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[gwynraven]

I have been recognising more and more lately just how deeply I have internalised the idea of mental health issues as being a weakness.  This frustrates the hell out of me because intellectually I don't believe that.  When I have friends who are dealing with mental health issues, I don't think of them as weak, or lazy, or somehow failures at life -

Comments

[gwynraven]

Thanks. There isn't anything anyone can do because I already *know* all the good advice. It's just . . . a lifetime habit of thought doesn't change easily. It doesn't matter how many people tell me it isn't my fault, that I'm not weak, that I'm worthy - I don't believe them. I don't even believe it when my therapist says it because, hey, she's a therapist, that's her job. And a voice that sounds far too much like my parents' always points out that my therapist and all my friends are those coddling liberal types and just because they say it's ok doesn't mean it really is. I was raised with that good old fashioned American work ethic and in the good old days no one sat around complaining that they were too tired and depressed to go into work because we didn't have these fancy things like sick time and FMLA and all that so if you didn't go into work you didn't get paid and you got fired and then you couldn't buy food to feed your family so by god those guys did it anyway and if they could do it what does it say about you that you can't, or won't?

I rejected that attitude and swore I'd never judge the people in my life like that. And I don't. I just judge me that way.

[cissa]

In the "good old days" a lot of people took to their beds and became invalids. Historical fact, if they or their families could afford it.

[gwynraven]

True. Sadly, no one's going to pay to keep me fed if I take to my bed as an invalid. FMLA is a life-saver: so far it's allowed me to keep my job.