My room mate is an advocate and educator for a living and maybe I caught the bug ;) But I am feeling emotionally charged from information I've taken in today and I decided I would turn this energy into something hopefully productive.
I can't speak for all mental illness as I'm not a doctor, but I do have an intimate personal knowledge of depression and anxiety. It makes me sensitive and I am less able to handle certain stresses than people who's brain chemistry is normal. This isn't a character flaw on my part or on the part of any body else who is afflicted with these kinds of ailments any more than a person whose diabetic can be blamed for acting "drunk" or slipping into a comma when there body is out of whack from not being able to process sugars normally.
I don't think people who haven't experienced clinical anxiety can understand what a person like me is experiencing walking through life so because I love analogies I have come up with one.
Imagine you are heading to work and on your way you get into a really bad car accident. People have been seriously injured you have seen blood and heard their screams and the sirens of the emergency vehicles. You can feel the physical ache in your body from when your body slammed into the airbag and the restraints in your car kept you from being airbourne. You however are able to walk away from the accident with no physically serious injuries, but you feel nauseated from everything you have just seen and heard, your head is spinning and foggy and you feel scared, stressed and wound up from the incident and know you could burst into tears at any moment... you are physically OK and could go to work, but you definitely don't feel up to it after what you've just been through.
It would probably take that kind of trauma for an average person to feel the physical and psychological symptoms that someone with an anxiety disorder for instance can just wake up feeling for no reason that there life circumstances can justify... it's all just because their brain doesn't have the proper homeostasis of chemicals like serotonin which people need to feel normal. I can feel nauseated all day, my muscles can ache and normal things that wouldn't affect you could cause me to feel an unbearable level of anxiety. But unlike when you are in a situation like the car accident I described above, I can't phone into work and explain the situation and why I am not able to come in. People don't understand why I and others like me can't take situations that are nonplus to them in stride and just "do my job" or whatever is expected of me socially.
So please, if you know someone who is brave enough to admit their challenge with anxiety or another mental health condition I hope the car accident analogy can offer you a moments pause to have compassion and understanding for their limitations. And I hope you can value the work they do and appreciate the underlying struggle they go through that they will probably never let you know about. We don't deserve to be passed up for raises, bonuses or promotions because we take more sick time than the average person. We don't deserve to be made fun of as though our illness is a character flaw. Let's let bonuses be based on the time worked so that everyone can be rewarded for the efforts and energy they were able to contribute rather than punishing people who suffer from these conditions for absences do to illness.
Our sensitivity's offer unique perspectives as well as challenges. We are individuals with gifts, abilities, aptitudes and talents just like the rest of the population. Please keep this in mind if you work with someone with a mental health disorder. Like people with intellectual or physical disability we have special needs and unique limitations, but unlike these other groups our challenges aren't usually visible or immediately apparent. We are all sharing this planet lets make society a place of inclusion for all of us.
I can't speak for all mental illness as I'm not a doctor, but I do have an intimate personal knowledge of depression and anxiety. It makes me sensitive and I am less able to handle certain stresses than people who's brain chemistry is normal. This isn't a character flaw on my part or on the part of any body else who is afflicted with these kinds of ailments any more than a person whose diabetic can be blamed for acting "drunk" or slipping into a comma when there body is out of whack from not being able to process sugars normally.
I don't think people who haven't experienced clinical anxiety can understand what a person like me is experiencing walking through life so because I love analogies I have come up with one.
Imagine you are heading to work and on your way you get into a really bad car accident. People have been seriously injured you have seen blood and heard their screams and the sirens of the emergency vehicles. You can feel the physical ache in your body from when your body slammed into the airbag and the restraints in your car kept you from being airbourne. You however are able to walk away from the accident with no physically serious injuries, but you feel nauseated from everything you have just seen and heard, your head is spinning and foggy and you feel scared, stressed and wound up from the incident and know you could burst into tears at any moment... you are physically OK and could go to work, but you definitely don't feel up to it after what you've just been through.
It would probably take that kind of trauma for an average person to feel the physical and psychological symptoms that someone with an anxiety disorder for instance can just wake up feeling for no reason that there life circumstances can justify... it's all just because their brain doesn't have the proper homeostasis of chemicals like serotonin which people need to feel normal. I can feel nauseated all day, my muscles can ache and normal things that wouldn't affect you could cause me to feel an unbearable level of anxiety. But unlike when you are in a situation like the car accident I described above, I can't phone into work and explain the situation and why I am not able to come in. People don't understand why I and others like me can't take situations that are nonplus to them in stride and just "do my job" or whatever is expected of me socially.
So please, if you know someone who is brave enough to admit their challenge with anxiety or another mental health condition I hope the car accident analogy can offer you a moments pause to have compassion and understanding for their limitations. And I hope you can value the work they do and appreciate the underlying struggle they go through that they will probably never let you know about. We don't deserve to be passed up for raises, bonuses or promotions because we take more sick time than the average person. We don't deserve to be made fun of as though our illness is a character flaw. Let's let bonuses be based on the time worked so that everyone can be rewarded for the efforts and energy they were able to contribute rather than punishing people who suffer from these conditions for absences do to illness.
Our sensitivity's offer unique perspectives as well as challenges. We are individuals with gifts, abilities, aptitudes and talents just like the rest of the population. Please keep this in mind if you work with someone with a mental health disorder. Like people with intellectual or physical disability we have special needs and unique limitations, but unlike these other groups our challenges aren't usually visible or immediately apparent. We are all sharing this planet lets make society a place of inclusion for all of us.
*Michele
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