Trying to explain your thoughts to someone who fits well into society when you're mentally unwell is useless.
Trying to explain to someone that sometimes you can't shower or walk in a straight line without counting your steps or do basic bureaucratic paperwork to not get in trouble with insurance because you're convinced signing it means you'll get cancer or that you're going to get punished by karma or your pet is going to die because intrusive thoughts terrorize your inner life 24/7.
Nobody will get it, you sound crazy and like you could just stop if you truly wanted.
And yes you've been to therapy, you've even been hospitalized, and it's gotten better because at least you got yourself under control so much so you're no longer known as the crazy person in your neighborhood who walks back and forth. And you're not bashing your head against a wall 100 times out of compulsions anymore.
But that doesn't even count as improvement because you're still seen as a sick person unable to be a productive member of society, and it's not like you can tell your family and friends about the psychotic way you used to act before treatment because it's so shameful.
You just look lazy and weak, and eventually you too believe you are.
Your sickness affects everything and you fuck up uni and work and you end up with a giant gap on your resume. Get ready to explain to employers why they should hire you despite you having no life in your eyes and a resume that proves you're unreliable.
Your only skillset you're proud of is taken over by AI, and it was already seen as useless before anyway, no way to make a living unless you got connections and are able to put yourself out there. You used to be able to do that.
Your dreams get further and further out of reach and it's your own lack of ambition. Lack of sanity. Lack of the spark everyone around you seems to have.
Friends get sick of your whining and being sad, and you start to feel alienated and ashamed because everyone's life is moving on while you're stuck and unwell and "a drain on society".
You probably are. So get up, you're supposed to get better!
You're not young enough anymore to get the benefit of the doubt or time, you're supposed to have it figured out by now!
The only one you truly want to talk to because they always understood you and who was your favourite person in the world is dead because they ended their life. But it's been 2 years so you know, get over it. The acceptable grief period is over.
In a self-help group for grief someone expresses the same type of hopelessness about their life and illness as you feel, and then you hear how the friends you've made in the group gossip about her afterwards - get your life together girl, when I was at that age, I worked a fulltime job and had more life experience.
When they ask you what you do for work you make something up.
Your parents tell you to reach out if you need help or feel lonely and they call unemployed people lazy drains on society in the same phone call. They still wonder why your sibling ended their life and wish they had reached out for help.
You keep trying because you know firsthand how much this would hurt your family and friends. You work on your resume and send applications, and at night when you can't sleep you're also searching for painless ways to CTB, just as a last resort, to calm your nerves. Suddenly you got a whole list of manuals downloaded on your phone and a helium tank in your closet and drafts of goodbye notes in your desk.
You wish you could talk to your sibling about it all, about hope and life and how to assemble an exit bag.
The next time you meet your family they will ask how the job hunt is going and make an off-hand comment about lazy unemployed people and how everyone cares about work life balance nowadays and they'll talk about voting for a politician who is cutting funds for mental healthcare.
But don't look too sad or they'll ask you how you are or how your depression is doing and how can you possibly express any of this?
Trying to explain to someone that sometimes you can't shower or walk in a straight line without counting your steps or do basic bureaucratic paperwork to not get in trouble with insurance because you're convinced signing it means you'll get cancer or that you're going to get punished by karma or your pet is going to die because intrusive thoughts terrorize your inner life 24/7.
Nobody will get it, you sound crazy and like you could just stop if you truly wanted.
And yes you've been to therapy, you've even been hospitalized, and it's gotten better because at least you got yourself under control so much so you're no longer known as the crazy person in your neighborhood who walks back and forth. And you're not bashing your head against a wall 100 times out of compulsions anymore.
But that doesn't even count as improvement because you're still seen as a sick person unable to be a productive member of society, and it's not like you can tell your family and friends about the psychotic way you used to act before treatment because it's so shameful.
You just look lazy and weak, and eventually you too believe you are.
Your sickness affects everything and you fuck up uni and work and you end up with a giant gap on your resume. Get ready to explain to employers why they should hire you despite you having no life in your eyes and a resume that proves you're unreliable.
Your only skillset you're proud of is taken over by AI, and it was already seen as useless before anyway, no way to make a living unless you got connections and are able to put yourself out there. You used to be able to do that.
Your dreams get further and further out of reach and it's your own lack of ambition. Lack of sanity. Lack of the spark everyone around you seems to have.
Friends get sick of your whining and being sad, and you start to feel alienated and ashamed because everyone's life is moving on while you're stuck and unwell and "a drain on society".
You probably are. So get up, you're supposed to get better!
You're not young enough anymore to get the benefit of the doubt or time, you're supposed to have it figured out by now!
The only one you truly want to talk to because they always understood you and who was your favourite person in the world is dead because they ended their life. But it's been 2 years so you know, get over it. The acceptable grief period is over.
In a self-help group for grief someone expresses the same type of hopelessness about their life and illness as you feel, and then you hear how the friends you've made in the group gossip about her afterwards - get your life together girl, when I was at that age, I worked a fulltime job and had more life experience.
When they ask you what you do for work you make something up.
Your parents tell you to reach out if you need help or feel lonely and they call unemployed people lazy drains on society in the same phone call. They still wonder why your sibling ended their life and wish they had reached out for help.
You keep trying because you know firsthand how much this would hurt your family and friends. You work on your resume and send applications, and at night when you can't sleep you're also searching for painless ways to CTB, just as a last resort, to calm your nerves. Suddenly you got a whole list of manuals downloaded on your phone and a helium tank in your closet and drafts of goodbye notes in your desk.
You wish you could talk to your sibling about it all, about hope and life and how to assemble an exit bag.
The next time you meet your family they will ask how the job hunt is going and make an off-hand comment about lazy unemployed people and how everyone cares about work life balance nowadays and they'll talk about voting for a politician who is cutting funds for mental healthcare.
But don't look too sad or they'll ask you how you are or how your depression is doing and how can you possibly express any of this?
