STOP SYMPATHIZING WITH PEOPLE WITH MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES AND MENTAL ILLNESS.

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Yes, you read it right. Stop sympathizing with people with mental health issues and mental illness, and start to understand, accept, care, empathize, and be considerate to them instead.

This perspective all started when I had a conversation with my friend after I finished watching his movie recommendation entitled “At Eternity’s Gate.” It’s a movie about Vincent that shows his life as a painter, how he suffers from his mental illness, and how people treat him because of the mental illness that he has. During the conversation, I sympathized over Vincent and perceived those people who treat him unpleasant as vile human beings. My friend’s response really changed my brain chemistry. For what he says about this perspective of mine—that if I’m there, or I am living with a person who has extreme mental illness issues to the point that they are weird and harming me or other people, would I feel the same sympathy over them? At that time, I was so puzzled with that response because how is it that it is questionable to sympathize over a victim? Perhaps I was too shallow to even understand that back then since I do admit that I have no experience living with a person who has a mental illness to that extent. Instead of brushing it all away, I put myself into solitude and reflect on that conversation and every experience that I have that relates to it.

I then recall that time when I was a teenager when I had people who were well aware of mental health problems post here and there about taking care of it and caring for people who suffer from that. Each time, as the relationship goes for its end, those people are the only ones that I entrust myself with and open up to about everything that I feel and about these mental health problems that I am having that are continuously growing within me. Ending, they end up using against me the mental health issue that I have and all my problems when I was dealing with it. It made me realize their ungenuine care—that they only see that it matters unless it causes them inconvenience. All the caring words melted away, and what’s left are harmful words that have been hiding over a mask all along. Even though that’s the case, I realized that I am also at fault about everything, but the worst thing about having a mental health issue or illness is that you cannot control it, nor does a person choose to be born with it. Every day feels like an endless battle over an enemy that you cannot see but can feel how it attacks the entirety of you to the point that people who suffer from it hurt people even though it’s never been an intention.

Now, as I go through social media, I have been seeing again people that sympathize over people who suffer from mental health problems and mental illness, preaching about being pro mental illness after cyberbullying someone to the extent that they end up ending their lives. Posting about rage to people who cyberbully and do hate speech toward a person makes the chain go on and on, never ending hate—although the intention is to stop it, it just keeps the chain going, for we cannot close a cycle if we keep on going back to what starts with it.

So, I encourage you, my darlings, to never read this for the sake of consuming but for the understanding, and if you find this as a questionable perspective, that’s a better chance to take a pause, reflect, research about it, or put yourself out there and ask yourself, would you still feel the same sympathy and care towards people with mental health problems and mental illness if you felt threatened to live with them, they became your arrogant enemy or a toxic partner, and if it caused you inconvenience?

Know your boundaries towards those (potential) experiences, and when you are being put into that situation, always put yourself first and consider what’s best for you, even if it’s walking away and letting all the connections go, but still with softness and care towards them and for you. 🌹