I know there’s a mental health awareness month. I’m pretty sure it was last month, but who cares? I mean obviously October is spooky awareness month except months can encompass two things. Just like black history shouldn’t be celebrated only one month of the year, just like breast cancer shouldn’t be made aware for a single month, nor should mental illness. Am I writing this for any specific reason? No, not really. It’s more something I wanted to say for a while. Does my voice really care any weight? Does it affect anything? No, can’t say it really does that either. Except hell, everything I’ve written doesn’t carry any weight but I write it regardless probably for my own sanity. I think one thing that just really made me want to at least write something was after reading an article yesterday about cops killing a homeless man who apparently was riddled with mental illness. Which led the cops to riddle him with bullets. After they ran him over with their police car. After they missed running him over and then the cop specifically said “I want to hit him,” and proceeded to run him over. I’m not trying to make some political statement about cops though. I’m more just making a statement that a homeless man that was affected by mental illness was murdered because his own mental issues seemed to give off a threatening demeanor. It’s just like, damn man, prisons are the leading mental health treatment centers? That’s not even the point I’m trying to make either. I don’t even have a point per say, it’s just more I just wish the issue would evaporate into thin air. I’m just tired of the shit man. Recently, I’ve had a friend devastated by a family loss, I’ve had another friend end up in a hospital, and lord knows all the other incidents that are occurring that I don’t even know about. I dealt with depression in such a way that I proceeded to fail college classes, where I myself dealt with thoughts of how everything would better if I wasn’t around anymore, where I found myself unable to get out of bed for days on end. And what are the solutions? Hope you have good medical insurance so you can both have your own medication prescribed and maybe some help in the 100$+ therapy sessions that you so desperately need. Of course before you do all that, you have to admit your issues to somebody, anybody even though you’re completely ashamed of yourself and you’re embarrassed to even admit you have a problem because society has stigmatized mental illness as such a terrible thing to have. So what is this post even supposed to do? Maybe it inspires one of the four people who read this to admit to someone that they have an issue, maybe it helps someone realize that they aren’t alone in what they’re going through. A big thing for me was that I always thought my depression was so stupid. That it was caused by a break up? It was like how melodramatic can you get. Except that moment resulted in me sitting on a kitchen floor during a house party in my junior year of college saying “I wish someone would murder me. Then I’d be dead and my parents wouldn’t feel any guilt. Everyone wins.” That this point can point out that no matter how trivial you view a matter, it can be big, it can be all encompassing, it can ruin your life, it can destroy your personality, and thus even destroy your relationships with other people. I’ve gone through moments in my life where I knew that I was harming my friendships, my relationships, and I didn’t care because I couldn’t care. I couldn’t care about anything. Is it cathartic to write things like that out? Sure it is. Mainly because I was in a real hellish version of reality, and it’s not like depression is a curable disease. It’s not like mental illnesses of any sort are completely curable. They’re manageable, they’re recoverable, and yet they’re still always on the back of one’s mind. Not entirely sure how I went from commenting on police brutality to dealing with my own mental health issues. It’s just not fun. It’s especially not fun that so many people have to deal with this, and so many people have it treated like a joke. “Oh, you’re sad? Go hit the gym, go hang out with a friend, that’ll cure everything!” Except for your inability to do any of those things because of the inability for you to function in life. It’s just sad that however we came to exist, they made or science or whatever made it so that our stupid brain could get screwed up by stupid small burdens in life and morph into all consuming despair. Screw you brain. More importantly though, screw anyone that doesn’t consider mental illness a legitimate illness. Screw anyone that think it’s just a phase. Screw anyone that thinks it’s something you just get over in time. Screw you for not supporting more legislation to make mental illness a political priority. And for anyone that is dealing with mental illness of any sort; please talk to someone. Please talk to anyone! Talk to a stranger, talk to your friends, talk to your family, talk to a therapist. Get help, don’t beat around the bush because thinking you can fix yourself is an attitude that I think plenty of us have and plenty of us are confident we can do it and then there are plenty of us who realize months later that all we did was make things worse. I’m not writing this as a cry to help for me. I find myself in a pretty good situation right now and I couldn’t be more happy to be in that position. This is a more a call to action for those who are afflicted with these ailments. Society might stigmatize it, people might make light of it, but like I’ve already said that doesn’t change the fact that they are horrible diseases to deal with and that there is nothing to be ashamed of. Help is out there, people close to you, people even you barely know or don’t know at all want to help you. I want to help you random person who may stumble upon this blog haphazardly. These things are just shitty things that no one should have to go through alone, and so many of us feel we are. That’s just not how it works though, not all people are heartless assholes and people do care about you, care about us, no matter if we don’t. I just want everyone to feel good, I just want everyone to be happy. It’s a lot to ask for, it’s an impossible ideal, I just wish it could work out that way. Do I end it here? I feel all I’m going to do is repeat myself more and more if I keep trying to add words. So it goes…