Have you ever been told to 'just snap out of it' ? Yeah me too...
When you're suffering from mental illness a lot of people don't seem to understand that it's hard for you, that you struggle on a daily basis pretty much depending on how severe your mental illness is. I remember when I first started suffering from Depression and Anxiety (they both came at around the same time for me), most people wouldn't take me seriously...even some family members! They thought I was attention seeking, lazy, a liar and many more words which aren't PG friendly. All I needed was some help, for someone to understand - after all I was scared, I didn't know what was happening or why I felt the way I did. I just wanted to be told that it was going to be okay. Whenever I had a panic attack I was told I was overreacting because I would start crying and breathing fast out of no where. The things those people were saying were actually making me worse not better,I was only 14 at the time it all started so you can manage how words would of affected me back then.
Thankfully I did have some really supportive people, who actually learnt about what I was going through so that they were able to help me and to understand what I was going through during that time. But of course when your feeling negative all the time due to your mental illness and then your being attacked constantly by other people on top of that, there horrible words are going to stick with you the most. I can still remember it all 4 years later.
It's impossible to 'just snap out of it' , if you suffer from a mental illness it takes time to learn how to cope, even then it doesn't go away - it never goes away, it will always be there but you cope a lot better and can live life again as if it isn't there at all just like I do now. Sure you're going to have your bad days where it will make an appearance again but those bad days do get less and less trust me. You just need to find the right help and support. So to those of you who tell us to 'just snap out of it' do one because you're no help at all, myself and everyone else who is struggling right now don't need you saying things like that so I suggest you keep your mouth shut.
"If you don't have anything nice to say don't say it at all"
This blog post is aimed towards the people who judge those with mental illness but I also want to address those that are struggling and give them so advice so here it goes.
I know what it's like to struggle, at the beginning stages of my Anxiety and Depression I would just cry all the time, some times for no reason at all, I had no idea what was wrong with me. I got treated badly by those who I considered 'my friends' , some of my family members said hurtful things and my school took me out of all of my lessons because I had missed too much due to not being able to leave my house and go to school for about 6 months so therefore I was sat in one room for a whole year of my school life with a couple of people who also struggled and with some people that had misbehaved in lesson and got sent out. It was hell, I was basically teaching myself...luckily I'm quite a smart person and was able to teach myself but that's not the point I shouldn't of been treated like that, it was wrong. I was in school but isolated from 'normal' school life, this happened in my last year of school as well so that sucked.
I was sick of being treated so badly by everyone instead of them helping me and I was sick of feeling so awful within myself so I went out and found help and support for myself (along with the help of my mum too, thanks mum! : ) I booked doctors appointments and counselling sessions (it took me a long time to find a doctor and a counsellor that were actually helpful) , I bought some books on anxiety and I searched the internet a lot just so I could figure out what was happening to me, why I felt the way I did and how I could cope with it all. It took a long time but I got there in the end, I learned ways to cope (breathing exercises, distraction, taking small steps at a time) and soon enough my Anxiety and Depression lessened, although I still had a few wobbles here and there (and still do sometimes) I was able to lead a 'normal' life again. I could leave my house for a little while which eventually led to being able to leave my house for as long as I wanted to, my panic attacks became less frequent, and I became the happy, bubbly girl (with a bad day here and there of course) I used to be before this happened to me.
The Anxiety, Depression and Panic Attacks are still there, they make an appearance sometimes but now they are a part of me instead of being me. You can get to this stage too, I believe in you! :)
On October 10th (World Mental Health Day) there will be a blog post on ways to cope with Anxiety, Depression and Panic Attacks so stay tuned if you would like some more help and advice.
All the best!
-Megan
xo
P.S. I made a video over on my YouTube channel with the same name as this blog post, it's a creative video on being told to snap out of it. This blog post goes alongside that video so I recommend you check it out. It's linked above!
P.S.S On October 10th (World Mental Health Day) there will be a blog post on ways to cope with Anxiety, Depression and Panic Attacks so look out for that if you would like some more help and advice.
