Flights of the Mind

It is a high time we address mental health. Mental health and the stigma surrounding it is something I have always been really zealous about. Using my own experiences as a reference point, I can see how people can tend to perceive the sphere of mental health and how they can just dismiss it so easily as something that "is just inside your head."

BUT IT IS SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT.

For someone who has been severely depressed before, I can personally vouch for the fact that thinking "happy thoughts" is not the cure of it. But one thing I can say with certainty will go a long way in helping is talking about it. The more we talk about mental health in public, the closer we will get to de- stigmatizing it. Who knows how many people are out there, just being torn apart in silence, just because they are too afraid to stand up and address the issue at hand.

Mental issues aren't always visible. We need to be the voices of the people in the back who are so caught up in thinking what the public might say that they forego everything that they are feeling. The more we talk about it, the closer we get to dismissing the sense of "taboo" that comes along with it.

You will come across a lot of people in life who will dismiss mental health issues by saying things like "its all in your head," or "just stop thinking sad thoughts and you will be fine." People need to start thinking mental health in the same vein as physical health. I find humor in some individuals who ask or say silly statements about their beliefs and views of mental illness.

Things like "everybody gets sad/stressed sometimes, it doesn't mean you have a mental illness." Pay attention: sadness is not the same as depression, and stress is not the same as anxiety. Sadness is a normal human emotion. Depression, on the other hand, is an abnormal emotional state caused by mental illness.

Back to that comment, "everyone gets sad" you are erasing the validity of my illness. You are basically saying that my illness doesn't exist to you. I have a real illness, please don't belittle or invalidate it in such a causal way. It's real. I live with it everyday.

"But your life is perfect, you have nothing to be depressed about." This statements sounds absurd.

Carrie Fisher had Bipolar Disorder.

Melissa Benoist struggles with Depression.

Lady Gaga has fibromyalgia.

Chrissy Teigen struggled with Postpartum Depression.

Michael Phelps has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

One of my favorite professors from College has Lupus.

All of those individuals live seemingly normal lives. All of those individuals inspire happiness in others. All of those people, including me, have an invisible illness. We live with it. We look normal. But the illness is there, and it is the illness inside us that causes our symptoms, not the life around us. So, we look normal. So what?

If your living with Bipolar Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, or anything outside of that, or in between, always remember that you have survived 100% of your toughest days, and their is an entire world full of people who are on your team. Never, ever, ever, give up! You matter.

I was once afraid to let the real side of me out. But once I did and opened up about my attempts and illness, I was able to start the process of healing, which I'm still doing to this day. You've got to give it time. Time is an essential part of the healing process and you need to make sure you give yourself enough of it.

Once you try to kill yourself, you're committed. There no "backing out." Once you've done it, you'll always be recovering. You'll always be reminded by either a date on the calendar, a scar, a certain place or person, etc... It's an issue, clearly. And had I actually succeeded with any of my attempts, I wouldn't be here to share my story. I wouldn't be able to help anyone else or myself. I wouldn't be able to heal and either would my friends and family. And those are some of the things I could never have forgiven myself for had my life actually ended in that moment I decided I wanted it to.

No one deserves to be forgotten, no one deserves to fade away, no one should flicker out or have any doubt that it matters that they are here. No one deserves to disappear..

Just like physical health... You have a problem, you get treated for it, then you get better. You cannot separate the two and treat them differently. You wouldn't go up to someone in severe physical pain and just ask them to stop feeling the pain for it to go away, would you?

No, you empathize with them and ask them to seek treatment. Empathize with people who are suffering from mental health issues and make them feel and see they are not alone. Trust me; it goes a long way.

There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends' faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against- you are irritable, angry, scared, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness caves its own reality. It goes on and on, and finally there are only others' recollections of your behavior- your bizarre, frenetic, aimless obliterating memories.

What then, after the medications, psychiatrist, despair, and depression? All those incredible feelings to sort through. Who is being too polite to say what? Who knows what? What did I do? Why? And most hauntingly, when will it happen again?

Then, too, are the bitter reminders-medications to take, resent, and forget, but always to take. Credit cards revoked, bounced checks to cover, intermittent memories, friendships gone or drained, or a ruined relationship. And always, when will it happen again? Which of my feelings are real? Which of the me's is me? The wild, impulsive, chaotic, energetic, doomed, and tired one? Or the shy, withdrawn, desperate, suicidal one? Probably a bit of both... "How far do our feelings take their color form from the dive underground? I mean, what is the reality of any feeling?"

For the ones suffering with mental illness, stay strong and remember that your life is worth fighting for.