Porcelain

So, someone got me started on the topic of depression's stigma in society today. I'm like a dog with a bone when it comes to this topic. I cannot stand idly by and let people continue to act like mental illness (MI) isn't a real condition. I educate those around me and I try to educate those I work with, but that's like pulling teeth. People seem so content to be so apathetic about it. Why? It's a dangerous disease that doesn't go away. People die from it. People hurt themselves because of it. People lose other people because of it. Sure most of us prefer to hide in our beds and feel like shit by ourselves, but I like to think I'm making some headway with this blog in getting my struggle out there. I'm trying to de-stigmatize this in order to make it a better world for everyone else around me who has a form of MI.

So what exactly are my struggles? This last month has been a trying experience for me to be quite honest. I had a medication change on the 1st and that has just fucked me over for the most part. I had been spending a lot of time isolating myself and stopped eating and stopped caring and started having anxiety about work to the point where I was calling in way more than I would ever do in my right mind. Then I upped my dosage and had to deal with side effects. Once the side effects were gone I had to deal with IOP, and now I'm in the middle of that. This month has been entirely about my illness and how I'm dealing with it. My job has been less than understanding about it as well. I requested 3 days a week off to work on my treatment plan and instead they only changed my availability to 20 hours a week. So this week, I'm feeling like a total douche having to call in to take care of myself. I worked yesterday and I get that they fucked up, but I still feel guilty - like I did something wrong, when all I'm doing is making sure I'm okay. I guess that's one of the things that really bothers me is the lack of understanding is perfectly okay. People just have to say "oh okay" and hand you a phone number to a suicide prevention hotline and that's all they have to do. They don't have to be understanding that you're not there because of a genuine inability to be there, not because you're lazy or just don't wanna. Instead you're met with uncomfortable stares and really shitty policies on how to deal with it. And yes, I do feel like I've been discriminated against. Maybe I have been.. I just don't know. I am just so frustrated by the lack of understanding and education my workplace has. This illness is turning me into an activist and I didn't know I had it in me. I believe that MI should be treated with the same consideration as other serious diseases, that absences with documented MI should be given different weight than say calling in with the flu. Like I said, it's not that I just don't "wanna", it's that I just can't do it. I'm pretty sure they don't want me out frightening customers with my constant crying.

Anyways, here's what I'm gonna do about it. I'm going to save up the $35 and join NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) and I'm going to work my ass off at educating the public. I want them to understand my illness and to recognize that we are the same as everyone else in most ways, but lack coping skills and interpret and internalize things so differently that it causes a problem.