The Weight of Shame: On Mental Health and Guilt

 TRIGGER WARNING: discussion of mental health, hospitalization, suicidal ideation, and suicide

Greetings and salutations! I recently came back to college, which has been a bit of everything all at once: overwhelming, freeing, exciting. While I'd love to have a long chat about the struggles of college and how utterly strange it can be, that's not why I'm writing this post. I will give a fair warning that I didn't sleep well last night, so this post might be a bit all over the place, but c'est la vie.

I've been feeling a lot of shame recently, primarily for things I've done in the past that I consider embarrassing. For those of you who are unaware, I spent a week in the psychiatric unit of the hospital last February. Mental health has always been a big challenge in my life, but it wasn't really until that week that I realized how bad it's gotten. It's so easy to lie to ourselves and say that our struggle is not real, that it doesn't matter, but that's a whole other topic. Since I've returned to college for this semester, I keep waiting for someone who knew me during that time to say something, anything, about me being in the hospital. You see, when I was in the hospital, I was in a pretty bad manic episode, so I divulged too much information to a lot of the wrong people. I told plenty of folks things they didn't need to know. And yet, why should I be so ashamed of an experience I had?

Here's the thing: mental illness is shockingly common among young adults. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 1 in 10 US young adults (described as aged 18-25) experienced a serious mental illness. I urge us to be critical of the word serious because it is something that can be difficult to define and is deeply personal, but this statistic only shows how common it is to feel the way I feel, to have experiences like I have. And yet...why does no one want to talk about it? Why are there crickets the second someone utters the words "mental illness?" Why are people forced to struggle in silence? According to the National Institute of Mental Health, less than half of people with mental illnesses receive treatment. 

The reason so many people suffer in silence is because we have been conditioned to believe mental illness is something to be ashamed of. And yet it is so utterly common. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year. People are going to struggle with mental illness and we can't control that. What we can control is whether or not we talk about it and how we talk about it. 

So let's return to my shame. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been feeling embarrassment, guilt even, for innocuous things I did when I was manic. This is something I've struggled with for a long time and something I am actively trying to unlearn in therapy. I've been feeling so much shame, and yet when I sit back and ask myself why, I struggle to come up with an answer. Why do I feel ashamed for being open about my struggles, when talking about my struggles has the power to help someone else? Why do I feel ashamed for something other people don't even remember happening? Why do I feel ashamed for something that there's no shame in?

I'd like to close this off by recognizing that September is Suicide Prevention Month. While I can't speak to why people commit suicide, I will say that the stigma around mental illness can lead people to not feel comfortable talking about their struggles; bottling up your struggles is never healthy, and can take people to dark places. If any of you need someone to talk to, I'm always here, and professional help is available. In the United States, you can text HOME to 741741 and be connected with a crisis counselor. Here's a link to international suicide hotlines.

Hopefully, one day we can live in a world where we talk about mental health openly. Until then, stay safe and be kind.

Love,

Amelia