Posted by baseball55 on November 15, 2017, at 20:14:17
In reply to Re: How do you feel about the term 'Mental Illness'?, posted by Christ_empowered on November 15, 2017, at 17:15:17
Before I experienced real, non-situational depression, I didn't believe there really was such a thing. That's where the stigma comes in - many people deep-down believe that people who are depressed are just navel-gazers and malingerers who like to feel sorry for themselves. I thought that. My husband thought that. So when I get depressed, his response was -snap out of it, stop feeling sorry for yourself. And my response was to try to hide it, figuring there was something morally wrong with me that I was mired in "self-pity."
Having experienced depression, though, I now think of it definitely as an illness - some neurons/neurochemicals in your brain just aren't firing right. So I actually talk a lot about having depression to people, to educate them if nothing else. OTOH, I don't talk about it at work and have never told people at work, when I have been hospitalized, that I was suffering from depression.
So...maybe just illness, not mental illness. We don't talk about lung illness or bowel illness, really. So why not just say I have a medical condition that affects my mood and energy.
poster:baseball55
thread:1095891
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20161215/msgs/1095899.html