There is a common misconception surrounding mental disorders in today's society and many a time they are used in the wrong content.
Anxiety
There are many people who suffer from anxiety both openly and in silence. Anxiety is commonly miss diagnosed and often causes people who do have anxiety to suffer in silence. Although the slight feeling of anxiousness in an exam we all get does not diagnose yourself with anxiety. Anxiety is where those feelings of anxiousness affect your daily life. Those things can vary to a specific scenario, compared with a range of situations. Anxiety is often connected with panic attacks that appear in terms of feeling anxious. Suffering from panic attacks or anxiety does not make you weak and if you suffer from it do not let people pick it out of you. If you feel anxious focus on a happy thing or place that relieves you of your worry.
Depression
I am sure there has been many times where you have said
"I'm depressed", wherever the true meaning of depression is far deeper than that of when we are just feeling down. It is more than feeling simply unhappy or fed up for a few days. Depression can sometimes be taken as a trivial where as the truth is a serious condition that can affect the lives of those who have been inhabited by it. Depression effects different people in different ways, however often leaves the person feeling lost without a sense of purpose. However depression isn't a thing that you can get
'get over' by
'pulling yourself together'.
Eating Disorders
Like a lot of mental disorders, eating disorders such as anorexia, binge eating, bulimia or EDNOS, go commonly undiagnosed due to the surrounding stigma of them. Eating disorders can spiral from a range of things, however most times it is not by positive choice, it is something that just happens without full realisation. Eating disorders are on the rise due to the increased pressure on the younger generation by society to look a certain way with only one perfect figure. Where in reality we do not need to look a specific way to be
'beautiful'. That is what people with eating disorders struggle to comprehend, they often feel stuck. The only way out is balance.
The stigma surrounding mental disorders needs to go and the realisation of the damage they are doing to each generation needs to be reckoned and more needs to be done. Those with mental disorders feel alone and vulnerable, feeling isolated, however too scared to ask got help.
Mental disorders aren't a fashion statement.
Don't allow yourself to suffer in silence.
"Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all" - Bill Clinton
