I am raging right now. Or rather, I was raging, and now I'm just exhausted.
I will never understand why mental illnesses cannot be seen as diseases. Why they aren't treated by society and medical professionals as legitimate problems. Why it's so hard for people to even talk about them, why there is such a stigma of shame surrounding them. I had an entire post on this the raged its way into my brain, but then it just left me disheartened and weary so who knows where this is going to end up going.
I cannot tell you the number of times I've wished I had a physical problems, whether a disease or a disability or an accident or an assault. It sickens me, that these thoughts go through my head. That I find myself truly wishing for these horrible things, not out of masochism, but just so that my pain could be understood. Could be accepted. This goes for all mental illnesses, not just mine. They are DISEASES. They have physical signs, symptoms, and consequences (see The Anorexic Brain). Google any mental health issue along with brain scan, and you'll come up with a host of studies that have been done, like this one:
I'm so tired of hearing that mental illnesses are the patient's fault. Would you tell a cancer patient that it was their fault? That someone in a wheelchair needs to just get up and walk, because it's all in their head?
But the part that really bothers me the most is not in the active hate and misunderstanding, but the passive disregard for sufferers of mental illness. When someone's cancer goes into remission, they are hailed as a "survivor". That term gets thrown around a lot, both with chronic illness and with abuse victims. Not that I have any problem with that; they are survivors. What they've done is incredible. What bothers me is that mental illness is never covered in this blanket term. Someone who stops cutting themselves is not called a survivor; if the topic is even broached at all, which it rarely would be, people don't know what to say other than "I'm glad you don't do that to yourself anymore". An alcoholic ten years sober is never called a survivor. Neither is a cocaine addict two months clean, nor someone with OCD who only checks the locks on their door three times instead of ten, nor someone who resists the desire to kill themselves and lives for another day. These people aren't survivors, they're just crazies we don't want to even acknowledge. They're hurting other people with their behavior, and if they'd just stop everyone would be a lot happier.
Foundations rarely focus on mental health. What celebrity wants to go visit someone in the hospital because they've been binging and purging 100 times a day, instead of a kid with cancer? (There are kids with eating disorders too, just in case you were curious.) The general response as I've seen it is, "Well, it's their own fault." People see physical diseases as more deserving of treatment, of care, because these are so much more clearly not their fault.
Part of the problem, I think, is that most mental illnesses never go away. There is no such thing as full recovery. (There's a lot of disagreement on this. I personally think that the level of recovery one can achieve is inversely proportional to the sustained length of untreated illness. Thus, the longer you're sick without treatment, the less chance you have of ever fully recovering - as with any physical illness.) It's hard to celebrate someone's strength when there is no set stopping point. When the markers of "getting better" are things like "yay, I only skipped one meal today instead of all three!" This is different for every mental illness, of course. Addicts and alcoholics can never use or drink again, and are always considered "recovering". One of the most powerful eating disorder analogies I've heard goes like this: Unlike with alcoholism, those with eating disorders cannot just stop eating cold turkey. You need food to survive. Eating disorder recover is like telling an alcoholic they MUST have one drink, and ONLY one drink, every day for the rest of their lives.
The one and only time I ever tried to "use" my ED as a disease was right before I went into the hospital. I was a senior at UCLA, at the end of a quarter, at the end of ability to cope with anything. I wanted a one day extension on my final paper. The therapist I was seeing through UCLA wrote me a note, explaining my situation (she tried to get me to apply for disability, but I refused. I didn't think I deserved it; I still don't. I still, on many levels, after everything I've just said, believe that this is my fault. That I deserve all the consequences.). I emailed the professor the note, asking for an extension. His reply went something along the lines of "Okay, but this is HIGHLY unorthodox, so please discuss it with no one."
That was the last time I ever tried.
