Venting I hate mental illness

[FreedomInDeath]

Mental illness is a neverending cycle of torment. Meds that make you fat and stupid, therapy that doesnt work, hospitalizations that make you feel powerless, being a social pariah and people wanting you to die for mental illness you cannot help having, never having a moment of peace except for maybe the blackness of sleep, all of your hobbies being gone. Oh the joy of life. If a god exists it is either cruel, stupid, or not omnipotent. Or it is just complete neutral and doesnt care.

 

[Mr2005]

I hate the term mental illness. I don't have one

 

[FreedomInDeath]

I have a few mental illness. Some prefer to call them disorders. Some prefer to be in denial about them. I guess I do not mind the term mental illness, it is like saying heart disease or liver disease to me. I can see how some people take it as an insult because it can be used as such, same as the word retarded is automatically not ok to use because people have used the word in cruelty and not just fact.

 

[Mr2005]

It's just overused. Even therapists agreed I'd have to be mentally ill not to feel like this. That is after wasting my time treating me for illnesses I didn't have

 

[FreedomInDeath]

I agree it is overused. Diagnosing people with mental illness that don't have them is detrimental to everyone. It makes it seem like everyone has one when emotions and life are pathologized. Then people who genuinly do have mental illness are trivialized. Not good for anyone.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Mental illness is what they use to define you. I am not a mental illness, I'm ME.
Some of the things that I hate about myself are also some of the things that make me stronger or better adapted to certain things.
All the things they call you are labels so that you can be categorised and 'treated' accordingly with the 'appropriate' medication for each label.
Sometimes, there is a value in that for specific tendencies. But the reality is usually more complex than that and they don't see it. We are complex creatures with specific mental attributes and not a bunch of labels. That's why the 'treatment' often fails.
Telling someone that the way they naturally are is an 'illness' is irresponsible and harmful at best, and at worst, it's outright insulting and derogatory.
That doesn't mean the treatments are worthless, but they should be accepted for what they are, just as each of us should accept ourselves for how we are before we can attempt to understand and try to change it.
And the 'side effects' of drugs are not 'side effects' there is no such thing. They are fundamental metabolic changes that happen when you take a substance that is extrinsic to your system. Calling them 'side effects' is a ploy to dismiss their deleterious effects on you as nothing. The drugs may be of benefit to you and the harm that they will do you should be weighed against that. But they often will not give you that information because they don't want you to think for yourself.

 

[FreedomInDeath]

I agree and also disagree with one of your points of view. I do not see having a mental/brain illness as any more or less bad than having an illness anywhere in the body. It is just fact. I know my brain is malfunctioning to my detriment and torment. To deny that is, to me, more of a hateful thing to do to myself than non acceptance. But what you said about people being more complex than just labels is spot on. I enjoyed your commentary on psychotropic medications.