Serious Mental Illnesses And My Experiences With Them

So, I though I'd talk a bit about mental illnesses here. One reason for doing this is because I've seen a lot of people making jokes about very serious illnesses and I want to tell them that those "jokes" are not funny. Another reason is that mental health is really important but in my opinion people don't talk about it enough. I have my own experiences with mental health problems and I will talk about them here. But before I start writing more, I want to apologise for my bad English and all the typos, I'm not very good at writing long texts and I wrote this on my phone.

First I thought that I'll start with telling a bit about some mental illnesses but I realised that I'm way too lazy and tired to do that right now (it's almost 5 am). So I'll just edit this post later and add some information about them. I guess I'll start with my experiences then. If you get sad easily, I do not recommend reading the next part.

I've had depression for about 3 or 4 years and social anxiety maybe about 6 or 7 years. I started cutting 8 months ago, stopped for few months and recently started doing it again. Now I cut almost daily. I've also become really suicidal and I tried to kill myself about a week ago and then few days after that again. Now, before anyone comments that I'm an attention seeker, I honestly don't think I am. I'm just trying to tell people what living with depression and anxiety is like. Every day I'm having trouble doing very basic things like going to sleep, getting out of bed, going to school or eating. I just don't feel like anything matters anymore, I don't want to be alive. Last year and in the beginning of this year I was sad most of the time but now I just feel really numb and empty. I've lost a lot of friends because I rarely talk to anyone anymore, I'm too afraid of getting judged by people. I'm really afraid of losing the only friends I have left. They know about all of this but I feel like I'm bothering them too much with my problems. I can't really tell my parents what's going on, I don't want to make them worried and they wouldn't even understand.

Anyways, I know I'm not the only one having problems here. If anyone reading this ever needs help or support with something, feel free to message me, I'd be happy to help.

I will edit this and add stuff later. Thank you for reading this, I hope you'll have a good day.

 

Hey! If you want to talk about this, then you're more than welcome to private message me! If you need someone to talk to, I'm here, because I can relate, and I can also help (not fully, but somewhat/slightly) because I have been studying Psychology, and all that.

So if you need anyone to talk to about this, then I can listen! ^-^

 

Thank you very much, you have no idea how much that means to me.

 

Oh, trust me, I do, mainly because I've gone through exactly what you've said you've gone through :)

 

Hey it's sad to hear about this, but the truth is everyone can be flat out rude. Many people have a line drawn pretty far out, if you want help seek a moderator or someone you trust. We all have had the moment joking about this topic, and it's very unfortunate to hear of your story, I hope you feel better soon.

If your pressured, just lay down and literally do nothing. Let your mind wander for a bit.
I really don't understand what your going through, but I'm trying to relate, and hope my words help you out a bit.

 

Hey, sorry to heard about this...people can be flat-out rude sometimes, and sometimes, they cross the line. I want to say that I understand your point, mental illnesses are a real thing, not a joke. Depression is a real thing, a terrible thing, it's not something to joke around with. If someone makes you feel insecure about this, seek someone you trust, someone you can talk to. I can relate on your level, my brother has social anxiety his entire life. He's been made fun of, and that's not alright, you may feel numb and apart from the world, but there's a whole group of people that want to help you, to relate to you. Life's a hard thing, it has challenges, but you can tackle those challenges with a friend, someone you can talk to. Don't be hesitant to tell your parents, they will support you, guide you, if not, talk to another adult about this, there's always someone to help.

Sorry I can't personally help you, but I hope these words might make you feel better. If you need someone to talk to, you can always send me a message here, I'll be happy to listen. The world is a unforgiving place, you need someone to help you. Look on the bright side though, it's almost Christmas! Remember, you can talk to me, or anyone on the forums.

Hope you have a wonderful day.

 

Thank you very much. That made me feel a bit better. I hope your brother will be okay.

Have a great day.

 

As a person who's also mentally ill, I really feel your pain.
What we have to put up with is awful, and I'm sick of hearing the jokes and whatnot.
What sucks even more is that people never seem to take us seriously.

