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This was a very good question I have often asked myself. I suffer from depression and no one has ever said they were sorry. In fact, they are more inclined to treat you as if you had the plague. Many do not belive it is a real illness and think we can just "snap out of it." Others think it is a weakness or that we are just making excuses for our mental illness.
Yet, if someone cuts a finger or has a broken toe, these same people are very sympathetic. They will offer to help them do anything they can and think there problem is so bad. Oh how it must hurt. They will tell them how sorry they are, etc
I think the Public Service Announcement they run on one of out local television stations says it all. "Depression Hurts!" But people cannot see depression like they can a physical disability and have no idea how much it can hurt. They certainly do not realize it can kill.
It is a stigma against mental illness that will never totally be understood or accepted as a real illness. No one will say they are sorry but they all seem to have this simple solutions on how to get well. Just eat right and think positive and exercise that will cure it! But they don't think we should take medicine.
Most of us who suffer from this terrible debilitating illness would give anything to be well and we try and struggle every day to get better,or just to sruvive. I suppose to many it looks like a copout or an excuse for bad behavior and being lazy.
Not only do they not say they are sorry you feel so bad and suffer every day, they do not care enough to even ask what it feels like. When you are in physical pain, they want to know all about it. Most would just like to put us all in an insane aslyum and forget we exist.
If this sounds like self-pity, it is Not. This was just a question I think of often and wanted to state how I think many others feel about mental illness and depression.
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