Greetings!
Angel wants to thank you all for the birthday wishes. She says she'd gladly hang out with all of you if she could.
Sorry about missing two days worth of blog prompts, but I again decided that sleeping would probably be a good idea. Now I'm rested and ready to continue on with the prompts, which is good cause tonight's scheduled prompt looks most interesting.
Write about mental health
Okies, there are a lot of ways I can go about this so I reckon I'll answer a crippie question on the subject. I've been asked "Is having a mental illness similar to having a physical illness?" The answer, yes and no.
Before I continue with this let me preface by saying that apart from being slightly on the autism spectrum I don't have any mental illnesses, but a fair amount of my family and friends do. So how are they similar? An illness is an illness, it can royally mess you up regardless of where it originates. How are they different? For starters there is waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy more of a stigma for mental illness. If I told someone that I was a cripple they wouldn't think that I was weird or anything. However, if I was to tell someone that I have a mental illness they'd think "THIS CHICK IS FREAKING CRAZY". Next, finding the right treatment for mental illnesses is challenging to say the least. If I am in pain, I go to pain management doctor, try out a drug or two and I'm usually good for at least a year or so. If this was a mental illness I could be dealing with dozens of super fun, potentially dangerous drugs with a countless number of medicine and dosing changes. Fun stuff. At the end of the day both mental and physical illnesses are equally real and equally legitimate. They both equally suck!!! YAY MENTAL CRIPPIES! Also, I think someone needs to start a blog about having a mental illnesses and call it "Mental Yentl" I'd be sooooooooooo happy if that happened.
I hope all my US readers have a happy Thanksgiving. Angel and Helen want your turkeys.
Crippie's Tippie - Mental illnesses are serious business, if you think you need help, get it
I am disabled (although not a full time wheelchair user) and I suffer with an unknown neurological illness. My sister has bi-polor disorder and because she was diagnosed a year ago, when I first became ill a year ago people (both medical and friends) jumped to the conclusion I had a mental illness too and that it was 'all in my head' I spent months trying to emphasise to those people that I really did not believe that to be the case. As it happens in the end they realised it wasn't (An I hate to say I told you so moment) I do agree with this post, the way others treated me when they found out I was ill compared to the way people treated her were very different. There is a huge stigma with mental illness and I feel it is still something sufferes do not often tell people about for fears of discrimination etc. However if people living with mental illness spoke out more 'normal' people would begin to understand a lot more about it. Living with my sister and also living with a chronic illness myself I see reguarly how similar we are in ways, but also very different too.
ReplyDeleteGreat post :)
www.hayleyeszti.blogspot.com
Thanks, my sister has bi-polar disorder too so I know the feels.
ReplyDelete