So here's this: I'm a survivor. I spent the first 20 years of my life pushing my body to its physical limits, to the point where I'm honestly not sure how I didn't die - but I didn't, and here I am. I spend every day battling the voice in my head telling me the world would be happier if I just died; that I would be happier if I just died. Things that probably seem so simple to you - getting out of bed, taking a shower, emailing a friend, eating your lunch, stepping outside your door - these require great effort on my part. Some days I feel like I've fought a war, when all I've done is walk to the grocery store and not had a mental breakdown. Each day, I am a survivor. Each day, I don't let the eating disorder or the depression or the anxiety win, because each day ends with me still alive.
Here is my daily journal archive. Trigger warnings as always.
And if you read this far, I'll leave you with this:
and the path i chose to go
a different girl so long ago
i had my reasons
and she's in my head so loud screaming:
I will never understand why mental illnesses cannot be seen as diseases. Why they aren't treated by society and medical professionals as legitimate problems. Why it's so hard for people to even talk about them, why there is such a stigma of shame surrounding them. I had an entire post on this the raged its way into my brain, but then it just left me disheartened and weary so who knows where this is going to end up going.
I cannot tell you the number of times I've wished I had a physical problems, whether a disease or a disability or an accident or an assault. It sickens me, that these thoughts go through my head. That I find myself truly wishing for these horrible things, not out of masochism, but just so that my pain could be understood. Could be accepted. This goes for all mental illnesses, not just mine. They are DISEASES. They have physical signs, symptoms, and consequences (see The Anorexic Brain). Google any mental health issue along with brain scan, and you'll come up with a host of studies that have been done, like this one:
I'm so tired of hearing that mental illnesses are the patient's fault. Would you tell a cancer patient that it was their fault? That someone in a wheelchair needs to just get up and walk, because it's all in their head?
But the part that really bothers me the most is not in the active hate and misunderstanding, but the passive disregard for sufferers of mental illness. When someone's cancer goes into remission, they are hailed as a "survivor". That term gets thrown around a lot, both with chronic illness and with abuse victims. Not that I have any problem with that; they are survivors. What they've done is incredible. What bothers me is that mental illness is never covered in this blanket term. Someone who stops cutting themselves is not called a survivor; if the topic is even broached at all, which it rarely would be, people don't know what to say other than "I'm glad you don't do that to yourself anymore". An alcoholic ten years sober is never called a survivor. Neither is a cocaine addict two months clean, nor someone with OCD who only checks the locks on their door three times instead of ten, nor someone who resists the desire to kill themselves and lives for another day. These people aren't survivors, they're just crazies we don't want to even acknowledge. They're hurting other people with their behavior, and if they'd just stop everyone would be a lot happier.
Foundations rarely focus on mental health. What celebrity wants to go visit someone in the hospital because they've been binging and purging 100 times a day, instead of a kid with cancer? (There are kids with eating disorders too, just in case you were curious.) The general response as I've seen it is, "Well, it's their own fault." People see physical diseases as more deserving of treatment, of care, because these are so much more clearly not their fault.
Part of the problem, I think, is that most mental illnesses never go away. There is no such thing as full recovery. (There's a lot of disagreement on this. I personally think that the level of recovery one can achieve is inversely proportional to the sustained length of untreated illness. Thus, the longer you're sick without treatment, the less chance you have of ever fully recovering - as with any physical illness.) It's hard to celebrate someone's strength when there is no set stopping point. When the markers of "getting better" are things like "yay, I only skipped one meal today instead of all three!" This is different for every mental illness, of course. Addicts and alcoholics can never use or drink again, and are always considered "recovering". One of the most powerful eating disorder analogies I've heard goes like this: Unlike with alcoholism, those with eating disorders cannot just stop eating cold turkey. You need food to survive. Eating disorder recover is like telling an alcoholic they MUST have one drink, and ONLY one drink, every day for the rest of their lives.
The one and only time I ever tried to "use" my ED as a disease was right before I went into the hospital. I was a senior at UCLA, at the end of a quarter, at the end of ability to cope with anything. I wanted a one day extension on my final paper. The therapist I was seeing through UCLA wrote me a note, explaining my situation (she tried to get me to apply for disability, but I refused. I didn't think I deserved it; I still don't. I still, on many levels, after everything I've just said, believe that this is my fault. That I deserve all the consequences.). I emailed the professor the note, asking for an extension. His reply went something along the lines of "Okay, but this is HIGHLY unorthodox, so please discuss it with no one."
