I know it's been forever since I've updated, but something recently caught my attention, and I felt here would be an appropriate place to "vent" about it.
For privacy purposes, I'm not going into great detail about how everything went down, but I recently came across a person who feels it's okay to loosely use the word "psycho."
Call me overly sensitive, but that word makes me want to throw up. And I'll tell you why.
Like any other disease, mental illness simply cannot be helped. People who have a psychiatric diagnosis can't help the fact that they are "sick," just as a person with a physical illness can't help the disease that they have. Neither situations are wanted or asked for, but are an unfortunate reality.
I feel as though mental illness is so glamorized by society. Tv portrays anxiety as "oh I have butterflies," eating disorders as being "pretty and skinny," and depression as laying on a couch with a sad expression on your face. It is also seen that people with mental illness get undivided attention and sympathy from family and friends, when the complete opposite is true. What you don't see is the guilt felt by the person for their illness taking a huge toll on their family. Or the paralyzingly fear of a panic attack. You don't hear them screaming for help as panic takes over their entire body. You can't tell that they only weigh 98 pounds because they physically can't eat. You don't see their moms having to carry them to the couch because they are too weak to walk. You didn't rush them to the ER because they were about to have a breakdown. You didn't clean and bandage their self harm wounds. Who is "they" you ask? They is me. In 6th and 9th grade when I was at my worst. Therapy and medicine just didn't help. I was "the worst case" my doctor had ever seen.
Go ahead, tell me I'm "just being dramatic." But in reality, mental illness isn't beautiful or easy to deal with, it's downright ugly.
As for the term "psycho," it's negative and degrading. People with ANY kind of mental illness are most likely already insecure about it. They don't need to be reminded that they are seemingly different.
Sorry for the rant, but I really needed to get that off my chest.
Thanks for reading.
