Mental illness: unspoken things

There seems to be quite often a generalised view of the symptoms and behaviours of people affected by mental illnesses. There are also some aspects of dealing with a mental illness, at least in my personal experience, that are rarely spoken about. The exception to this is seeing them in the 'warning signs' list of any website that briefly explains mental illnesses. I want to go into detail and that is what this blog post is about. 

I want to start off by saying that i know that there are people that talk about this. Though, these writings are never in the media or spoken about as often as other writings on how depression makes you sleep a lot. For me personally, I want to share my experiences to encourage others to advocate about their own. The more people that advocate the greater the chance of success at allowing others to understand the unnoticed sufferings of someone who is affected by a mental illness.

1. Hygiene 

For me, hygiene has been an extremely difficult thing to maintain, especially when I was dealing with very severe depression. Even now, some days this still can affect me. 

The reality is that when your entire being feels empty and all you want is for everything to simply stop, hygiene is not a big priority. Nothing really is. You are so numb that you cannot bring yourself to care, even though you know you should. 

During my experiences, I remember being in a daze. An agonisingly slow numbness that consumed me. I didn't want to even open my eyes or move from my bed, least of all shower. So, it often came to be that I did not shower for 2-3 days, simply because the idea of it was so stupid and irrelevant when all I wanted was for everything to stop.

Concurrently, I found myself rarely changing my clothes. I confined myself to my room and more specifically, my bed. The clothes I went to bed with were the same ones that I woke in, existed in, for days. It was an endless cycle of only leaving my bedroom to go to the kitchen or bathroom. I knew that I should change, that what I was doing wasn't hygienic, but I just didn't care.  

Speaking of the kitchen, something that is very common (at least I have found) in individuals with mental illnesses, especially depression, is leaving plates, bowls and food in their room for days or weeks. I also have done this. In fact, my room probably constantly looked like it was some kind of disguised (unwashed) kitchen. Plates and bowls were often beside my bed, because I didn't have the energy or want to bother taking them back to the kitchen, even though I knew this behaviour was awful. 

That is the main point I want to make. The constant thought of ''why bother'' was in my mind so often due to my illnesses that it impaired my ability to look after myself. 

2. Anxiety - shitty business

I can only speak for myself and my experience with social anxiety on this one. I have had social anxiety for around eight years. 

Anxiety is physically taxing and debilitating. I have had many bouts of diarrhoea and constipation due to my anxiety. It seems that if I stress myself out too much, I upset my own stomach. There have been many times of pain in that area due to the fact that my anxiety had caused an awful feeling within my body that could only manifest itself physically. Again, this is not often talked about. 

3. Anxiety Behaviours

I remember in eighth grade when I was fourteen, I would hold my breath in class until I all-but turned purple, simply because I believed that if I breathed, someone would decide to make fun of me because I must sound weird. This is how awfully manipulative anxiety is to your brain. It tricks you to believing things that aren't true. That everyone is watching and judging. That the way you simply breathe is wrong. 

4. Messy Rooms

Though I do think this one is at least referenced in movies and TV shows more than the others mentioned previously, I think this needs to be noted. I'm not sure what it is that makes a messy room comforting to me. Perhaps it makes me feel less hallow, less empty. The truth is ever since I began to develop my mental illnesses, my room has always been messy. Piles upon piles of clothes are always tossed around my room. I save half of my bed for random things I occupied myself with for a little while, until I got bored of them - and never put them back where they came from. No matter how good I feel once I finally clean my room (because of inspections) it manages to become just as messy as before. 

5. Afraid of Having Children

I'm not sure whether this is just personal to me or not, but I thought I would include it. It is something that upsets me quite a bit. You see the concept of having children terrifies me. It's not the childbirth or even the dreaded teenage years I'm worried about, its the idea of genetically passing on my mental illnesses to them (or their learned behaviour from my own). It is something that has terrified me from as young as fourteen. The idea of a me bringing a child into this world only for them to suffer the same fate is awful to me. I know that I will most likely have children some day, but the concept still frightens me. 

So, these are a few snippets of aspects of mental illnesses (at least in my experiences) that I believe need more attention drawn to them. I hope one day, these aspects and others will become known.