Serious Mental Illness Deserves Awareness Too
Please, please, stop asking if our mental illness is “cured”
I feel an all-to-familiar wrinkle in my stomach as the conversation shifts to a roundtable sharing of mental health issues — who’s recently taken a mental health day for self-care, who’s sometimes troubled by fleeting anxious thoughts.
As each person shares their trial or tribulation, slowly leaving only me who’s yet to speak, the wrinkle tightens into a thicker and thicker knot. It’s at this point I usually throw out an ambiguous “Oh, I’ve dealt with anxiety issues and a mood disorder, but I’m doing much better now” and leave it at that. The group nods their heads knowingly, satisfied that this May, during mental health awareness month, we are all indeed aware of each other’s mental health.
But for myself and around 13 million others in the United States, the acceptability of being open about anxiety, say, or depression doesn’t extend towards the serious mental illnesses we live with every day. Additionally, the desire to be seen as “recovered” is intense. Assuring people that you used to be extremely crazy, but now you’re not so much, is necessary for myriad situations from finding a job to maintaining relationships.
