Lies in Disguise

I feel like I’ve said this a million times but it bears repeating: I suck at titles.  Moving on from that little ditty, today I shall briefly discuss a lie, a well dressed lie.  A lie that wines and dines. It’s the type of lie to court you all year long then break up with you in November so that it doesn’t have to buy you Christmas or Valentines presents.  This lie is so big that acknowledging its presence is like breaking a taboo.  Now that I’ve built up all that unnecessary hype, I can get to the point.  The lie I am referring to is as follows: you’ve got to earn your mental illness

Now, because I’m not very savvy with my vocabulary I’m going to break that down because I know that it sounds…..wrong. I am indirectly directing this towards people who have had no significant trauma in their lives. And because they feel like they have not experienced anything big and bad enough to cause them to “catch” a mental illness, it invalidates their having one.  This is the type of lie that makes you feel as though you had to earn depression in some sort of way, had to work for it. This lie is dangerous.  You could have grown up in the nicest home in the nicest suburb in the safest town and still develop a mental illness.  And because you may not have gone through something life altering such as the death of a loved one or growing up on the streets does not mean that your mental illness is not real.

People always want to know HOW you ended up with depression, HOW you ended up being bipolar.  Its like the story of the lame man in the bible about whom the people asked whose sin resulted in his ailment. They’re always searching for the sin in your life or your parents’ lives to give reason to your issue.  Mental illness needs no reason at all to latch on to you and make all attempts to crush you.  The brain and all of its serotonin and other onins sometimes just are not balanced in everyone regardless of background.  Can background and environment make a huge difference? You bet your bottom dollar! But if you feel like you have absolutely nothing in your personal history that could be the root of mental illness don’t let that stop you from accepting that you might have a mental illness. You know why this is not the idea thing to do? Because when you don’t accept it, you don’t seek treatment for it. You think that your irritability is just because your being a bitch. You think that because you spent the last three weekends laid up in your bed that just means that you’re lazy and unmotivated. You begin to believe a plethora of negative things about yourself when the root of the problem is not a personal defect.

You don’t have to deserve mental illness. It doesn’t stop it from being real. It doesn’t mean that you’re faking it. No matter what anyone else says. And the biggest thing you need to know is that its never your fault.