Severe mental illness

Started by Sothis May 12th, 2017 9:13 PM
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  • 11 replies

Sothis

Will this hand destroy you?

She/her
Firene
Seen 11 Hours Ago
Posted 14 Hours Ago
17,837 posts
9.9 Years
Going beyond regular anxiety and depression, do you suffer from anything else? Have you met someone who does?

I'm schizophrenic, and frequently it's seen as a scary thing that the serial killer of a movie has. There's many movies with antagonists (Like the uninvited, hate that film) who are schizophrenic and it's insulting.

I like to think that outside the somewhat odd behaviour I can exhibit due to my delusions, I'm a normal person who is worthy of love and friendship like everyone else.

What do you think?

you cannot hope to win
so bound in flesh


It depends on how you define "severe" really. I suppose I have, because it's completely destroyed my life, but I always imagined it'd feel different. I don't really feel anything about it, so I suppose you really can get used to just about anything. I expect even without it I wouldn't feel like I was suitable to have close ties to other people anyway.

But that's just me. I honestly think the stigma surrounding certain mental health conditions is extremely stereotypical and unfair - and misinformed - and that people with these conditions are people the same as everyone else and should be treated as such. Be mindful of their needs, yes, but then everyone has different needs, so people shouldn't go making such a big deal out of it, or passing judgement. People are not defined by their mental health condition, even if it may sometimes define aspects of their life or personality. It's just one part of them, and probably not the part they want others focusing on.

Her

Age 29
Online now
Posted 1 Week Ago
borderline personality disorder

how very contemporary, i know

Ghost Nappa

Banned

Age 28
Male
Nashville, Tennessee
Seen May 17th, 2017
Posted May 17th, 2017
109 posts
6.3 Years
I had just found out I have Clinical Depression a few days ago. It really spawned up when my cousin committed suicide late last year ( he was a brother to me). And with all of the stories I have heard about social norms and stuff I feel like a monster or freak that doesn't deserve love and deserves to hide away forever. I mean I know for a fact that no girl from 18-28 will like a guy with depression. It's a fact, so I say fudge that and just give up.

pastelspectre

Memento Mori

Age 25
he/him
The Pacific Northwest
Seen 1 Week Ago
Posted 1 Week Ago
2,156 posts
13.1 Years
i know you said going beyond, but i feel this is severe, for me at least, bc i've suffered with it for many years and it was a very big part of my life when i was in middle school and high school. i suffer from moderate/severe clinical depression, because i have a chemical imbalance in the brain. meaning, from what i've been told, it will never go away and i have to learn to deal with it and control it using coping methods and other things.

big long chunk of text coming up because i'm about to write /a lot/ about my life and my struggles. if you want to read, feel free. if not, that's okay too.

Spoiler:
it was really, really bad in 8th grade when i was in middle school (idk what other people call it in other places? sorry), i suffered with suicidal thoughts constantly and i would self harm constantly, pretty much every day because i didn't know how else to deal with my feelings. middle school was the worst 3 years of my life, because of bullying and because of the crushing mental illness i was also dealing with. i did get help, eventually, after my mom freaked out and sent me to the hospital because i said i was suicidal (which is understandable, i'd freak out too), and then the hospital provided me with a psychiatrist and it was..okay? she was sort of a lousy psychiatrist in my opinion. luckily, shortly after that, we moved to another town in NY, and i lived with my mom since my parents were separated and going to be divorced soon. when i first moved there, it was very difficult to deal with.

i still self harmed a lot and posted a lot of sad stuff on tumblr because i didn't really have anyone else to confide in, because i didn't want to scare or freak my mom out i guess. then i started public school, since i had moved there in the summer. it went okay at first. i didn't have any friends for the first 2 months of high school and it was awful. i sat alone at lunch by myself constantly. luckily, i confided in my counselor about this and i sat with some seniors for a while until i had the courage to go and make other friends near my age. so i did, and it was okay from then on. then one day i was feeling really awful and decided to bring some glass with me to school because i wanted to self harm in the school bathrooms, because i didn't feel i could do it at home with my mom constantly watching me. i think afterwards i told a teacher or someone i confided in, and then i was inspected by police and was given a warning, luckily not getting suspended for bringing it to school. i was also sent to the hospital and evaluated there.

