Small Rant

I like to try to be a positive person but there are a few things lately that are really irritating me that I wanted to talk about. 

First, MENTAL ILLNESSES ARE NOT ADJECTIVES!! PLEASE STOP USING THEM AS SUCH. 

When people do this several things can happen for someone who actually struggles with one of these things. The person can feel ashamed of having that diagnosis because people throw the labels around and a negative connotation is attached to it. It can make people very misunderstood because 99% of the time the way it is being used has actually nothing to do with what having the mental disorder is really like. I really wish people would educate themselves on what these disorders really are and how it effects someone's life when they have it. Maybe then they would stop throwing these words around like they are no big deal. Because they are a big deal. While our mental disorders in no way define who we are as a person, they still are part of us. And we didn't exactly choose to have them, so while we are dealing with it some understanding would be very helpful. I found this picture which is talking about if we treated physical illnesses the way we treat psychiatric illnesses how ridiculous it would sound. 

You would never say those things to those people. But somehow when it comes to mental illness people think it is ok to say things like this. It's not. All you are doing is hurting the person and making the situation worse. I know mental illness is hard to understand for people who don't struggle with it or who have not seen the struggle first hand. Please try to keep in mind that this is not something we can simply "make ourselves think differently about" and it all goes away. If it were that easy don't you think we all would have done that by now??

Also to add to my rant of the day is how much I hate the commercials on the radio for diet pills, weight loss supplements, and so on. I feel like every time I turn on the radio someone is telling me that I need to look a certain way in order to be liked. I need to be thin, have smooth skin, wear cute clothes. The list could go on and on and on. What happened to celebrating people's personalities? What if we made our focus be on how we lived our life and treated other people instead of how we looked, what kind of car we drive, and where we live? What kind of message are we sending to kids that are growing up right now? Our focus as a society is in the wrong place. We need to be doing everything we can to set it on the right track. 

Don't get me wrong, I know I am guilty of being judgmental and I will admit I do like having nice things. But I honestly try not to judge anyone I don't really know, and not to make material items the center point of my life. A few years ago I stopped reading most magazines because I didn't want to see the airbrushed images and messages telling me what I needed to do to look "beautiful." Instead I tried focusing on the fact that God made me the way I am for a reason. And yes I like to wear makeup and dress cute, but what I look like shouldn't matter to other people. It should be what is in my heart that counts. I know that I am ok with who I am. (Most days at least, I still have some bad days too, but progress not perfection right?) It has taken me a long time to get to where I am now. I just hope that for anyone struggling with any kind of mental illnesses that they know it is possible to get to a place where you start to like yourself and can be proud of all you have been through. There is a place where you find peace. Things will still happen and you will have to deal with them. (I just went through a manic episode but I was able to handle it with much more grace than I have in the past.) Overall I think this says it best: