Mental Illness. A Stigma.

Don’t they understand?

She doesn’t want to be this way.

She doesn’t want to scream at “nothing” in the middle of the night.

She doesn’t want to argue with an “invisible force.”

She has demons that are haunting her in her head.

And she doesn’t know how to shut them up.

It’s not her fault.

She didn’t choose to be this way.

She didn’t choose to have a mental disorder.

And she didn’t choose for people to generalize her.

She is not her mental illness.

But for some reason you’re laughing at the fact that she’s yelling at nothing?

Well in her mind there is something there.

And it’s haunting her and giving her pain.

No you cannot blame her.

Because she didn’t choose this.

She doesn’t choose to have a good day one day and a bad day the next.

She’s not any different from you and me.

So what if she wants to sing 5 times louder in church?

So what?

Isn’t this where people are said to be compassionate?

Yet you judge her and look at her weird.

She’s singing praises to her Lord?

What is so wrong with that?

What is so distracting about her singing louder that you crunch your eyebrows together and turn around to look at her, judging her?

Why are you looking at her that way?

Like she’s an abnormal creature?

No.

She is human.

And you are judgmental.

It’s funny that you think she should just shut up, that she should just stop talking to “nobody.”

She’ll do this as soon as you can stop your cancer tumor from growing.

She’ll stop talking to nothing as soon as you can stop yourself from getting asthma while running.

Wait… you can’t do that. (I wish you could but you can’t.)

Neither can she.

I don’t know when or where or why mental illnesses have became a stigma, but it needs to stop.

People need to know more about, not just one, but all the mental disorders.

Because this judgement is getting ridiculous.

No she cannot stop her panic attacks.

He cannot just “put a smile on his  face”

And my mom cannot just stop talking to no one in particular.

Mental disorders are not funny nor are they amusing to talk about.

They are serious and action should be taken immediately.

Because it’s not “just going to go away.”

Just like the stigma around it is not going to change suddenly.

I hope that one day more people are going to take this issue seriously, they research it more, and they just talk about it more.

Because I don’t want to live in a world where my mom has to suffer with society’s generalizations and judgement.

So this week was Mental Health Awareness Week at school and this subject is really close to me and this pored out. I’m beyond grateful that my school chose to let other students be aware of this subject for a week. But sadly, there are still people out there who don’t understand the true effects of a mental illness and think it’s something you can just “brush aside.” I don’t have a mental illness, but someone close to me has a mental illness, my mom. And I see people everyday judge her and look at her weird. Some of those people are relatives and that pisses me off so much. I just wish that one day we can make a difference so that stigma and mental illnesses will never again be used in the same sentence to describe each other.