MENTAL ILLNESS

More Than an Adjective by: Kelsey Herndon

“Ever since my favorite show ended I’ve been so depressed”

“I’m so OCD, my room always has to be clean”

“She changes her mind like the weather, so bipolar”

“Almost had a panic attack, I couldn’t find my keys”

“Everyone is a little ADHD”

This image represents the thoughts and feeling of a person with anxiety and depression.

These are some sentences that I have heard through my life, and phrases that I probably said in the past. What they have in common is they use mental illnesses as an adjective. A way to add extra flair or drama to one’s situation. I used to not see the harm in it. It wasn’t until limits were pushed too far, it became too personal, that I truly saw the issue.

Many people are familiar with the slur “retarded” which was phased out of medical terminology and replaced with “mentally challenged. That is the most notable example of someone’s mental illness being used as a descriptor.

It wasn’t until I realized that I was actually depressed, until I actually had a panic attack, until I actually took a step back and looked at the way we use illnesses people suffer from as fun little words to make our lives sound more dramatic. And you may think, what is the harm in this.

This image represents the thoughts and feeling of a person with anxiety and depression.

The harm comes when someone who is actually depressed, actually ADHD, actually has one of these illnesses and they are not taken seriously.

Wanting to keep your room neat is not OCD, also known as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I’ve lived with someone who has OCD for 18 years. OCD is writing the same sentence over and over again because it doesn’t look exactly right. OCD is having full blown temper tantrum because something is slightly off from your normal routine.

Depression is laying in the dark, staring at a computer not absorbing anything that is around you, watching the hours tick by like minutes. Depression is sleeping 15 hours a day or not sleeping for days on end. Depression is losing enjoyment in things you once loved.

Depression is the ever present feeling of apathy. Depression isn’t always over-whelming sadness, sometimes, it’s feeling nothing at all.

I didn’t think I was depressed because I wasn’t sad. The idea that mental illness is “all in your head” is so damaging. I let that phrase guilt me and deny me the right to seek help, because it was just in my head, I could take care of it myself. When I did express it to my parents, they said that “everyone gets a little depressed sometimes” and that I needed to buck up and move on. That didn’t work very well, and it only spiraled out of control. Weekly panic

attacks and depressive episodes led to failing grades. It took begging and pleading to get my parents to take me to a therapist, where I was diagnosed with both anxiety and depression disorders.

This image represents the thoughts and feeling of a person with anxiety and depression.

My disorders are not an adjective you can use to add drama to your sentence. It is part of my life, and the more it is used as a flair world, the more desensitized people become, and the less serious they take these very serious issues.