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You are suggesting that the symptom of her abuse is the cause of her suffering. It's completely backwards. When you put people in an impossible situation and then wave away the things they do to keep control of their life as mental illness you're not only victim blaming, you're demeaning those of us with mental health issues.
Would I have handled it that way? Probably not. But you can't arm-chair diagnose someone with mental health problems just because you don't understand or identify with their choices. It's not right.
In no way were these impossible situations. Before you ask, yes I read the whole thing. I am not covering for LMG, fuck them. If someone there did something to harass her, especially if they see she's struggling, that's just evil and they should pay, but we can't be biased and take all of her words as fact when there are clear issues with her own words full of emotion and not facts.
These are the same reasons I hated on Reddit threads where someone wrote something about someone abusing them in some way and the hive mind jumping in and being 100% on their side and then somewhere down in the comments they reveal that the OP is schizophrenic, or bipolar or suicidal or something to that effect. It's sad and it's tragic, but most of these people have never had to deal with someone with these issues.
When they say they were tossed aside by their family, I always wonder in my head: "How many chances were they given?" "How many lives were destroyed?" "How many people did they hurt with their illness?"
As someone with a schizophrenic and bipolar brother, let me tell you it sucks. The amount of times he has ruined my future, hurt my family, caused me to move houses, put me in debt, and the amount of times we as a family always take him back. It's tiring, my eyes are watering writing this, so let me tell you. We always accept him back, we always suffer and we always hurt.
During his last breakdown, he caused issues at my work, I was forced to move and as a result my wife and 1 year old daughter were homeless for a few days, we are now $12K in debt that I don't know how to pay off and his wife and 2 kids are now living with me because he can't be trusted to take his medication. I do not have mental issues, I do not suffer from depression, I do not hear voices in my head and I do not cut myself to feel or to get a day off. Even though I am not the cause of these problems, I am always the one that pays.
Trust me I may not know what it feels like to have mental illness, but I know what it feels like to interact with someone who does. If someone tells me they have something mentally wrong with them, It's sad to say, but I will just stop all contact with them. I just can't. I don't have it in me for another relationship of any kind with another person that will be a drain on me in any way. Having one brother like this is enough. I just can't do it anymore. I just can't.
You know, I was gonna reply to you with a bunch of information on how to help people and be understanding, patient, and compassionate. But then I read this line and I lost all interest. I'm sorry you've gone through what you have. But this is callous and heartless. Don't project your extreme situation onto the common mental health challenges of others. I hope nobody with mental health challenges - you know, simple stuff like depression or minor trauma responses - ever comes to rely on or trust you. They'll just have their heart broken.
Don't be surprised when your children, spouse, family, or friends do not trust you or share their struggles with you. They will doubtlessly fear that you'll abandon them in a heartbeat once they know this terrible trait of yours
Shame on you for painting all people who struggle with mental health with a single brush.
And since I have my mental health issues (MDD) I'll assume "you just can't" and end our conversation here, for both our sakes
P.S. My wife's best friend when through a rough patch and came out of it with a similar attitude. She tried sharing one of her struggles with PTSD with him, like she used to, and he told her "I need a break from you, you just bring me down all the time" and I saw what that did to her. Made me sick to my stomach
I really am sorry you're going through that, but this also unfortunately proves my point. Good luck with your depression I really hope you have an amazing support system, and don't forget to thank them.
I pick my battles, I'm weak and I don't have it in me to be the support a stranger needs, If I can only give it my all for one person, it's going to be my family. There's just no more room for others, he takes what little I can give.
This will be my last response:
Going through that? It's not something I'm "going through". It's a condition I've had almost all my life and it's well managed for a long time now. I'm not asking for your support. Just your understanding. And that's what you don't get. Compassion costs you nothing, but you can't even do that
✌️
Again, you're proving my point. I just finished telling you a story of my struggle. How my love and understanding and support of my brother who I love just takes it's toll on me and my family and I still help and love him. How I struggle, how I am sad and how I am at my wits end and yet I still help him. I give all that I can to him so I am unable to help others because of it, but you only read a small part of it and I became the bad guy.
I don't know in what voice you've been reading our conversation, but I was not angry, or yelling or seething our entire conversation. It's difficult to display emotion in text, so I encourage you to re-read what I wrote, but instead of picturing a person yelling or trying to start an argument, picture a broken man trying to keep his family intact while he has a force breaking him down every step of this way, but every time he tries to get away, all he sees is the little brother he shared his Gameboy with so they could both play Pokemon.
I am sorry you took the words going through as though I meant some disrespect, but as I sit here wondering how I'm the bad guy for hoping you have a great support system, I come back to the point I was originally making. It's difficult to interact with people that suffer with mental disorders, everyone is the bad guy, and if someone does not help them specifically, then they must not care. When in fact we could be suffering too, but don't have a diagnosis, so we just don't get it, and we have to be on their side or we're the problem.
Yeah, you told me a sad story in a thread about other people. You turned it into a conversation about yourself instead of thinking about the perspective of others
You're the one not listening. I've been talking about other people this entire time and all you can think about is yourself and how hard it was for you and your bad memories.
I'm doing fine. I don't need your support. I'm not asking for your support. Not once have I told you that you should support me.
I'm trying to tell you that compassion is free. You aren't being asked to take care of anyone. You're being asked not to place the blame at the feet of people who are suffering, and not to point at people who struggle and call them sick because "only an unwell person would do that."
You sound really narcissistic. Even your efforts to come off as supportive were performative and came back around to "but I said the thing, so I'm the good guy".
I don't think you're being aggressive. I don't think you're being mean. I don't think you're angry or hateful.
I think you're selfish.
Muting you now so I don't keep seeing your self-pitying excuses for why you should shun those who struggle with mental health. It's really starting to make me sick