12 People With Mental Illness Share the One Thing They'd Like Non-Sufferers to Know

Because it can be hard to know the right way to help.

21 March, 2018
12 People With Mental Illness Share the One Thing They'd Like Non-Sufferers to Know

Living with a mental illness can be hard, and it can also be tricky living with someone who suffers from one, because it's difficult to know what the right thing to say or do is.

To help those struggling with the above, a Reddit feed asked people who suffer from mental health issues to reveal the one thing they wish people who don't have a mental illness would understand, and it could actually prove really useful.

1. That feeling of having no way out

"How completely stuck you can feel. There are these moments where everything overwhelms you and you have no idea what to do and the only thing that would make it better is if you just stop existing. But you also don't really want to die. So you're stuck.​"

[Via]

2. The feeling is mutual

"I'm just as annoyed by myself as you are.​"

[Via]

3. It's just the same as any other illness

"'Its all just in your head man.' - Well yeah, and your diabetes is just in your pancreas."

[Via]

4. They worry about you, too

"I can't stop trying to worry about everyone around me. My anxiety won't let me stop making plans and making sure people are happy, at the cost of my own happiness.​"

[Via]

5. There's no miracle cure

"Therapy, meds and whatever else we do to get better don't always help. and if they do help they don't always make us a lot better, or better quickly, or more 'normal'.

"People are mentally ill even when they are in treatment, it doesn't just go away the minute you see a therapist. Some of us can't ever get rid of our mental illnesses, we just have to learn to live with it and try to get as stable and functioning as possible."

[Via]

6. They don't expect you to fix them

"You are not obligated to be my friend or my therapist. You are allowed to set and enforce reasonable boundaries in our relationship. My mental illnesses are my problem and if you reach a point where you need to take a step back for your own well-being, that is okay. My illnesses do not entitled me to your time, attention or support, especially when I am not capable of reciprocating."​

7. The pain is greater than you'd think

"It physically hurts, not just emotional pain.​"

[Via]

8. There's no point getting angry

"If you hate me because you think I'm not trying hard enough, I can assure you that I hate me more.

"The reason getting angry at people with mental illness never works to motivate them is because you're never saying anything they haven't already said to themselves 1000+ times."

[Via]

9. Trying to relate doesn't help

"You can't just 'make yourself' not be depressed/anxious/etc. I hate when people say 'Oh I get anxious all the time, but I just make myself get over it'. No. That's not anxiety. 'Oh I get depressed sometimes, but then I stop, you should just get out and it'll go away'. No. No you don't. You get sad. Sad is an emotion. Stop exaggerating."

[Via]

10. What you see on the outside doesn't reflect what's going on in the inside

"When my social media looks really quirky and cool it's because I've spent the last 8 hours in a catatonic depression looking at memes and reposting to cultivate an image that I'm okay."

[Via]

11. Showing you care means a lot

"I can't count the number of times this last year I've started bawling in public. I'm not ashamed to cry, but its getting ridiculous.

"Those people who attended to me when I was obviously hurting, From others on the bus to the police called about me being some kind of human disaster area. A pat on the back and some kind words go a long way."

[Via]

12. They don't want to be feel any worse about it

"It's not that I don't try. I'm not doing as much as I would like, either. I beat myself up over it. Constantly. I don't need you to beat me up, too."

​[H/T Huffington Post]

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Credit: Cosmopolitan
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