Everyone's At It: Mental Illness.

She's just walking out on life.

This is something which I overheard my father recently say to my mother. I had done the typical teenage act of storming out, in tears. He and my mother -who are seldom in the same building as each other, unless they have to go to a meeting about their mess of a daughter- began to argue about me; he said that I was walking out on life but my mother argued that my behaviour was not symbolic of what I was actually actually trying to get through, which was improving my life and trying to be strong.

Every single day thousands, no, surely millions of people walk out on life. Hordes of people, many of whom were or had the potential to be amazing writers, cooks, musicians, teachers, plumbers, electricians, waitresses, builders or lawyers. Beautiful people, ugly people, nice people, nasty people, all kinds of people from all walks of life. Many, many, many people decide or believe they cannot or do not want to live in this world, on this planet any more and that this is it for them. And they, therefore, take action to destroy their physical life forever.

I have a friend who once said to me that he believed people who had depression were "weak." I immediately turned on him angrily and started counteracting his idea, eventually concluding that he was a spoiled rich boy who had never really been through anything in his life.

I may or may not have been right in my argument, though I am still sure that he was wrong in his. My own mother is a character of extraordinary strength, but she has suffered from depression several times in her life and mine. She tried to kill herself during her early twenties, tried to "walk out on life."

People like my aforementioned friend may have decided to call her weak for her actions and feelings, but I would not, and nor would anyone, I think, with any sense of compassion who knew what she had been through. My mother developed a mental illness after loss of a child. I think it would be fair to say, would it not, that this is rather understandable?

Mental illness and suicide are not something that should be taken lightly and yet these days all of it is. A vast amount of people in our culture are diagnosed and prescribed and pushed and poked and talked about and whispered about and mumbled about and all the while hating everything around them, comparing themselves, wanting to walk out, just to walk out all the time. Not only do people have to feel this way and be treated this way, with this plastic kindness, but it seems like a large amount of it is, unfortunately, glamorized too.

Everyone seems desperate to have a mental illness. How often do we now hear the eagerly spoken words, ”I have bi-polar disorder” or ”I feel like I might have this wrong with me…”
My entire generation is fast becoming a wave of hypochondriacs, with thousands of young adolescents full of false ideas of mental illness and depression.

It is very difficult, of course, to try and dissuade this sort of behaviour and these ideas without making people with actual mental illness and problems feel like they're making a fuss over nothing and don't have the right to speak out and ask for help.

It's more than simply a case of "don't worry, be happy," and yet far less than the idea that plenty of people are pushing forward, this insanity that we all have to have something wrong with our heads or moods. The basic facts, as far as I can see are this: Firstly, those with mental illness need help. They deserve help, and simply clapping them on the back and telling them not to be weak is not a route that heads to them getting better.
Secondly, if you do not actually struggle with mental illness, be very grateful. There are enough things in the world just waiting to kick every one of us down in different ways that we do not by any means need to do it to ourselves. So please, all those people who claim to have undiagnosed severe depression, bi-polar disorder or any other type of mental illness, for a diagnosis. Because I have a feeling that not quite every third person I meet actually has such illnesses, so somebody must be lying.

If you are struggling in your life or with yourself, then you can get help. There are people on your side. Of course it isn't as simple or easy as that, and it often reaches a point with such things where the sufferer really does not want help any more, they just desire the peace they imagine will come with giving up. I am not here to order anyone around or tell anyone what to do. I am simply saying that, quite simply if you feel bad and it isn't going away, you can get help. You deserve help. You deserve to live. Many people walk out on this life, but it doesn't have to be you.