Mental illness is still a stigma. Despite the number of people who speak about their own experiences, it seems that some people are unable to accept that this is real and something that people struggle with on a daily basis. I read on Twitter someone who rejected the fact that depression was real.
It just boggles my mind.
Depression is real and it is something heavy and deep, something that manifests differently in different people. My uncle had to be medicated for his – he would begin to feel better and then he’d stop taking his medication and then he would become depressed again. It was a vicious cycle until he unfortunately took his own life.
Mental illness is real, and it’s not something people can just “get over”. It’s probably hard for some people to recognize if it isn’t a struggle that they go through regularly, but I think we could all benefit from being more compassionate to one another and ourselves.
Is it really necessary to make people feel smaller for everything they’re not? For all the times they’ve fallen short of your expectations or all the ways they’re different than you in ways you may not approve of?
Some people struggle in silence, trying to find any slant of light to be found in their day. They don’t need any more darkness in their lives, they don’t need another trauma or bully added to what they’re already suffering from. We never know, in truth, the entirety of what a person is facing. So can’t we just be kinder to one another?
Everyone matters.
So does every brain. We cannot sign a mind like we can sign a cast, but the mind is the organ that operates the body. If that is suffering, doesn’t it make sense that the person that has that brain is suffering, as well? Mental health is just as important if not more, than physical health, and we should be able to talk about it without fear or shame.
To feel things deeply shouldn’t be considered a weakness.
