You know, it’s really shitty and dehumanizing that you can’t be trustingly open with jobs (ESPECIALLY Healthcare jobs, which is pretty ironic if you think about it) when it comes to Mental Health issues, without the impending fear of recoil. I’ve called in sick with stomach issues, and I really was SICK (to the point of my anxiety causing peptic ulcers), but not from physical “illness” (like the flu or food poisoning). Yet, without feeling shamed or made inferior, you can’t call into a company and honestly say, “Hey, I’m having a really difficult depression spout and my body won’t allow me to leave bed.” Or “my anxiety is so bad that my stomach is in knots and my head feels like it’s going to explode.”

People say they understand, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty, they really, really don’t. They don’t truly know what it’s like to wake up after having vivid nightmares that cause a panic attack once you open your eyes, and appear as this functioning character. Or the heaviness your body feels in a depression episode; where you absolutely canNOT convince your body to get up and move, even though your mind is screaming at you to stop being such a piece of shit and get up already. When you DON’T EVEN KNOW what’s making you feel anxious and/or depressed at the time, yet you notice yourself walking slower – almost hunched over – eating worse/less, sleeping more; as you go thru the motions and your mind is pleading for a break from all the demands. But you don’t have the TIME! When you have expectations here and there, your own expectations for yourself and others take the back burner. So, what happens then… You play this role, seemingly fine for 3 or 4 months, then it hits you all over again. You wake up panicked, stomach in knots, and wanting to pound your head into the wall… but there’s nothing. Nothing rational to make it feel better, at least. Nothing to make it go away in an instant, so you can just get up, go to work, take a shower, or feed the kids breakfast. No one who can take it away for you. You’re merely left in that moment… suffocating.
And all you need is a little air, and time, and space. But to the world, that’s asking too much…

And my BIGGEST issue I have behind the Stigma of Mental Health is just that…

You reach out, again and again, pleading to just get your head above water, while they just keep piling the bricks on. And when the weight gets to be too much to handle, and we finally drown from the load we bear… they ask themselves how/why they never saw it coming. People claim they “thought” we were happy, thriving… never truly accepting that we have already spent so much of our lives screaming for help at the top of our lungs… but everyone else was wearing ear plugs.