How\u2019s that for a conversation stopper? The only way to top that is to announce that you have worms. People often get very nervous about mental illness. They think it means that a person is \u201ccrazy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve struggled with this expression for years, tried to avoid it, tried to use other, less onerous phrases. My favorite has been to say I\u2019ve got a psychological illness. Sounds ever so much better, but it essentially means the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Years ago a mental health worker sat me down and carefully explained to me that I wasn\u2019t mentally ill, I was emotionally ill. I suppose his intent was to make me feel better about being locked up in a psychiatric hospital, and in fact it did. I knew that my main problem was a disorder of my emotions \u2013 severe depression being the most prominent and troublesome symptom. It was severe enough that I was suicidal and needed to be hospitalized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To many people \u2013 myself included at one time \u2013 mental illness suggests \u201cinsanity\u201d or psychosis, complete inability to discern reality from fantasy or imagination. This isn\u2019t true. Many mentally ill people \u2013 most of us \u2013 don\u2019t have much trouble telling reality from imagination. Most of us aren\u2019t psychotic. Many of us are practical, level-headed people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What makes my affliction mental illness, rather than just emotional illness, is that the continued powerful mood colors my thinking. When I am feeling depressed, when there is an overwhelming mood of despair and sadness that endures for weeks or months, my thinking is affected. I begin to believe that the situation is hopeless; I make decisions based on faulty assumptions brought about by negative emotions. While I am not confusing reality with fantasy, I am nevertheless getting an inaccurate view of reality. It\u2019s distorted by the lens of depression. I\u2019m looking at the world through shit-colored glasses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How\u2019s that for a conversation stopper? The only way to top that is to announce that you have worms. People often get very nervous about mental illness. They think it means that a person is \u201ccrazy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-symptoms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178,"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions\/178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dark-night.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}