CoffeeTattoos

I know I mentioned it when I started my blog, but I don’t really think I’ve said much more about it since then. And that’s my mental illnesses.

For some, this is something they don’t understand. For others, it’s something that’s all too familiar.

There’s so much surrounding mental illnesses that’s negative. People just don’t want to take the time to listen to people and try to understand what they’re going through. It’s different from how they are, and they don’t see why people can’t just do something simple like change how they think and be okay.

I have some friends that I talk to about my mental illnesses, but I’ve very selective in who I talk to. I don’t want to talk to someone who doesn’t understand anything about it and will tell me that “it’s easy to fix” without knowing what I’m dealing with.

I didn’t choose to have any of the mental illnesses that I have. They’re chemical imbalances or “faulty wiring” in the brain. I couldn’t have prevented them even if I had tried.

Sure, I could have ignored them and gone undiagnosed for years. But that would’ve been more dangerous for me. Undiagnosed mental illnesses can cause more damage physically to the person who’s undiagnosed, and to relationships that they have as well.

Now, I know it’s not exactly “fun” to read about what other people are dealing with when it comes to mental illness, but that’s what I want to talk/write about right now. What I deal with, and how I deal with it.

What I deal with:
Depression
Bipolar Disorder
Anxiety
Mild Panic

How I deal with it:
Well, to be honest, a lot of times I don’t really deal with it. I try to pretend like I don’t have mental health issues. I don’t want to be stuck within that stigma that people have about it. Those around me have slowly started to pick up on things, but it’s still not always easy because I tend to hide the fact that I’m struggling because I don’t want them worrying about me. I know that’s not a healthy way of managing it, but it’s what I do sometimes because I can’t bear to do much more than that.

Other times when I’m willing to admit that I’m struggling, what I do really depends on what I’m dealing with at the time. I might hole myself up in my room and binge watch something on Netflix. I might sleep. I might sit on my bed clutching a teddy bear, staring at nothing. I might write in my journal or on one of my blogs. I might try to escape my reality by reading a book. I might try to talk to a friend if I’m feeling up to it.

The problem with mental illnesses is that a lot of times you don’t know when they’re going to strike, or how if you have more than one. I could have an anxiety/panic attack in the middle of a test. I could sink into a depressed state after I’ve been in a good mood all day. I could go from one extreme emotion to another in naught point six seconds without warning. I could randomly become paranoid of something ridiculously preposterous happening and not be able to explain why.

Things tend to get even worse when I get stressed. And I can get stressed out over just about anything. The stressed generally pushes me away from people because they’re not helping decrease my stress levels any. I find a way to stay away from people as much as I possibly can. I do whatever I can to escape what’s causing my stress, and anything that could possibly make my stress worse. Sometimes that even means doing schoolwork.

Speaking of which, I need to go work on some projects for school…