I didn't tell you

Dear friend,

I didn’t tell you because you probably won’t understand. You might see my depression as just another “bad day”. Bad days can be gotten over with through superficial means. But depression can’t. Superficial means only tend to provide temporary happiness to what seems like a permanent negative state of mind. And on most days, it does nothing.

I didn’t tell you because you might see my anxiety as simply a brief episode of being compulsive - or sometimes, being a perfectionist. If it were really just a scratch on the surface, why would a negligible scratch cause the entire surface to shatter, leading me to drown and suffocate in dark freezing waters with no tangible way out?

Anxiety tweaked my lifestyle. Little day to day tasks have become overwhelming and sometimes, impossible for me to do. Anxiety is not just a one episode rush of adrenaline; it sends ripples - and ripples turn to waves and eventually, waves turn to tsunamis and the next thing you know, even studying the weekend before a week of exams is heavily spent on a tremendous deal of self-hate and panicking about the amount of tasks you’re about to do rather than actually studying. And above all, even doing what you love has become a burden for you to do.

I didn’t tell you because you might not think my mental illness is real - or that, my problems are real. To most, mental illness is a taboo - which is heavily caused by the developments in history and society constantly shaming people with such. Nowadays, a handful of people even see it as an excuse most teenagers make to get through situations. To put it plainly, mental illness is a topic that revolves around people having a shift in mental patterns which causes suffering and a poor ability to function in life - which is usually centered on illnesses like ADHD or Schizophrenia. Though intimidating to most, even the aforementioned illnesses are considered relatively “understandable” in the eyes of society than illnesses like anxiety and depression because these are often undermined into feelings of everyday sadness, frustrations and panic. But it’s not.

Everyday, we often mistake using the word “depression” to describe our brief episodes of sadness, and “anxiety” to describe sudden moments of panic. This is why it’s difficult to penetrate the issue because its intensity has been invalidated over the years.

Unlike common illnesses that can easily be quantitated like catching a cold or getting a migraine, mental illness can’t. Its symptoms don’t manifest as biological irregularities but rather, it manifests in mundane irregularities like skipping a meal or binge eating, leaving a painting unfinished, not wanting to leave the bed in the morning, spacing out in between conversations and a messy room. But unfortunately, we often mistake these irregularities as qualities of being “lazy”.

Mental illness shouldn’t be reduced to simply a “feeling”. To most, it’s a battle that can’t be seen and because of that, they think it’s not real. Mental illness is real, and come to think of it, it can actually be seen if you do look closely - and if you listen.

But even if you did try to listen, I still didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell you not only because you probably won’t understand or think that mental illness is real, but because I didn’t want to draw attention. And above all, I forgot how to speak for myself.

With the topic itself being so constantly undermined and misunderstood over time, sending out cries for help has been equated to being self absorbed and weak. Trying to put my mental illness into words makes me see the apparent reality of it even more and explaining myself makes me feel stupid, because how can I tell you that the real reason I was late for class was due to the fact that I was scared to get out of bed in the morning because the idea of going to class, being surrounded by people and facing the day feels suffocating?

It’s difficult to carefully describe a situation that you don’t even understand. And the more you try to fathom your burden into words, it often doesn’t come out as accurate as you want it to be so you end up not being able to let people truly understand the tremendous amount of burden you feel. So in the end, people won’t get the real message once more and you’ll end up being misunderstood again. And the cycle continues. It never ends. But it has to.

Mental illness, no matter what form or case, is real. And it deserves real attention with real solutions.

I didn’t tell you. But I’ve always wanted to. And now you know why.

Sincerely,

Someone in the crowd