WHAT YOU SHOULD BE AWARE OF: MENTAL ILLNESS

“Whether an illness affects your heart, your leg, or your brain, it’s still an illness, and there should be no distinction.” –Michelle Obama

Why is it that when you see someone lurking on the street, laughing by themselves, you scoff, you show disgust? Yet when you see a person struggling from cancer, you sympathize, you empathize? Why does schizophrenia seem worse than leukemia? When all they are is an illness of the body? The brain is part of the body, the breasts, and the legs. Why is mental or psychological related illness or chemical imbalance so shamed, characterized as more disgraceful than the physical ones? Doesn’t it make sense to see them treated the same way?

People who suffer from social anxiety or depression struggle just as people who suffer from cancer. Yet they are degraded and shunned for having these illnesses.

You don’t feel embarrassed to see a doctor when you get a broken leg or get something stuck inside your body, why should you when you have emotional issues?

I’ve read an article by Soong Phoon from The Manila Times saying that the only explanation she can think of is that mental illness manifests itself behaviorally, rather than physically, which can be more difficult for those observing and on the receiving end of this behavior to process. Though, like what she stressed out, some diseases also show behavioral afflictions but people who have them aren’t stigmatized much than the ones who have been clinically diagnosed with depression.

“Telling someone with depression to cheer up is like telling a cancer patient to cure themselves,” a quote from KatieKnows.

Observably, with Filipinos’ well-known happy-go-lucky attitude, I think this is just usually seen as ludicrous or just as a pessimistic way of thinking that can be shaken off. Some people even think a “snap out of it” or “get over it” can resolve anything. In fact, it doesn’t resolve anything. At all.


Now, I’m not implying that physical or other illnesses are worse than the mental ones. I’m implying that all illnesses, be it on the brain or your heart or kidney should be addressed, approached and treated equally so that people who have them don’t have to be afraid to seek for professional help; so that the fear of people distancing themselves away from them because of their past records would be soothed; so that people who have recovered from mental illness don’t have to carry discriminating or degrading labels in their lifetime.


Did you know that it’s just a myth that people who have psychosis are likely to be “violent”? That’s according to The British Psychological Society.
 

Actually, the ones who do the stigmatizing and discriminating towards these illnesses and people who have them tend to carry some “madness” in them that they usually accuse mentally disabled people to have. 


Countries, not only Philippines should give some more spotlight surrounding mental illnesses and educate all people about them. That could stop some stigmatizers from destructing other people who already have something that virtually destruct them.


Mental illness is a real thing that should be treated and focused on. They affect people’s lives and even some of these people’s families’ lifestyles. That’s enough for us to be comfortable talking and spreading awareness about it. So that stigma that causes discrimination and humiliation towards people who have and had them has the chance to finally disappear.

The Art of Drifting Away

“The worst way for friendship to end is for literally nothing to go wrong. You just stopped talking. They stopped messaging you to see how you’re doing and you get sick of being the first one to initiate the conversation so you just let the friendship go and wonder how that person is doing and never hear from them again.” – theyellowbrickroad (Tumblr)



When it comes to throwbacks, one of the difficult-to-look-back throwbacks is that last and old conversation you had with someone you used to talk for a very long time (or it seems to be). Isn’t it weird how people can talk or message each other for months or maybe even years straight and then one day, either one of them just gets tired of the constant occurrence? They just stop talking; they just stop messaging each other without heartfelt goodbyes. It is so odd that you can know someone’s everything then out of nowhere both of you just drift apart for no obvious reason. 


OBVIOUS reason. Which means there’s still a reason but just not as decipherable or apparent.


Well, sorry if I confuse you. 


But I don’t believe that there’s literally NOTHING that goes wrong when a friendship ends. There has to be a reason. There has to be a repressed and hidden reason in the back of your oblivious mind why it ended. You just don’t stop talking like that. 


It may be being swept off by the lack of time because of school, work, or maybe even hobbies. But I think the most tragic part is when one of you just stops caring. 


I don’t know about you but acknowledging the fact that majority of the people communicate by using the internet or technology, this inevitable tragedy of friendships would most likely happen to people who just communicate using their blinding phones or laptops in my opinion. Because you don’t usually see or talk to that person in your actual and daily life. It’s not like you can approach them any day in your school’s hallways and ask them why they aren’t they replying or talking to you anymore. What’s even worse is that most people you are close with when you talk to them in your not-so-actual life aka phones/internet, aren’t always the same when you talk to them in person. 


So let’s say Friend #1 was eating Nerd candies and by the name of the said product, it reminded her of her drifting-away friend that she haven’t talked for nearly a week now. The fact that their friendship was slipping away without human control came crashing down on her. So after pathetically hesitating and mentally debating herself to death, she messages her friend in attempt on saving their losing friendship: 

Friend 1: Hey, *insert friend 2’s name here* how have you been????

