Mental Illness is a REAL Disease

Most mental illnesses aren’t something you can just will or pray away. You wouldn’t tell your loved ones or their caregivers to just ask God or want harder for their/their loved one’s cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, arthritis, HIV, dementia, dravet syndrome, sanfillipo syndrome,  etc… to go away! You’d advise them to continue seeing their/their loved one’s provider, take any prescribed medications, and follow their/their loved one’s doctor’s orders. So why are psychological disorders treated differently? Many of them have a physical or genetic cause much like the chronic medical issues listed above! For example, Schizoaffective Disorder, Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Clinical Major Depression, among others… all are linked to brain chemical and/or genetic changes and not personality deficis, environmental factors, or both like their counterparts, PTSD, BPD, Anxiety, Depression, OSDD, etc… And that’s why medication is the top treatment for one set but therapy is the preferred treatment the other. I happen to suffer from 1 from the medication/genetic/chemical group as well as 3 from the personality deficit/environmental factors side. And having the medication/genetic/chemical, does raise your chance to develop the /personality deficit, environmental factors if trauma were to occur even if not born originally with personality deficits although that alone can be enough as well. But a little backstory about me… My “labels” as many like to address it, are Schizoaffective Disorder Bipolar Type, Complex PTSD, Dissociative Identify Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder. (I’m also Autistic and ADHD… cutesy name “AUdh” -I think-). And I require both to be able to be a normal functioning adult, the best Mom at my highest potential, feel comfortable in my skin mentally and physically (the pain has an actual distinct physical agony all of its own), be genuinely happy and naturally calm (not having to force it and pretend to be that way in my purest form), to tell someone everything, raw, and true without fear of backfire because, luckily, you don’t have any homicidal or suicidal plans which is what makes things involuntary. You’re so grateful for that. And pray and will every night you never get that far and hope even though you know that’s not how it works, by some miracle it does just for you. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. Hope this helps open a few eyes and change a few minds. (-: