Want to Know What Mental Illness Is Like?

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Imagine… let’s see, conjure up the worst physical ailment you can think of. Let’s take flesh-eating bacteria. That’s a nice start. Now imagine that exists in your thoughts. That may be easy on the surface…

But really think about it.

Existing only in your mind, and no one else around you knows about it. About its severity. About the anguish it is causing you.

Worse, no one knows why you’re acting the way you are. No one knows why you seem off. You can’t explain this, because it isn’t flesh-eating bacteria. It doesn’t really have a name.

Sure, I focus on OCD on this site because I have it- but in truth mental illnesses tend to all mesh together1. You have a primary one, but you kind of get bits and pieces of your own personal tapestry of… this thing. So you can’t really explain it. If you say it’s your OCD, it probably doesn’t come off like most people think of OCD. Because your OCD is part of this aforementioned tapestry.

You are your own mental illness, and it is you. And no one around you can ever really know what it is, because it is trapped inside something we do not have the capability to observe. We can only speak of these things in words, of which there are not proper ones yet to describe these things to others.

So, you’re alone with this. And you make do. In many ways. Most, off-putting if you’re not putting up your shield. And if you are putting up your shield, fuck… that’s quite a bit more energy you don’t really need to be spending.

There ya go, I’ve attempted to explain the unexplainable.

 

1 This cannot be stated enough.