I am screwed up.

@OlderSometimesWiser The Stigma is real

@OlderSometimesWiser Yup! It would be SO much easier to cope with just a drop of outward compassion instead of disgust or pity.

I think sometimes it's the permanence of some mental struggles that turns people away too. The whole, get on meds thing, like it's going to be all better. Meds make me suicidal 😂

It just requires patience and understanding some people can't fathom. I'm happy they don't get, I wish they simply realized what a privilege that was.

@OlderSometimesWiser @ScreamingFox People are very quick to develop compassion fatigue for any long term issues.

It’s a direct assault on their sense of safety and they have to place blame on the victim as self protection. It’s delusional but seems like a very common coping mechanism.

It is the same people who say I’m giving up because I’ve accepted my illness is terminal. Or won’t talk to my husband because he has treatment resistant depression.

These people are exhausting and it is okay to ignore them.

Hugs to you both 🫂

@ScreamingFox Again, for me, in terms of understanding mental illness, I’ve come to the realization that it can be unfair to expect others to understand when after all these years of struggling, there’s so much about it even I don’t understand. It’s just the blame that cuts me like a knife. It’s like lying in your grave and having them shovel some more dirt on top of you.

@SwampFlower Thank you. Part of me gets it, part of me wishes we could be a team. I know that's too much to ask, but the rest of me is still there too. Hugs 🖤

@SwampFlower Lol….. after over 40 years of struggling with treatment resistant depression, I’m not unsympathetic when those who’ve been in the trenches with me develop compassion fatigue. It’s the blame aspect that’s particularly painful.

@ScreamingFox It is your surplus of compassion. It is hard to understand those who aren’t wired that way. It reflects more on them than it does us. In a way it is a weakness. Doubling down on their own survival instead of building community just creates a self reinforcing equilibrium for them. Self protection breeds isolation which breeds the need for more self protection.

But it isn’t our job to fix their perception.

@SwampFlower you are blowing my mind right now...

It sounds backwards to me, it's strange, because it's always been me that needs to change, not them. I'm the one who is wrong. I'm the one who just needs to be positive.

@ScreamingFox I don’t believe that. I believe that if they don’t have the capacity for compassion then the least we can do is have it for ourselves.