnesses deserve respect. They are not to be looked down upon. We somehow function pretty freaking well to be out and about, so we are very strong people.

But our illnesses are serious. They will continue to be. They are not fabrications, they are not attention seeking mechanisms, they are illnesses.

So treat them as such.