I totally agree with you. I've seen people say "I've got depression so I can't go to work." Well no, in some cases you don't have depression that bad so it's a choice. I've been diagnosed with a lot of things (anxiety, social anxiety, GAD, agoraphobia etc.) but I still think I'm able to lead a fairly normal life. Is my life always easy? Certainly not! But I can't just hide away all my life. And when I was really tested, like with my Nan being ill I found I was able to cope and I was a lot stronger than I expected. My motto is I'm going to do things "that scare me." I'm going to try driving again. I'm going to try to be friends with my sister. I'm going to start trying to eat at restaurants again. And so on.
I agree with you here, with one's mental diseases not making a person who they are. If I can confess something here, I have issues with my social anxiety, but I don't let it define myself and who I am. I can't just hide away all my life, so I keep moving forward.
Thank you for the clarification. Put that way, I see nothing wrong with your stance, and no, you didn't come across like a complete jackass.
I like the idea of calling it a disease instead of an illness. I might try adopting that, though I still mostly go with "neuroatypical" to get across the point that it has to do with the way my brain is built.
I'm the same as you with being vocal about my disease on a personal level, but keeping it quiet on a professional one. Tell (possible) employers that you have a mental disease and watch all your credibility and all the respect they might have held for you fly out of the window. Which is just so asinine, because there are lots of people with lots of different mental diseases who accomplish so much every day.
I agree with thought number four wholeheartedly. Everybody's got problems, and we're all a little bit messed up at one point or another in our lives. But it is up to us to stand up, and try to better ourselves! "You don't understand", some people say. Of course I don't understand the nature of your problems in particular, that is impossible! What I do understand is that we don't do ourselves any favours by playing victims and waiting for life to deal us a better hand.
Thought number two is interesting as well, and rather curious. The concept of honour, or "face", as some of us Asians call it, is still greatly prevalent in societal rules, so to speak. I think of Japanese warriors and harakiri. Or perhaps the idea of marriage because of one of the party's honour having been "compromised"; like if spotted holding hands or kissing someone in public, the honourable thing to do would be to marry.
Yeah. Even if you do understand, sometimes that still doesn't change the circumstances of life.
It is still prevalent in many asian societies, I find. It is loosening a little with the mixing in of western culture, but it is still there. Likewise there is a great system on how to be polite to people and how to approach certain situations in such stringent societies. Honor makes people do a lot of very odd and violent things many times so when you deal with such high stakes people try their best to not get on anybody's wrong side. I get that viewing it through a violent light only underplays the whole social stigma and shunning, but I feel like the violence can go hand and hand with the more serious social disgaces- like in the case of harakiri.
Re: thoughts to your thoughts...i_llbedammnedJanuary 13 2014, 18:19:40 UTC
I am glad my Thor thoughts make sense.
Heh. I don't think it's a modern thing. People have always been kind of stupid in large groups and rude. I mean no matter the age of the writing you always see rude characters.
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I am glad you are trying things that scare you. That is very brave of you!
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I like the idea of calling it a disease instead of an illness. I might try adopting that, though I still mostly go with "neuroatypical" to get across the point that it has to do with the way my brain is built.
I'm the same as you with being vocal about my disease on a personal level, but keeping it quiet on a professional one. Tell (possible) employers that you have a mental disease and watch all your credibility and all the respect they might have held for you fly out of the window. Which is just so asinine, because there are lots of people with lots of different mental diseases who accomplish so much every day.
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Thought number two is interesting as well, and rather curious. The concept of honour, or "face", as some of us Asians call it, is still greatly prevalent in societal rules, so to speak. I think of Japanese warriors and harakiri. Or perhaps the idea of marriage because of one of the party's honour having been "compromised"; like if spotted holding hands or kissing someone in public, the honourable thing to do would be to marry.
Reply
It is still prevalent in many asian societies, I find. It is loosening a little with the mixing in of western culture, but it is still there. Likewise there is a great system on how to be polite to people and how to approach certain situations in such stringent societies. Honor makes people do a lot of very odd and violent things many times so when you deal with such high stakes people try their best to not get on anybody's wrong side. I get that viewing it through a violent light only underplays the whole social stigma and shunning, but I feel like the violence can go hand and hand with the more serious social disgaces- like in the case of harakiri.
Reply
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Heh. I don't think it's a modern thing. People have always been kind of stupid in large groups and rude. I mean no matter the age of the writing you always see rude characters.
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