https://everydayfeminism.com/2017/04/mental-illness-defines-me/

This was a reading required for one of my courses. Here are some snippets from the article. 

"I have borderline personality disorder, complex PTSD, ADHD and clinical depression. The Acronyms alone are a lot sometimes. So when I'm told that these are just a 'small part of who I am', I wonder what planet these folks are living on."

"How can these very significant disorders not permeate every aspect of my life? It's not like a fashion accessory I can take on and off, or a guest that shows up every now and then. These illnesses are always present, and have been for a very long time."

"The ways i feel, think, and engage with the world have been shaped by my struggles with mental illness. They touch every relationship, every memory, every fear. How could this not, in some ways define me?"

"People will insiste that these disorders don't change anything about who I am but, instead, somehow exist apart of me. I don't actually need people to pretend they don't see my disorders, or to ignore the huge impact they've had on my life" 

See, in the field of mental illness, we use labels, acronyms, and terms to better understand the vast and unique experiences of people who struggle with mental illnesses. It helps us have a better understanding of clusters of symptoms and better predict how experiences may effect people. But what happens is that we often allow those labels to DEFINE a person. Textbook definitions of  schizophrenia involves hallucinations, delusions, catatonia, disorgnaised thoughts which results in disorganised speech, paranoia, difficulties in attention, poor processing speeds and the list goes on. It's often easy to forget that, although someone is diagnosed with a particular disorder, doesn't mean that they experience life the same way as everyone else does. There are similarities yes, as disorders are defined clusters of symptoms, but the human experience is too complex for a book to pinpoint. 

I don't allow my mental illness to define me, because I am much more than just a three letter acronym. "I wouldn't be who I am without it" - Yes, I wouldn't be who I am without it. My GAD is like a lens that I see the world through. I've struggled with it immensely. I have learnt and I have grown. When I say that my mental illness doesn't define me, it isn't to invalidate all the challenges I've done through. It shows that although I can never overcome it or be "cured" of it, I can still flourish and live my life happily. It doesn't define me because it doesn't have the death grip on my life as it once did. 

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On that note. What I think hurts the most with mental illness is not the illness itself. I can live with it, I can trip multiple times, and still get back up on my feet. What is most painful about mental illness is when the people who you love cannot understand. What hurts the most is when you open up about your experiences or about how you feel, and you get the, "why do you have to feel/be like that?"

I don't ever expect anyone to be able to completely understand my experiences. Even in the field, I can never understand what it is like to have bipolar disorder, personality disorder, adjustment disorder, PTSD. I can never fully understand someone's experience because I will never experience it the way that they have. I can never understand what it must feel like to have audio hallucinations, hearing voices talk to you at every waking moment. What I do ask for is compassion. I would love to be "normal", to be typical. I would love to be able to live without being scared of everything. I would love to walk through life with all the confidence in the world. But I can't. My experience of the world is warped and although I can relatively control to what degree it happens at, I can never completely remove it. So why are you blaming me for my deficiencies? Just because my illness does not have a physical manifestation, doesn't mean that it's not there. You wouldn't ask someone who has speech impairments why they don't just talk like a normal person, then why would you it for someone who has a mental illness.