Anyone with mental health issues will tell you the problem that is encountered when you attempt to speak to people about it. Your intelligence is questioned. You are told to grow up. You are made to feel like you are ‘doing it for attention’. All of which makes things worse. It’s a problem made worse when people use mental health as an excuse to get time off work. Not that they suffer at all, but because they couldn’t get the holiday. If you have genuine stress and anxiety, time away could help. But when people say ‘I’ll just say I’m stressed, because they never question that’. As if it is some lame excuse like having the flu.
That excuse to get time off is an insult to every person genuinely suffering. Every person having to turn to a doctor because they feel like they are losing control. Every person who cries themselves to sleep every night, and then cries in the morning because they still have to live. A person who panics uncontrollably at every little thing, from doing the dishes to buying a newspaper. It’s not tidying up, because there is no point. It’s not showering, because there is no point. It’s eating rubbish because something has to fill the massive hole you feel inside.
It makes me so angry. And disgusted. As a person who suffers mental health issues, and know a lot of people suffering, I find it awful that someone would pretend to ‘join in’ so they could get time off. It shows ignorance of the world around them.
It kind of makes me feel a bit sick.
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