A PSA Regarding Mental Illness
Apr. 18th, 2011 09:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jadedmusingsContext is important!
I'm going to say something and I want you to repeat it after I say (well, type) it:
A person is NOT his/her illness.
I am, of course, speaking of mental illness. I am not Anxiety. I am not Depression. I am Jade and I am a human being like you. I deserve no less than to be treated with love and respect by my boyfriend, friends, and family. It is inexcusable for anyone to treat me as somehow less worthy of an equal, loving partnership with another human being because of something I have no control over.
My boyfriend is not my caretaker; he is my equal. My illness does not make me incapable of living an independent life, does not make me dependent on others in order to live. I am in a relationship because I choose to be. It does not make me unfit to be a mother, girlfriend, friend, daughter, niece, etc. No one in my life "puts up" with me. They want me in their life because they care for me, the person.
To reduce me to my illness, to say that my boyfriend is dating my illness and not me, is to dehumanize me. Dehumanization is what makes it easier for abusers to excuse their abuse. If you aren't a person, it doesn't matter how poorly someone else treats you. You should just be happy someone wants you around at all. I should know. I have been told this by others and told it to myself for years. As a result, I stayed in harmful and toxic relationships for years, romantic and otherwise. That's why it's important for me that it doesn't happen to someone else, it's why it's so important to remove the stigma of mental illness and why it's important to battle ableism whenever it rears its ugly head.
P.S.: Do not comment if you want to talk about how ~hard~ it is to be in a relationship with someone who has a mental illness. I was raised by a mentally ill parent so I know exactly what it's like when someone you love has a mental illness, probably way better than you. This post isn't about that, it's about treating someone with a mental illness diagnosis as a person and not reducing them to their illness. Besides, however difficult you think your life is for being with someone who just happens to have an illness or disorder, it's that much harder for that person to live in a world where they're constantly dehumanized, stigmatized, and treated as less than everyone else.
P.P.S: It's only Monday and already I'm sick of mental health wank.
I'm going to say something and I want you to repeat it after I say (well, type) it:
A person is NOT his/her illness.
I am, of course, speaking of mental illness. I am not Anxiety. I am not Depression. I am Jade and I am a human being like you. I deserve no less than to be treated with love and respect by my boyfriend, friends, and family. It is inexcusable for anyone to treat me as somehow less worthy of an equal, loving partnership with another human being because of something I have no control over.
My boyfriend is not my caretaker; he is my equal. My illness does not make me incapable of living an independent life, does not make me dependent on others in order to live. I am in a relationship because I choose to be. It does not make me unfit to be a mother, girlfriend, friend, daughter, niece, etc. No one in my life "puts up" with me. They want me in their life because they care for me, the person.
To reduce me to my illness, to say that my boyfriend is dating my illness and not me, is to dehumanize me. Dehumanization is what makes it easier for abusers to excuse their abuse. If you aren't a person, it doesn't matter how poorly someone else treats you. You should just be happy someone wants you around at all. I should know. I have been told this by others and told it to myself for years. As a result, I stayed in harmful and toxic relationships for years, romantic and otherwise. That's why it's important for me that it doesn't happen to someone else, it's why it's so important to remove the stigma of mental illness and why it's important to battle ableism whenever it rears its ugly head.
P.S.: Do not comment if you want to talk about how ~hard~ it is to be in a relationship with someone who has a mental illness. I was raised by a mentally ill parent so I know exactly what it's like when someone you love has a mental illness, probably way better than you. This post isn't about that, it's about treating someone with a mental illness diagnosis as a person and not reducing them to their illness. Besides, however difficult you think your life is for being with someone who just happens to have an illness or disorder, it's that much harder for that person to live in a world where they're constantly dehumanized, stigmatized, and treated as less than everyone else.
P.P.S: It's only Monday and already I'm sick of mental health wank.
