grungeisde4d:

this is really selfish but

why can’t mental illness be like any other kind of sickness where you go to hospital and your loved ones come and give you flowers and tell you that they love you and hold your hand and make sure you get better

why doesn’t that happen instead of…

Short term illnesses are generally more tolerated by society because they reenforce stereotypes that good health is a moral issue. You get hurt/sick you do/get whats needed and everyone goes on with life.

What is incomprehensible in all long term illness (and I do include mental health in there as well) is that it doesn’t follow a narrative. It isn’t a cause you can get behind once and then not need to worry about again. It is constant and people do grow tired, naturally, and wonder why on earth you aren’t better.

What a lot of people also don’t understand is that often mental health and phsyical health both wind up being compromised even if the initial cause was one.

Years of isolation and pain has an effect on mind and brain and there can be effects in the other direction (which I cannot be a spokesperson for, my depressive episodes tend to be shortlived and highly dependent on physical factors).

We are in this together, none of us have the exact same experience but share that diagnosis of something that will live with us until our last days and that those last days may mean decades of the same or (more usually) worse with periods of remission. Or incredibly sadly and unexpectedly quickly. Rates of early death is very high in both groups compared to a healthy population.