Frustration.

Inbetween the rampant "Hey, is this cool or not cool?" entries, there's some real content in here, I promise.

Frustration with those afflicted with mental illnesses is something I've been thinking about for awhile now. There have been many times where I've been hurting, in pain, crying out for someone to listen and to tell me something, anything, that will penetrate the fog. And people don't respond very well to that. People generally get sick of the perceived "whining," the self-indulgent speeches, the fact that, quite frankly, a person in any kind of situation needs to think out loud and bounce ideas and theories and questions off of something.

Somehow it's okay when people are exploring the problem at the office with a friend after hours, but once it turns internal, once it's something purely from your emotions, your chemical imbalances and your own personal hell, it's anathema.

People don't want to hear it. They want you to get over it, immediately, and you are a soul-sucking leech at best if you don't put up and shut up. Few people understand the detriment of keeping these thoughts to yourself - mental illness is isolating, and people isolate you because of it. That's a double-dose of being forced into alone time, bouncing ideas off of *yourself* - and in case you've never tried it while being in the grip of a heavy depression, it simply makes it worse. You start thinking, and it spins down fast and hard, the ideas coming more and more quickly than your brain is capable of taking, until the end result is that you want to scream, because you simply hate yourself and this process so much.

That, I suppose, is why the mentally ill pay people to shut up, look pretty, and listen for a little while. If you can get some meaningful feedback - "Well, okay, but what if you look at it THIS way?" - that can make all the difference. "You're not crazy, you just need to work through it out loud" is a powerful statement. The mentally ill are NOT simply insane - mothers who are stuck in a fog of depression and anger and fear after the birth of their children are drowning in a sea of complex hormones, feelings, lifestyle changes, and the fact that their very identity is being rapidly reshaped by a very small person who doesn't care how their mother feels at the moment. Those with acute anxiety are not panicking in the corner because they want you to feel bad for them - on the contrary, they probably don't want you to know that they're panicking at all.

Mental illness is really frustrating to deal with, no matter which side you're on. It's very hard not to throw your hands up and say things like "Well, if you want to kill yourself, just DO it already and quit TALKING about it!" It's hard, and it's time-consuming, and it makes you question your own thoughts and mortality and wonder if you could ever become irrational, or so terrified of bad things that you couldn't leave the house. It's a wonder that any of us ever grow up and move out - and those with anxiety will tell you that they have no idea how others live without the burden of knowing the thousands of things that can go terribly wrong at any given moment, in any given situation.

The point is that people aren't ill, they don't have a disorder, they aren't venting for your benefit. If someone in your life is mentally ill and you're not up to the task of letting them bounce it off of you to get some kind of feedback, that's fine. But don't listen for a little while and then give up, saying it's too hard, calling them names and telling them how pitiful they are. "Get over it," "you're sucking the soul out of me," "just do it if you're going to and shut up!" How is that possibly helpful? If you want to back out, fine. If you need to say "I need to protect my own mental health and the intensity of this conversation is making me think some very hard thoughts and question myself in a way that I need to take time to figure it out," that's perfectly acceptable. "Go f*ck off and die" ... not so much. Frustration is normal, but keep in mind that the person behind the illness, the person who is hurting or terrified, is just as frustrated as you are, and trust me - most of them would snap out of it faster than you could ever imagine, if they only could.