Current Events > Living with a form of mental illness sucks. People think you're normal...

(+) Yeah! (+)

because you're not displaying obvious signs of instability. It can go on for months with people mistakenly perceiving you to be on top of your game because you're feeling "fine" and suddenly your anxiety and bouts of depression comes back tenfold. Now you can't focus and the complicated nuances of your job/duty/task seem like a different language. The people around you just don't understand and think you're just malingering or finding an excuse for being lazy. You explain to them that you have depression and anxiety and they just roll their eyes invalidating your illness because other people have it harder. But the anxiety and depression is still there. You still can't focus and you still have to do your job. So you spend twice as long trying make up for the difference only to result in mediocre work because you couldn't focus. Your peers still think you're being lazy because they compare your work to what you did before. Now there's the perception that your original work was based on a fluke. Nobody thinks you're the top performer anymore. Now the motivation to do well is gone and any effort to try will be overlooked as an futile attempt by your peers. Everything starts to suck and the world doesn't make sense anymore.

Can anybody relate?

Yep.

Throw in some imposter syndrome for good measure because why the fuck not.

Yes you're on an internet forum and a lot of us probably relate a little bit too hard

Not trying to be an ass, I'm really trying to say there's probably no better place to look for people who relate. And as someone who relates, something I tell myself that really helps is "This is all temporary."

Your situation is always mutable, never static. To quote a comedian, "Life is a lot like peeing in the snow on a dark winter night. You probably made a difference, but it's really hard to tell."

Hope you keep your head up, TC. Please don't feel like you have to fight this battle on your own. If you have friends nearby, reach out to them about it. If you can't reach out to them about it, they're not really your friends. Or good friends anyway.

Family, friends, even this board... maybe not this board all the time but you get what I mean.

ThePieReborn posted...

Yep.

Throw in some imposter syndrome for good measure because why the fuck not.

I sometimes wonder if everybody who isnt a complete idiot has some level of imposter syndrome.

Glob posted...

I sometimes wonder if everybody who isnt a complete idiot has some level of imposter syndrome.

Same. Occurred to me after some time that almost nobody in the world actually knows what they are doing. Scary thought.

Don't we all have some form of mental illness, in which case what is actually normal?

TodorokiHayato posted...

You explain to them that you have depression and anxiety and they just roll their eyes invalidating your illness because other people have it harder.

My coworkers are the type that have to always outdo everyone else. If someone does something good, they could do it better. If someone is sick, they have it worse.

So one time I was REALLY struggling, and I don't often open up about my issues but it becoming fairly obvious. So I apologized and explained that I was struggling with my anxiety. And I was immediately interrupted with "Ha! You think you've got anxiety? You ain't got nothing like what I deal with." Then the other spoke up "You two are wrong, I'M THE ONE with anxiety. Neither of you know what real anxiety is.'

Then it proceeded with the two of them arguing over which one had it worse, and they got pissed at each other because neither would admit that the other had it worse.

The thing is, the "anxiety" they were talking about was just stress from life. They were using things like "sometimes I need to spray something that smells nice to relax, that's how bad I have it." Or eat something sweet like a piece of candy. As if that demonstrated anything. I just walked away because I knew I wouldn't be able to express anything.

KogaSteelfang posted...

My coworkers are the type that have to always outdo everyone else. If someone does something good, they could do it better. If someone is sick, they have it worse.

So one time I was REALLY struggling, and I don't often open up about my issues but it becoming fairly obvious. So I apologized and explained that I was struggling with my anxiety. And I was immediately interrupted with "Ha! You think you've got anxiety? You ain't got nothing like what I deal with." Then the other spoke up "You two are wrong, I'M THE ONE with anxiety. Neither of you know what real anxiety is.'

Then it proceeded with the two of them arguing over which one had it worse, and they got pissed at each other because neither would admit that the other had it worse.

The thing is, the "anxiety" they were talking about was just stress from life. They were using things like "sometimes I need to spray something that smells nice to relax, that's how bad I have it." Or eat something sweet like a piece of candy. As if that demonstrated anything. I just walked away because I knew I wouldn't be able to express anything.

Those people are asshats.

KogaSteelfang posted...

My coworkers are the type that have to always outdo everyone else. If someone does something good, they could do it better. If someone is sick, they have it worse.

So one time I was REALLY struggling, and I don't often open up about my issues but it becoming fairly obvious. So I apologized and explained that I was struggling with my anxiety. And I was immediately interrupted with "Ha! You think you've got anxiety? You ain't got nothing like what I deal with." Then the other spoke up "You two are wrong, I'M THE ONE with anxiety. Neither of you know what real anxiety is.'

Then it proceeded with the two of them arguing over which one had it worse, and they got pissed at each other because neither would admit that the other had it worse.

The thing is, the "anxiety" they were talking about was just stress from life. They were using things like "sometimes I need to spray something that smells nice to relax, that's how bad I have it." Or eat something sweet like a piece of candy. As if that demonstrated anything. I just walked away because I knew I wouldn't be able to express anything.

That's the thing. People who don't experience "real" anxiety have a very basic pop culture understanding of it, which seems to extend well into corporate culture. It's like if you have anxiety or depression, they'll compare it to their own experiences and downplay the fact that everything can be resolved with drugs, alcohol, and strippers/escorts. It's like, "Oh yeah buddy, you're feeling anxious and depressed? Stephanie from Bada-Bing will take care of ya." NO dude. You're probably a psychopath or you're also depressed and don't realize it yet.