If you ever need help, hit me up, okay?

 

I completely agree with you. And you can also message me if you ever need help.

 

Agreed. Jokes like these really aren't funny. I know how these kinds of things feel, as I have mild autism and apparently inherited chronic social anxiety from my mother, along with being depressed around fourth grade (though I don't remember it, as it was almost 6 years ago)... Then my friend was also depressed last year (9th grade).

People make jokes about this since they don't know how it actually feels (and many people are plain apathetic). They are actual problems that people should notice and take seriously, and possibly try to resolve, instead of just making jokes.

Should I also get started on the fact that, apparently, a guy who committed a school shooting a couple years ago was rumored to not only have autism, but the exact variation of it that I have, even though he was likely just a sociopath?

 

It sucks that people can joke around about something as serious as mental illness.
My personal advice with what you're going through is to tell someone. Let it all out. I'm not saying "go to a therapist" - because I know that people have different views on them. I'm saying.. tell it. Tell your story. It might just be another story of a sad, depressed kid, but there are people out there who will listen, and maybe relate. They won't judge you. You just have to find the right person. And that may be hard, but already there are people that have offered to help, or just listen.

As for your friends, I don't think that you're burdening them too much. I think that if they're your friends, and they care for you and support you, then a burden that you're carrying can be shared between them. I think you understand what I mean. Of course, I've never met your friends, so what can I say about them?

I really don't know what it's like to have a mental illness, and I don't think that I'll ever know what it's like without developing (for lack of a better word) one myself. But I do think it's important to try to understand instead of laughing at the weird kid in the corner.

 

I'm already listening to her! And she is a really amazing person, and it sucks how someone that is really nice like that has to go through something this horrible... but I am there for them, and @Berry know that you have a lot of support here as well! Even though you're not that well known yet, a lot of people here seem to care, if they didn't care, they wouldn't be saying anything! :)

 

Thank you for everyone who has given me advice or said something supportive. It means a lot. You are all very amazing people.

 

Life is full of amazing and happy experiences. All you have to do is go and find them. Get out into the world, try new things, do things that you like. It might affect you for the better. But go and find an activity that you love to do. You only live once, so go make the best of it!

 

No need to mention it. Humans, for the most part, are pathetic in my eyes, though there are some good people. You just have to find them, which can be hard and sometimes only be achieved if events line up well, sometimes even from birth.

Strangely enough, I find that many of them have social disorders, though many find it unusual and thus wrong, in their mind, which I find to be a... Twisted Philosophy (complex words seem to impact more, and I prefer using them. It probably makes me feel more intelligent or something).

I agree. I find it hard, if not impossible, to look through the eyes of most people, but that doesn't mean I can't recognize their pain or show them sympathy. Many people, however, are not like that. If they can't see the world like they do, they may laugh because they don't understand instead of trying to help them. If they can, perhaps they just don't bother to try. At least there are people who are not like that, I guess.

 

I'm sorry if I burst your bubble for a second here, but :

Let me preface that as someone who believes in the importance of dark humour and grim jokes, I couldn't disagree more with you guys.
I'm probably the person in a group of friends that will make a crude joke about tragedies minutes after I learn about it, like what happened in France last year or Berlin more recently.

You might find that in poor taste or plain disgusting, but it makes you deal more easily with the harshness of reality. Dark humour in times of horrible events makes you able to cool your emotions down significantly faster than lament for hours after the fact and classify all humans as pathetic creatures.



Now, concerning humour directed at people, it accomplishes something else, which in my opinion has the same benefit as the one I just talked about : it destroys self importance.
I've seen some people in my life that made being part of a certain group their entire identity (being deaf, black, gay, white, muslim, christians, atheists, trans, etc.), were proud of their labels, so proud in fact, that everything that didn't go their way was against that label.

Made a gay joke ? You hate gay people.
Made a white people joke ? You're a fucking anti-white racist.
Made a muslim joke ? You vile islamophobe.
Made a joke poking fun at men ? WELL YOU'RE A FEMINIST.

These jokes remind you constantly that whether you're mentally disabled, a male, gay, straight, white, christian, muslim, trans, you're playing at the same level as everybody else. People are allowed to poke fun at disabilities, gay people, men, women, religions, and everything else.
I don't want a world where everybody and comedians would walk around eggshells in fear for their jobs if they offend a large portion of the population.



Obviously, I have to clarify my nuanced position : Not all dark/crude jokes are funny.
You are perfectly allowed to find a certain joke not funny at all, if it has poor delivery, bad timing, and horrible narration.
However, my point is, if you say "Well this rude joke is offensive to me but I laughed at the other so I'll let that one slide for once.", then you're being awfully inconsistent. If you decide that one joke isn't funny BECAUSE it is offensive, then you have to reject all of offensive humour. And eventually you'll end up making fun of stuff so innofensive and politically-correct that nobody will laugh at your jokes.



Another thing is : It's incredibly easy to misinterpret rude jokes and people actually being serious on the internet. When you're in doubt about somebody's intellectual position (in this case, depression and mental illness), don't base your judgement of them on the jokes they make.
I've lost count of the nights where I've helped friends not commit suicide, being a shoulder for them to cry on over the internet, sometimes to my own detriment. And yet, here I am poking fun at depression and suicide around my groups of friends.

Anyways, you're free to despise me for my opinion, but at least don't forget to take care of yourself first.

I might enjoy laughing at dead babies but at least you should take care of your life.

cheers ╰(✿˙ᗜ˙)੭━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ

 

At some parts I agree with you but the thing is: Some people don't take mental illnesses seriously because of all the jokes. They don't understand that it is in fact a very serious thing. Of course there will always be people making jokes about gender, religion, illnesses and many other things and I completely understand that and I'm mostly fine with it. But some of the jokes are actually very insulting and I'm not okay with that. I don't personally care that much about the "jokes" unless they are clearly made to be insulting. I don't know... Maybe I'm not making any sense right now and my English really isn't that good.

I actually often like dark humour but some people just go too far with it. For example, suicide jokes are never funny. Never. There are many people who have killed themself because of those (I'm trying not to become one of them). This is one thing that people need to stop joking about. Of course it can be funny for people who have never been suicidal or don't know anyone who is/has been. But honestly, I think the people who make jokes about suicide are just very ignorant. This is of course just my opinion.

I really don't know if I'm making any sense, I just tried to explain my opinion.

Have a great day

 

You need to differenciate between harassement under guise of humour and humour itself.

Ganging up on somebody just because of X all the time isn't funny, it's not even humour. There is no punchline, no delivery, no comedic value, nothing.
If it is targeted repeatedly without the intention of being funny, then yes, it is harassement.
If you get angry at a suicide joke in a public setting that doesn't even involve you, that is 100% your problem.

?​

Would you still believe that if you meet one person who has failed their suicide and goes on to make suicide jokes ?
Or people who've been through much worse but still make jokes regarding their past ?

The crux of my argument is "Don't tell others what they can or cannot joke about", because it will just backfire on you. If you don't like it, you're better off ignoring it than going on a crusade to change humour and jokes that don't fit your tastes :P

 

As I said, I just tried to explain my opinion and it probably doesn't really make sense.

 

It's hard to "differnciate jokes from harassment" when you're depressed... the reason being is because when you're depressed you feel like EVERYONE is against you, or something like that... it's hard for you to know if the person takes offense to the joke, or not. I feel like dark humor has its place and time, I'm not going to disagree with you there... but the thing is that like @Berry stated, some people don't take these situations, such as suicidal thoughts and actions and other things of that sort seriously! Some people even look at depressed people whom are suicidal as selfish, which isn't the case due to the fact that depression takes over your mind...

I know your side, and I agree to a point... but in some cases, just shouldn't be used... I know it can be used as a coping mechanism, however I feel more people need to understand the seriousness of the situations, and respect other people's boundaries. It is just kind of the right thing to do I guess.