since my problem was growing more serious to my mom, she wanted me to get help. and so she asked my primary doctor about it, who suggest this group therapy place to go and get therapy from. at first, i was nervous, but i agreed and went reluctantly, since i was terrified of how the therapist would be. luckily for me, i would have a great client/therapist relationship with her for the next 5 years and kept on seeing her until i graduated high school. but. uh. yeah. after that, i had slipped up with self harm here and there, trying to recover but failing. i was also best friends with my friend, elizabeth, who means a lot to me. me and her were suffering with the same problems, depression and self harm, and we also had a lot of other common interests like emo bands. we started to confide in each other and whatnot and yeah. i don't know what i would've done without her. afterwards 9th grade had slowly passed, my problems still a struggle sadly.

in the summer after 9th grade, it was okay. i still struggled here and there, slipping up, but not as badly since i had a therapist and a psychiatrist that i had started seeing that year as well who prescribed me antidepressants. i didn't really like my psychiatrist, but, i felt obligated to keep seeing her. she diagnosed me with severe depression. i sort of saw it coming, but it still felt..bad that i had it. i felt weird and abnormal. i started taking antidepressants. i changed them many times bc i felt they didn't work for me. anyways, then 10th grade came, and the beginning of the year went okay. i had a small group of friends, some younger than me and some older than me. none of them really knew about my problems i think, and if they did, they didn't say anything. it was all going okay until one day i decided to bring razor blades to school because i was having a awful day and my mom was watching me like a hawk as usual because she was worried about me.

i'll just spare you the details and say it didn't go well at all. i had told a counselor (she was sort of a counselor, she just sort of helped kids figure out their life, but had a different title than a counselor.), and i trusted her a lot. however, she was obligated to tell the vice principal and principal of what i had done since i had brought a "weapon" to school, the weapon being the razor blade. i was brought to the office and had OSS (out of school suspension), for a week. however, after the week was up, they deemed it unsafe for me to go back to the regular public school, so i stayed there for 2 months while they decided what to do with me. after we had a meeting of where to place me, i decided to go to try a private school, since my only other choice was partial, an out-patient hospital program where they taught you coping methods and dbt and all that stuff. i had already been to partial once in the summer, and felt it unhelpful so i decided to try the private school. i had a sort of "trial" run there, staying for a few days and visiting to see what it was like.

at first i was a bit weary and hesitant, but i realized this would be the best option for me, since they had a psychiatrist there, a social worker, and someone in general to talk to if i ever needed help. there were also other students there who suffered with the same problems as me. i felt it was the best decision. so i decided to stay there and try it out permanently and then i ended up staying there until i graduated. it was a good school for me. my social worker sort of got on my nerves, and i felt more close to her intern than my social worker herself, but i did get through it and made many good bonds to the teachers there. i was very sad after i graduated. i'm glad that i decided to go there though. i'm not sure what would've happened to me if i didn't go. i probably would've just slowly gotten worse and worse. i dunno.


however, now i am 19, a high school graduate and struggling to figure out what to do with my life. my depression is..somewhat under wraps right now, being held down. until it decides to come back again. i'm trying to be more positive and upbeat and supportive of all my friends, especially on facebook since that's where i spend most of my time. i've been told by some friends they see a change in me, a good change, and a lot of my friends associate me with pastel colors and dan and phil, as well as stuffed animals and other positive things now, instead of negative things, which i'm glad. i'm just trying to get my life together. it's difficult when i suffer with moderate/severe depression, and social anxiety (which i was diagnosed with by my psychiatrist, and my therapist), but.. i know i can get through this. also, i've been self harm free for 8 months, which is good. i'm slowly in recovery. it's a hard and rocky process, but..i can get through it.

