Weakness and Stigma

This is utter BS. 

I can practically guarantee you that anyone calling someone weak for dealing with their mental health is almost certainly talking about themselves.  There's a fitting term called “projection" that is derived from  Freud  that basically states that when someone’s feelings or beliefs become too threatening to them, they respond (unconsciously) by attributing those negative thoughts and feelings to someone else. By doing this, they can continue to loathe those attributes that frighten them without having to accept that they’re actually an integral part of their own psychological makeup. 

For example, because a bully feels more comfortable with the things he can control (his words or fists) than those things that he can't (his thoughts or feelings), the idea of facing those things he can’t control or see directly terrifies him. He himself feels weak and therefore out of control. 

Because he views himself as strong and can't fathom having those feelings himself, he casts that negative label onto you like a projector onto a screen (hence, the term “projection”). In reality, he is threatened by the fact that you are willing to face those demons while they continue to run from, ignore, or avoid them. 

So whenever  someone calls you weak it can be helpful to remember that they are tipping their hand to you by telling you that they are themselves frightened of what you are facing, which makes you that much stronger and threatening to them.

There is a common misconception that one needs to be really ill in order to seek help. That is simply not the case. While therapists can and do help people diagnosed with serious mental illness, they just as often help people without a mental illness who are struggling in one or more areas of their lives.  

Click HERE for a list of just some of the areas that therapists can help with. 

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Not surprisingly, this strategy is overwhelmingly ineffective. Expecting someone to “just snap out of” mental anguish is every bit as unrealistic as expecting a newborn infant to “just snap into” speaking fluently. 

As with so many other misconceptions about mental health, this one stems from the erroneous belief that one’s mental and emotional life are somehow separate from the rest of you. It implies that your problems are not only not legitimate, but not even real. That mental anguish is a fleeting state, like a dream or a trance, that will somehow magically vanish like a fog if you just “wake up” from it. 

Mental distress and pain are every bit as real as physical pain. On a neurophysiological level, your brain can’t tell the difference. Clinical depression affects the same pain receptors in the brain as those that respond when you’ve been physically injured. When you’re depressed, it can physically hurt. 

Would that same person telling you to “just snap out of” your depression or anxiety also tell you to “just snap out of” a broken bone if you had a compound fracture? Would they insist that you “just snap out of diabetes”? If so, your problem isn’t your emotional distress, it’s the people you surround yourself with. 

 It's your life. Your pain is real. Do what you need to do to do for you. Screw what anyone else says.