It’s About Mental Health

A question has been bothering me lately, and the question is "When is it your mental health and when are you simply being an asshole?"

It feels controversial but speaking from experience -- I have lived with mental health issues for years, with diagnosis ranging from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression, just an anger issue... Never really receiving the same diagnosis twice.

I have been on a variety of medication, and have been consistently on the same medication for around 8 years.

Currently I function well, and maybe once or twice a month I take a day to lay in bed and avoid everyone because I think that's what works.

Of course the guilt kicks in because "you're not actually sick, you should be at work", but I digress.

There was a time that I probably didn't want to get better because I preferred to have an excuse for my behaviour.

Who was going to hold me accountable if I said "it's not me, it's my mental health, my diagnosis, it's just the way I am."

And I was mean. Very mean.

I was miserable and intent on making sure everyone around me felt the same way.

I am so grateful to those that stuck by, and especially grateful to the ones that held me accountable.

Regardless of what I was feeling I had no right to treat people the way I did.

There is a level of confusion, a level of frustration when dealing with mental health issues and who actually knows the proper way to deal with any of it but I truly believe you do not get to tack on side affects to your diagnosis, or self-diagnose and make excuses for your shitty behaviour at times.