‘I’ll recover when I get to XX kg’ ‘I’m not bad enough to get help’ ‘If I was ill someone would have noticed.’ ‘I want to be worse before I get better’ ‘I’m not bad enough’
Sounds familiar right?
I hate that the stigmas of mental illness steer us towards stereotypes – we have to act a certain way or look a certain way to be seen as ill or be treated with the understanding and respect we deserve. Like just because I never collapsed into a bundle of bones on the floor, I don’t get thrown the life ring.
I feel like in a way I am writing this to convince myself that I was ‘bad enough’ – whatever that means. As if everything I lost wasn’t enough, as if the rest of my life has to be dictated by the voice in my head telling me I could have been worse.
No one in a good place mentally wants to be ill. It is not a sign of failure it is a symptom of sickness. If you have a voice in your head telling you that you aren’t bad enough, then you are bad enough.
What we want to hear is ‘yes, I can see that you are hurting, you don’t have to show me through your body.’ But that isn’t reality. For most of us, our body disappearing doesn’t come close to reflecting what we have lost of our soul.
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