‘You’re not alone’ (yes, I am)

I really don’t appreciate how often that sentence comes up when I’m mentally ill, because yes, I am alone. In the end, it’s me that suffers, me that is diagnosed, and me that ends up shutting people out because they can’t deal with my ‘mental illness’.

One of the focuses for positive mental health is having a support network – your family, friends, psychiatrist, classmates, co-workers, whatever. Having people there that you can talk to when you’re struggling, and knowing that those people won’t judge you or make you feel worse, is crucial.

What about people without good support networks?

My family live overseas. I have two close friends but they also live overseas. I have a couple of friends here but I don’t feel close enough to them to trust them or burden them with my crap. My boyfriend has a mental illness (depression) as well so he has a hard time being there for me without getting burnt out.

 

My boyfriend asks me how I feel, but sometimes I know he really doesn’t want to know, so try to say ‘Nothing is wrong’ but he can feel that there is and he tries to dig it out of me. Meanwhile, I’m trying (FOR HIS SAKE) not to burden him with my stressors, because a lot of the time I know he thinks they’re pathetic (for instance – getting upset that he isn’t my friend on FB, but he’s friends with one of my friends that he claims not to like – he thinks that is ridiculous. It might be! It might be miniscule! But it HURTS me).

So, if I do end up telling him what’s wrong, he either misunderstands, gets mad, or walks away from me.

Two things I can’t stand more than anything:

• being ignored
• people walking away from me when I’m talking

I can understand now why people face things alone: not because they want to, but because when they get rejected, shut down, or invalidated, it hurts worse than keeping the thoughts to themselves.

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