anyways uhm. you guys probably didn't ask for this big text. and i'm sorry. if anyone wants me to, i can delete this post. i just..wanted to go in depth about my situation..sorry.
Age 25
Female
Seen June 19th, 2019
Posted March 5th, 2018
1,259 posts
13.7 Years
I have to point something out here. Regular anxiety, as we all experience from time to time, is not psychopathology. Anxiety disorders, as described clinically, is definitely severe and not at all normal or regular. Same goes for having depressive moods and actual depression. Anxiety and depression might be more common but they can definitely be severe.

That said, I do understand the differentiation you're trying to make here. I have hair pulling disorder/trichotillomania and some major obsessive-compulsive tendencies. It's not enough to call OCD but it's far from healthy. I've been able to control these things because I found out the names for them. Being able to specifically name (a set of) behaviours is really helpful in the process of understanding what you exactly are suffering from and where it stems from. It also makes it way easier to explain your problems to other people and possibly find appropriate help. None of these things are fixed, but I've been able to control them for a while now. Especially the trichotillomania, which was a huge stressor back when I was really pulling a lot.

Other than that, I know I have suffered a major trauma that still impacts me. It came from a rather silly thing but combined with other things that were happening at the moment it's impacted me so much that it's become really severe and hard to get rid of. It's been 10 years now, I've been in therapy for it last year. Unfortunately, it helped only a little bit and at this point I know the only way to really get rid of the problem is to move out of my current home. That is gonna happen in September when I move to Spain for studies, so I hope it doesn't follow me to there.

Mobile Tsk

you may have noticed that I'm not all there myself

Age 28
he/him/his
Seen 1 Week Ago
Posted 3 Weeks Ago
1,217 posts
17.3 Years
Different jobs I've had have led me to work with severely mentally ill patients. Of course, you are right that the stereotypes are untrue and harmful to people who have severe mental illness. Rarely are they dangerous to others, at least they are no more dangerous (usually) than any other person.

an illegible mess.

i'll make tiny changes to earth.

he/him
buffalo, ny.
Seen 5 Days Ago
Posted 2 Weeks Ago
592 posts
11.7 Years
in terms of what's considered "severe" i have bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, dissociative identity disorder and probably schizoaffective disorder. i'm also autistic, though that's more a disability than a disorder in my opinion. idk half the time i tell people this they get all concerned and rarely talk to me. thats actually how my current ex-boyfriend broke up with me. said i "needed some space" and that the relationship "wasn't good for [my] mental health" *shrug emoji*
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r.i.p scott hutchison ;; 11/20/81 -- 5/10/18

starseed galaxy auticorn

PC's Resident Auticorn

Age 34
she/he/they
the land of magical unicorns
Seen 1 Week Ago
Posted 1 Week Ago
6,648 posts
18.9 Years
Aside from autism, I have very severe anxiety. Most say it's part of my autism, but I actually disagree. It is constantly in control of my life at times. I find it hard to keep it at bay, even with medication as well. It's hard because I can worry about silly things. I can worry so much that my mind just starts screaming. It's just so hard to cope with. It used to even worse where it would cause me to be very depressed at times. I would often stoop to self-harming because it was out of control. It's been somewhat controlled better in that respect... my anxiety goes beyond what is considered normal tbh.

MechaMoth

Eloquent Speaker

Mountain Time
Seen August 1st, 2018
Posted March 1st, 2018
520 posts
6.1 Years
I'm severely bipolar, to the point that I will hallucinate if I'm not on my medications. I also have pretty strong depression with some psychosis. Luckily, I was able to find the right cocktail of medications that help me manage everything pretty well. Sometimes stuff crops up or my moods will randomly change for no reason, but it's mostly under control.

All I can say is that there's always help out there for you. So, find someone you can talk to, especially professionally, and you should be able to make strides in solving/managing some of your issues.
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