Cat Fight In The Kitchen-Wattpad Rant

Mental Illness

Sometimes you can't leave the house because you just don't feel like it, even though you really wanted to go out with those friends you haven't spoken to since high school.

Sometimes you can't meet new people because you don't want them to think you're a freak for having a mental illness. You're not. And I'm here to tell you that it's okay if you're okay one day and then not the next. It's okay. You're not a freak. You're not a problem. You're not a burden. You're a person and you deserve to be treated like one.

And it's okay to have good days. It doesn't make you a fake or a liar. You're allowed to have depression and still find ways to be happy. You're allowed to have good days. In fact, you deserve them. You can have PTSD and face some of your biggest fears without having a meltdown. You can do it and it is one of the most rewarding things ever. You're allowed to have good days, don't let people tell you that makes you or your characters a fake.

So let's think about this when we diagnose our characters. If you're going to give them a mental illness you can't just cut all the strings that are always attached. You have to accept them just like everyone with these disorders has to accept the fact that life must be lived day-by-day.

3. It's not always about self-loathing

This is something I don't see a lot of people talk about, but I definitely see happening a lot in stories. A lot of people tend to assume that most mental illnesses come with a lot of self-loathing. They must, right? Because they're mental. They're in a person's head.

That's not always true. It's not always about hating yourself. Sometimes it's feeling trapped. Sometimes it's feeling confused. Sometimes it's about feeling lost or lonely. It's not about thinking your fat so you can't eat, or feeling bad about yourself so you're "depressed". Sometimes it's about having a lot of feelings that you can't process.

People always ask me a good way to describe what it's like to have all these weird emotions that you can't process and I don't really know, because there are just so many things and it's different for so many people.

But for some reason—and I honestly don't know why—when people ask me something about having a mental illness I always think about the night before I moved back in with my dad when I was eighteen. I'd moved in with my best friend literally a few days after we graduated from high school and that fall my dad had surgery to have cancer removed, so I decided to move back in with him and I remember that night was a particularly bad one because I was so upset and so stressed out and just had all kinds of feelings that I couldn't handle.

And I remember it was about two in the morning and I was in bed and my best friend was beside me and he was sound asleep and I felt like I was drowning. It had started kind of slowly at first. When I'd gone to bed I'd felt really heavy and when I laid down it felt like I was just sinking into the mattress. And once I'd gotten so far down it literally felt like my lungs were filling with water and there was something on my chest.

And I remember panicking. I kept thinking about all these horrible things, like what was going to happen to my dad, and if my best friend was going to move off without me, and if my brother was going to move in with his girlfriend and leave me there all alone. And I'd already started getting sick—this was about a month and a half before I had to be hospitalized—so I had all this anxiety over people finding out about what I was doing to myself. There was just so many things I couldn't stop thinking about and they were all crashing down on me that night.

It was like being on a sinking ship. All my thoughts were so overbearing and I could feel the water rising up and slowly covering every inch of me until I thought I couldn't breathe. I had to keep thinking about it. In. Out. In. Out. And I just kept laying there, staring at the ceiling like it was some kind of shoreline that I desperately wanted to get to. But I just kept going down and I couldn't stop myself.

I didn't realize it until my tongue started sticking to my teeth because it was so dry, but I kept mouthing "help me" over and over and over. Once I realized I was doing it I kept trying to scream, but I couldn't make any sound. And I remember finally being able to move my head and look over at my best friend and usually that comforted me, but that night I remember getting so mad.

It was that kind of anger that makes your heart drop into your stomach and your ribs pound on their own where your heart is supposed to be. And your throat swells up and your eyes start to burn like someone just hit you in the nose. And your whole body hurts and you can't see straight because you're trying to hold it together when you're so close to just having a meltdown.

Yet he was sleeping so peacefully. He was lying there, just inches away, and he couldn't hear me.

I felt like I was screaming at the top of my lungs, trying to tell him to abandon ship. I kept thinking "Mayday! This is an emergency! We have to leave!" But he never moved. He just kept sleeping and the more time that passed the angrier I kept getting. It was sink or swim and I was just drowning. And he didn't hear me. Just like everyone else. I'd been asking for help since I was five and no one had ever heard me. No one. And in that moment all the weight just kept dragging me down. I just kept thinking that I wanted someone to help me leave but no one ever would.

I don't even remember how, but eventually I managed to wake my best friend up and he asked me if I was okay and all I could do was just say no. And he thought I'd had a nightmare and just told me to go back to sleep, but for the rest of the night, we both laid there pretending to be sleeping.

But even though I'd felt so horrible through the whole thing, it actually made sense to me in the morning. That was kind of how I'd felt my entire life and finally I was able to make it tangible. I was on a sinking ship and no one was coming to the rescue.

So it's not always about self-loathing. It's about having feelings you don't understand or can't process. It can be about not understanding why you feel so much and yet no one notices.

For my writing tip, my best advice would be to not be afraid to be confused. The entire thing is confusing. Life is confusing. The world is confusing. Don't think you have to have all the answers. Sometimes it helps more to just bring up the questions.

And don't make it all about self-loathing. There. That's all.

And that's my mental illness rant. You asked for it and here it is. Ask and ye shall receive. I'll be over here petting my cat and pretending I'm not making weird noises just to annoy him.

I don't want to tell a funny story, because even though this was heavy, I don't feel like joking. Instead, how about you just tell me a joke. Or you can tell me your story. I don't care. Do whatever you want. You know my evening plans. Pissing off m sassy cat.

I'll probably update this with a list of organizations that support different mental illnesses so you guys can check them out too. If you have any, leave me a link in the comments! I love exploring.