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little louder for my peoples in back

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Constantly I am faced with a horribly cruel comments section. On any art or stamp depicting anything having to do with mental illness, it's paired with a million accusations of romanticizing it, glorifying it, seeking attention for it and faking it for said attention over and over again. All of the arguments I see are not only poorly constructed from a debate standpoint, but they hold no water when put up against the reality of the situation. They especially hold no water when the point of the art, or the stamp, was never explicitly stated. All these "arguments" are are hateful, rude comments from people who should be spending their energy on something more productive and positive, rather than worrying about the actions of other people on the internet. That said, I'm an adult and I understand that the internet reacts to every little thing as if it was just announced that Hitler is not actually dead and is the leader of Germany again. So I don't expect anything to change on that front.

So, what am I rambling about? To put it simply before I go into it; I do not glorify any mental illness by existing as a mentally ill person. I do not romanticize mental illness by talking about my own personal experiences with it. I do not glorify or depict it as anything but what it is (read: an illness) by creating a space online where I can talk about it to whatever extent I am comfortable with. My EXISTENCE doesn't GLORIFY a damn thing.

"But Maya, people who make/use these stamps are just faking it!"
Really? How do you know? Do you know them personally? And if you do, are you their psychologist, or their therapist? What about their brain? Congratulations, if you answered no to any of these, then you don't. You don't know anything. The thing about mental illness is that it's invisible, and for those of us that have been living with it all our lives, some of us have gotten pretty good at hiding it. I know when the "I'm just tired," with a small smile works to hide the fact that I'm actually depressed, that I've lost all motivation and I forced myself out of bed that morning, that my head is filled with thoughts of suicide. It's easy sometimes, to strangers especially. The point here is that you DON'T know. You can't know unless you're told.

"But they must be! Otherwise they wouldn't be saying they had [x mental illness]!"
Not everyone has to conform to your opinion. If that were true, we wouldn't have the need for presidential elections, or congress elections, or any form of government at all. Just as that's true, not everybody has to cope with a mental illness the same way you do or you think they should. In the face of overwhelming stigma and very little support, finding like-minded people who understand and support you is such a relief. Whether that be through online communities (7 Cups of Tea, Breakthrough, Talkspace) or through meeting new friends and building new relationships, how people choose to pursue that support and that well being is up to them, not you.

"Okay, but they are just defining themselves by their illness/disability and that's bad!"
Not for all of us it isn't. Sure, not all of us are defined by our depression or anxiety. Some of us had an "us" outside of that, BEFORE that came into play. But take it from somebody with a personality disorder - I AM defined by my illness. I have lived with it all my life despite being only diagnosed "officially" for a year and half. I will never recover from this because there is no fix, there is no cure. I can learn how to fight through it and deal with it, sure, but the solutions are never permanent. My disorder dictates the way I feel, act and react, and it paints the basis for all of my interpersonal relationships. While I may keep some of my "defining" traits without it, I'm not who I am without it. I have no way of knowing if one of my traits is me with or without a disorder, or is the disorder dictating the way I am. People like me exist. We are allowed to define ourselves by our disorder(s) because without it, we would be an entirely different person.

Stating for the record, I'm Maya, and I have borderline personality disorder. And yes, my illness DOES define me.

"But these stamps make it seem all cutesy and nice!"
Aesthetically pleasing does not mean I am depicting the content as such. I never see this argument when candy gore is involved. Gore is not cutesy and nice, but it sure as all hell is depicted that way when you make the blood pink and the severed limbs sparkly, wouldn't you agree? Just because something is displayed to be pleasing to the eye, does not mean the content in it's reality is like that.

(Also stating for the record, candy gore is fucking cool?? Bye.)

"But you're just stating to complete strangers that you have a serious illness!"

So? That's not up for YOU to dictate. If you'd rather hide your struggles, then that's up to you. When it comes to me personally, I am open about my illnesses and my struggles for a few reasons; one, it's my way of spreading awareness for stigmatized, "scary" illnesses; two, my illnesses, specifically, my BPD, paints my interactions with everybody and will forever continue to do so. I feel like anybody wanting to be my friend deserves to know this about me, since it will dictate how I interact with them. And three, because it's my online space, and as long as I'm not going against any respective websites ToS, I'm free to do with this space as I please, and your hateful comments aren't going to stop me from doing so.

Mentally ill people are allowed to love themselves despite their illness. They are allowed to love themselves BECAUSE of their illness. They are allowed to do as they please to cope and to recover (or not, recovery, if possible, is still up to them, and they are under no obligation to do so if they don't want to). Not everybody is under an oath to act one way or another, and by saying these hateful things, you might as well be saying "you need to be mentally ill this way or you're not really mentally ill", it gets the same point across in fewer words. Not everybody needs to fit your or society's definition of "normal".

Our existence isn't some horrible plague or burden that needs to be fixed.
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AProperCat's avatar

Mental illness as it is called, we are slowly discovering is part of human bio-diversity, not a bad thing.