I wanted to call this something cool and profound like Manifesto or Commandment to show how smart I am but that's overdoing it. This is a classic IN MY OPINION post. IMO this is how mentally ill people should treat each other. My experience is being bipolar and OCD and chatting with many mentally ill people, both online and in the real world, as well as mental health professionals.
1. No mentally ill person is greater or better than another. We're all equal.
This doesn't have to do with wellness. In this context, "better" means thinking you're superior. There is no caste system in the mentally ill community. I've talked with people before (and I've felt this myself) that think people with less severe mental illnesses than others are somehow superior, more "normal," and thus more like the masses. I've heard "I'm not as bad as that schizophrenic guy. I just have depression" before. My family, especially my mother and aunt, are and have been very much hung up on social status. When I was diagnosed with depression in 1992, I felt that that was going to lower me in the eyes of society. Why? Because I had a bigoted view of the mentally ill as lower life forms. I still considered myself perfectly normal and not mentally ill. I was able to function some on this denial. Then I was diagnosed bipolar and it devastated me. Now, I was going to be forced to take a lower status as a persecuted minority. See how big a jerk I was when I was considered "normal?" and thought I was at a superior level of health? We don't do that in the mentally ill community. A depressed person isn't superior to a schizophrenic person just because their illness isn't as severe.
2. Mentally ill people communicate with each other.
There's great importance in our community on sharing our thoughts and feelings with each other. Often, that means sharing what kind of day we've had or asking for support because we've had a tough time lately. We share our stories and our time with each other to show that we're not alone in our suffering. Part of my thinking on making this blog post has to do with someone that's a supposed mentally ill person who is a public mental health advocate. I've asked this person what his/her illness is and I've shared a few details of mine. No response. I tried again a few more times. No response. Now either this person feels he/she is too good for our community or is just a phony in terms of mental illness. We don't have to share everything with each other. In fact, as people with different social, political, religious, etc views, we don't have to share much at all. What we do need to share is just a little bit with each other. If another mentally ill person asks you about your illness, you should answer, even if only giving the barest details. This is a community mentality. I know some reading this will say this person has the right to not tell me jack and that is true. However, we don't live in a perfect world and our own social groupings do matter. Mentally ill people don't rebuff each other.
3. Mentally ill people support each other no matter what.
My meaning in this is that we unconditionally support each other on matters of mental illness and mental health. If one in our community commits an act of violence, it doesn't mean that we support that action. If a person in our community believes Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton is evil, that doesn't mean we have to support them in that belief. What it means is that, on matters of mental health, on symptoms, on episodes, etc, we support and help each other in trying to get and stay healthy, offer moral support in each other's fight and feel compassion for each other in our sufferings. I'll use an eternal symbol, Hitler, as an example. I, and most everyone else, deplore is beliefs and actions. However, if it's revealed he was bipolar, I would have compassion for his suffering from that illness as I know what it can do. If he were alive, I would support him in getting help and feeling better. No, this wouldn't give aid and comfort to a monster. It would be providing advice that he work on his mental and emotional health and that our community is there if he needs us. This would have clearly been a win-win if he'd had these things taken care of early in his life. That's what I mean by support. Support each other to attack illness and give each other strength and support to carry on with life and pursue happiness.
Those are the three major facets of behavior that I and my friends in the mentally ill community should strive for. If I think of more, I'll add them to the list as "amendments." And, as stated earlier, these are my opinions. We have a social grouping and need to acknowledge and live with it.