She waited.

And waited.

And waited for her friend’s reply. The first 2 minutes of agonizing silence made her ask herself “DOES SHE HATE ME WHY ISN’T SHE REPLYING”

Finally, after miraculously long and agonizing 3 minutes of waiting, Friend 2 replied with the most heartfelt response ever recorded in human History:

Friend 2: gud, wby?

Friend 1 was disappointed in a way she can’t decipher why. But she replied back anyway- in exchange to her best friend’s well phrased “gud, wby?”:

Friend 1: I'm good as well! Just a bit tired from doing projects. I wish I pass! Profs give a lot of work so we have to have a lot of sleepovers. So, yeah. :)

Friend 2: ahhhhhh ok

Friend 1: Haha yeah

Seen at 2:10pm

Seen at 2:10pm

Seen at 2:10pm 

Double kill. Okay zoned and Seen zoned.



This is a usual occurrence happens every time she checks up on her friend.



So when Friend 1 finally gets sick of the usual occurrence, which is composed of her first initiating the conversation and her friend- Friend 2 throwing back grammatically incorrect replies that apparently have no slight hint of affection, she just let the friendship go and finally decided to go with her own life, secretly wondering how her friend is doing and never hear from her again.

You see the reason here?

Someone gets tired. Someone stops caring. Someone stops trying. Then voila! Friendship is thrown into the Strangership.

As I go on with my life studying, with a schedule full as a corpulent man’s stomach, I couldn’t deny the fact that some people who I consider as friends in high school started to drift away. Daily conversations become old that they were thrown in the nostalgic soon-to-be-throwback zone, where you’d find yourself visiting once in a while.

But wait- it is just an inevitable tragedy about friendship. 


“FRIENDSHIPS ARE NOT DETERMINED BY HOW MUCH TIME YOU DO OR DO NOT SPEND WITH THAT PERSON.” As catrianasommers of Tumblr said. 

There are those friends who you didn’t talk for like forever but when you get to talk to them again- for the first time in a very long time, it’s like time is just figment of one’s imagination; it seems like you just talked yesterday and 12 months didn’t pass by.

The Fault In Our Time

“Conjoiner rejoinder poisoner concealer revelator. Look at it, rising up and rising down, taking everything with it.”


“What’s that?” I asked.


“Water.” The Dutchman said. “Well, and time.” –The Fault in Our Stars

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Do you hear that clock ticking? Do you see your time falling? Do you feel your time slipping [out of your grasp]? Do you taste the bitter aftertaste after time-eating? Do you? Do you?

Do you think you have achieved something after scrolling your 3 hours away on Facebook? Oh, friends, maybe. How about giving your 12 hours freely to a game? Entertainment, certainly. But can we just stop for a moment and ask ourselves if we have, indeed, done the things we are supposed to do?

Kudos to you if you have. But to those who haven't, may I ask why?

Besides laziness, one of the few reasons as to why people postpone one's assigned task is because of their time perceptions. There are common fallacies about time that contribute to the failure of accomplishing one's task we must know:


1. "It's not the perfect timing."

Maybe you feel like your creativity and productivity aren't 'on' today. And you feel as though the atmosphere isn't fitting and you're not inspired and determined enough to whatever you're ought to do. And maybe, doing your program assignment at this very moment doesn't feel like the right time. But the real question is: when do you think would be the perfect timing? When you're facing your laptop at 1 AM, wondering why you didn't start one week ago? If you use your belief about destiny when it comes to doing your assignments or projects, you're most likely going to be stuck on the Waiting Zone; waiting for some ineffable sign when to get your tasks done, not realizing that all this time, that sign you're superstitiously waiting is already plastered on your face saying: Now is the right time to do it.

2. "There's still a lot of time!"

So is clean/drinking water. But just like what the Ancient Mariner said, “Water, water everywhere, but nary a drop to drink”. Time is also limited in its own way. Water and time having a common is like saying “Time, time everywhere, but nary a minute to spend for a long time.”

Time is just as finite as clean water when it comes to your task’s deadlines. When you find yourself tapping away precious hours with your phone, remind yourself that you wouldn’t be saying “There’s still a lot of time!” anymore when Deadline stared at you dead in the gut.

3. "It's different this time."

Contrary to popular belief, thinking that tomorrow would be different is an extreme lie if you’re thinking about postponing your own assignments. Constant postponing won’t hand you any changes. Chances are, you will either just procrastinate even more or cry your regrets out when the cramming comes to the scene.


Having a flipped time perception won’t get you anywhere near done. Having a wise mindset is knowing what to prioritize and how to do the prioritizing. My great reminder would be based upon a quote from Julius Caesar: The fault, dear people, is not in our Time, but in ourselves.