When people find out I'm a mentally ill teen, many people say one of two things. It's either "Oh, I'm sorry" or "I know how you feel, I've seen people like you on tv." It pisses me off whenever I get either of these. Everybody's fucking sorry, bu they don't understand. Being upset for a little bit when someone dies isn't necessarily depression. Also, the media does a pretty shitty job at portraying mental illness. We aren't all dangerous and violent. Many people don't understand, but you can always find people that do. It's been said that the best people are in or have been in a mental hospital. They know pain, but they're also very sweet and kind. In my own experiences, outpatient didn't help. It was just people telling me all the cliches I've already heard. Outpatient wasn't anywhere I enjoyed being at. And then there's therapy. Therapy doesn't help me at all. If I don't know you, I really don't want to tell you all of my problems and feelings. They act like they understand, but they don't. They feel sorry for me, but I don't want that. Like I said, everybody's fucking sorry, but nobody understands. I don't care how "sorry" somebody is. Sympathy and empathy are two very different things. Being sorry normally stems from sympathy. They don't know. They don't get how it feels to wake up crying because they're alive to see another day, they don't know how it feels to be afraid of common occurrences like conversation or eating in public, they don't get how it feels to wake up so depressed, they see no point in getting out of bed. They try to use what the media stereotypes as common signs of common illnesses and disorders. Using that, they try to twist it and self-diagnose to say 'we're just like you' but they aren't. We're the fucked up kids with sick and twisted brains. As stereotypically emo as it sounds, sometimes our families don't understand. They think we can sort of control how out disorder affects us, but we often can't. They assume with enough therapy and medication, we'll be 'fixed' or 'normal'. Sometimes people are damaged beyond fixing. They're hopeless. There is no cure for some people. I've been told I'm one of those people, simply because I destroy myself for a peace of mind I may never get to reach. I don't believe them. I'm my own kind of stable. That's just how some people are. They don't fit the general standard of stability, but they fit their own. It's like a quelled version of themselves at their worst. They're somewhat able to function,but not perfectly. They often have things that trigger certain memories. Sometimes the past can hurt you more than the present. Triggers vary by individual. It can be almost anything. It could be a song, a place, sometimes even a food. Never (and I really do mean never) purposely trigger someone "out of curiosity" or "as a joke". Just don't. If you really understood, you'd know how it felt. But, many people don't. They may play the online video game "Anxiety Attack" and assume that's completely accurate to how it feels. I've seen people play it, and that's nothing compared to how my panic attacks feel. It's not just thinking, it's the physical symptoms that make it scarier. The shaking, the sweating, how hard it is to Breathe. People say how sorry they are, but that changes nothing. Neither does doing nothing when someone is having a panic attack. If you don't know what you can do to help, ask them. Just don't stand there watching.
