It doesn't matter what they say. (It's ok to ask for help)

After watching the video (you know the one) I decided it was finally time to seek help. I’ve been seeing a therapist for about three weeks now and I feel better about my future.

I hate how there is such a stigma around mental health. If you’re sick, you see a doctor. If you car needs maintenance, you visit a mechanic. Neither of these reflect on you as a person, but suddenly when we talk about mental health things change.

You see people talking about it all the time, "Oh, he’s in ‘therapy’ ". Said with a slightly derogatory tone. We hear people talk about those seeking mental health as someone who is “crazy”. This is ridiculous, and this type of classification needs to stop. Therapy shouldn’t be any different than seeing a GP for an annual checkup in most cases. Everyone has problems, these people are professionals here to help you be the best you.

So anyway, I went to a CBT therapist who suggested I have ADD and Depression. I have made an appointment with a psychiatrist for next week and I look forward to getting better. I haven’t told many people, and those who have reacted negatively to my announcement I have disregarded. These people are probably in a similar situation.

I had a friend look down on me for seeking help. He basically called me weak and insulted me when I was talking to him about getting help for my problems. It did upset me at the time and I did feel quite alienated. Two days later (a testament to his good nature) he called me and apologized saying “Look man, I feel really bad for what I said. I don’t want to discourage or insult you for doing anything you think is going to better yourself.”

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Sorry to hear about your friend, but I’m glad he apologized. I try to deal with people like that by trying to remember it’s probably not about me - like you said, they probably have their own fears and stuff to deal with. Some people will just be brick walls and I mostly just try to avoid the topic around them.

I have a lot of thoughts and theories about why mental health is so stigmatized and I think it has a lot to do with how people relate to the notion of willpower, ego and control. Everyone desperately wants to believe that they are the masters of their own thoughts, emotions, brain, whatever, but apart from mental illness stuff like the topics covered at youarenotsosmart.com will show us that that’s just not true. Mental illness completely discredits this idea and I think this threatens a lot of people. It’s even tough to admit to ourselves, I think, how powerless we can be in the face of a bunch of stupid brain chemicals. It’s easy to accept that for any other part of the body, but not the part of us that makes us us.