That was the last time I ever tried.
So here's this: I'm a survivor. I spent the first 20 years of my life pushing my body to its physical limits, to the point where I'm honestly not sure how I didn't die - but I didn't, and here I am. I spend every day battling the voice in my head telling me the world would be happier if I just died; that I would be happier if I just died. Things that probably seem so simple to you - getting out of bed, taking a shower, emailing a friend, eating your lunch, stepping outside your door - these require great effort on my part. Some days I feel like I've fought a war, when all I've done is walk to the grocery store and not had a mental breakdown. Each day, I am a survivor. Each day, I don't let the eating disorder or the depression or the anxiety win, because each day ends with me still alive.
Here is my daily journal archive. Trigger warnings as always.
2005
11:57 pm - I would have gone to earth
Let's see.
I still have a bio paper to write. I still have a math test to study for. I still have spanish homework to do. I still have a math eval to fill out.
So I'm on photoshop.
Can someone please explain me to me?
Wow. Someone needs to stop obsessing over a stupid episode.
2008
10:28 pm - (no subject)
Binged again.
Funny, it's always right after I binge I realize I can close my fingers above my elbow. Meaning I could have weighed myself tomorrow. (I'm not letting myself on the scale until I can close my fingers).
Fuck.
2009
09:50 pm - (no subject)
Mom... as much as I love you for baking me a tub of vegan brownies, and buying me chips and hummus... I also really hate you for it because I just ate all of that food. And ENTIRE TUB of brownies. OH my god I'm such a fucking FATASS.
I need to be tied up in a padded room away from society.
2010
08:21 am - (no subject)
My parents are leaving this morning.
(Also random but there's an ad for a casino named Aria playing while I'm writing this HAHA)
Anyway. I always forget how hard it is just to exist in the same place as them, in regards to stupid little comments they make that just make me want to bash my head in.
We went to the LA zoo, and were looking at giraffes.
Dad: "Look at their knees! They're so bony! If you looked like that you'd be in the hospital!"
Ha, ha. Funny, dad but I really wouldn't. I am well aware it was meant as a generic you, but it still made me cringe.
We went to dinner at CPK and some of the UCLA gym team was there. These girls are like, the definition of healthy. They are SO muscular and not FAT but not SKINNY either.
Sister: "Wow, the gym team eats!"
Mom: "Yeah, they don't look emaciated skinny."
Me: ..................................
SERIOUS WTF.
Also, I don't think my sister really meant this the way it sounds but we were watching Arrested Development, and Portia De Rossi is in it. I informed my sister she's married to Ellen DeGeneres.
"OMG she's gay? But she's so pretty!"
.........
Yeah, that's all I have to say. I love my family, but being around them is just so stressful and they don't understand why.
Anyway.
08:57 pm - (no subject)
( Finally got around to watching the Lost premiere )
oooh Sayid. Back from the dead. Saw that one coming. Didn't like the crucifix imagery.
Kate seriously looks like Renee.
Ben looks like a lost puppy.
That's about all.
Oh and Juliet dying made me cry, even though I still think Kate and Sawyer make a nice hot couple. I forgot how hard I used to ship them until she was taking care of his rock wound, heh. They have such good chemistry.
Jack is still a loser, Hurley is still funny. Miles has grown on me.
I dislike the double timeline.
Uhm. That really is all.
I might cap it later. Or portions of it. Just cause it's so pretty. But meh, I have other things I'd rather cap. Like 24.
Btw, Hastings is a FUCKING ASSHOLE. The end.
And if you read this far, I'll leave you with this:
and the path i chose to go
a different girl so long ago
i had my reasons
and she's in my head so loud screaming:
“shouldn't you be proud of what you came from?
oh you've been crippled and you've walked
and you've been shut up and you talked
so let's talk some more”
so let's talk some more”
No comments:
Post a Comment