Mental illness is killing Us

It is very scary to think of the mental illness that I carry in my body and mind. Its effects are devastating, even when we can't see it. People with a mental illness cannot do anything right, can't have friends or be around people. They often feel like they are trapped inside an ice box because their actions don't seem acceptable. In fact, I found myself saying "stop being you," often in times when I felt like someone was judging me. I didn't want to live anymore. My thoughts were all over the place, so I couldn't care about anything else. The only thing I cared about was trying to survive the day. When you're not getting out of bed, walking around the house, or talking to people like you would like to, your world is falling apart. You may ask yourself, what happened? Was it just a bad dream? Could I have been imagining things that scared me? Or is there something wrong with me? How could this happen? Why is this happening to me? A lot of the time I feel alone and depressed, because it is really hard to leave myself alone. I am a victim of depression and anxiety. I struggle to get through the day without feeling weak or hopeless. This can have a negative effect on my work ethic. If I wasn't depressed, I wouldn't be acting so self-righteous at home. Since I cannot control how I feel, I worry that people will judge me by the way I look. What is the first thing you'd notice if you met me? That's not who I am on the outside. I always try to act nice and professional when I'm out. Sometimes I take off my glasses and use fake eyelashes. I try to make people smile. But everything is worthless to me, and when I walk, sometimes my feet hurt. On weekends I go to church after I see other people, and I feel as though everyone sees me as broken. Everyone thinks I'm weird. There was another time I tried to apologize to God for ruining my day. He said to show me you love and then start praying. And I did, but my prayer was useless. It felt so empty because I didn't really believe in him. As a result, one week later some people came up to me and asked me why I didn't pray. Because of my depression, I didn't know what to say. They gave me two options: pray a long prayer, or tell them I wouldn't pray another day. So I told them I wouldn't pray next Sunday. I wasn't sure if they'd understand. It took my eyes off my book, and I started crying.

The one week before Thanksgiving I went into my therapist office for a consultation. She told me she would recommend that I talk to them again in two weeks. We talked about several different subjects, including her plans for counseling me, my anxiety and my depression, and my relationship with God. She assured me that they really liked me and would help me better understand and cope with things about it (including helping with my depression). She also promised to keep in constant contact with me. Another part of my plan was to pray every night. I tried doing that a few nights prior to Christmas, but nothing. Then after we prayed for our prayers in the winter I thought about it again because I wasn't quite finished. It's difficult to just do nothing and hope for the best because it feels horrible. One thing that has helped me in the past is to read books by famous authors, such as Anne Rice's Prayers For An Unstuck Life. Most of those are fiction stories, but there are poems, essays, short stories, children's books and more that deal with living, and death. Even though they talk about things that are already dead, there is peace and comfort to learn something new from them. It's comforting to feel that someone truly cares. It helps to remember that no matter what happens, I will still have good days and have friends. Even if people forget for the rest of their lives or never make others smile, that doesn't mean I won't have at least one good friend left. Now I don't necessarily pray every night, I do think, or give myself permission to pray until I'm so sick with sorrow that my heart stops beating.

My family isn't used to talking about how they feel, especially when I'm depressed. Being depressed is so much worse than being sad. My parents' health was deteriorating, so they had to discuss whether or not they should get rid of me. We decided to get a hospice and watch my niece, which is a special type of nursing facility. At the moment I'm writing these lines, I don't trust anyone or expect any help whatsoever from anybody. I wanted to die. If my dad died, I thought the worst. Maybe if my mom died, I felt like I was letting them down. I needed to feel safe. I think that is what made me think about how people will probably react if they saw me in front of a room full of strangers. People never look like they're going to cry or be offended because I've got some sort of illness, but they'll think I'm very angry. Not because of how I look, but because I'm very depressed, and that might sound like something I shouldn't be doing. I told my counselor that if I ever feel depressed, I need to let my person up and come on down. If you're taking medication, ask your doctor if you should stop them. Don't lie to them. Do what you can to make yourself happy until you get better. Just remember that you won't hurt each other if you can't see each other in the time before your last breath.