If there is one BIG lesson I learned in 2020, it’s the one above. Earlier this year, I went through a crappy break up. Fast forward to now, people around me have recently fallen out with someone who used mental health as an excuse for their crappy behavior. And to be honest I am so sick of people weaponizing mental health.
Bojack Horseman
One show that I watched this year that will change my life forever was BoJack Horseman. It was such an eye opener watching it because I dealt with a BoJack this year. To sum it all up, Bojack is a horse who grew up in a dismissive household and received practically no love. He creates a never ending cycle of hurt in his relationships around others.
The audience sees Bojack’s way of justifying the situation, his dependence on alcohol and drugs to cope, his behavior of blaming others, and ultimately his self loathing attitude. However, he refuses to change and deal with his trauma head on, and therefore he’s extremely dependent on external validation. Sounds familiar? When his sources for external validation fail him, usually as a result of his own wrong doings, he goes back to feeling depressed, broken, and that he feels fated that his life will always be miserable.
Reminds Me Of People In My Life
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, then you would know I dated someone with extreme mental health issues who was even dependent on heavy substances. Although I didn’t know the severity of the situation until the end, I knew this person was motivated to change because that’s what he told me. At least, that was what I thought until I got dumped and he explained his resentment towards EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. It got to a point where he knew he was even hurting others around him.
And after hearing about my friend’s and my siblings experience with other people’s depression, anxiety, etc, I notice one thing everyone has in common: anger. The cynicism of these people can be mentally draining, confusing and at times the person on the other end blames themselves. As a result, we just begin to hate or dislike these people and feel some sort of injustice with how they made us feel. Yet, these same people expect us to coddle, support, and sympathize for them while masking our own human emotions.
Stop Weaponizing Mental Health
I’m tired of people using mental health as a means to have a terrible character. I personally hate when people have mental health issues and refuse to get any help, refuse to acknowledge their damage on others, and don’t bother attempting to find healthy coping mechanisms. Too many times I see people aware that they have underlying issues but refuse to actually do something about it. They know “changing” themselves requires effort, time, and maybe even some temporary pain. Therefore, they go back to their comfort zones because they don’t want to put in the work especially when the results aren’t instant.
As a result of going back into their “comfort zones”, they aren’t really happy and will stay in that loop of self misery. Yes it saves them the effort to “do the work”, but they are never able to find true joy. Some reasoning may include not having proper resources, having enablers around you, no motivation, already suicidal etc. That in itself is severely depressing and even so I always try to have an understanding for why a person can’t change for the moment.
You Have To Reflect
BUT, I do believe anyone can find the time to change. Unless you are extremely disadvantaged, I feel like many people are just afraid to put in the time to be less depressed. I’m not saying there is a way to be 100% free of depression, or any mental health issue because in reality there may never be. But there are many areas in our lives where we do have the choice to improve upon.
At one point, the question we need to ask ourselves is “How can I stop living like this”? It’s easier to blame your mental health issues for every bad thing you do in life versus being proactive and taking accountability. And that my friends is my biggest pet peeve. And to be honest, I see it as a trend nowadays. All that does is create a cycle or hurt and hate for others while still hurting the perpetrator.
With My Own Issues
I can’t say that I am severely depressed especially when I haven’t been diagnosed. For the most part I feel anxious and lonely and that has largely heightened due to the pandemic. I started seeing a counselor this year which has helped tremendously. Although I’m still on social media, I try to distant myself from my phone just to not be bothered by other people or notifications.
I’m more independent now and have evolved from how I was a year ago. I do still talk to close friends and check up on them pretty frequently. I never want to be the unhealthy hyper independent person especially to a point where I hate other humans, even though they have disappointed me in the past. But, I do think there is a beauty in just being alone even if it is by default. You naturally learn that a lot of people’s behaviors and problems are on them.
And even when I do decide to take my breaks, I always let my friends know and I always eventually talk to them. I never want to shoe anyone away or be rude at the height of my emotions. And if I do happen to be rude, I am very apologetic and will constantly follow up. And to be honest, I’m glad I’ve grown from that because that use to be my expertise in high school. Regardless, I always own what I do and take necessary action.
Am I absolutely better? I actually am, but I do have my times where I just cry out of nowhere. I say all the time, it’s okay not to be okay. But, we do have to learn HEALTHY ways to in dealing with how crappy life can be towards us and crying is proven to be relieving.
What Makes Someone “Shitty”
If we are being honest, a lot of things makes someone a “shitty person” and I can go on and on about it. But for the purpose of this blog I will say the following:
Refusing to get help or refusing to change even though you’ve hurt people or are currently hurting people. At one point you create the trauma in other people’s lives and yes that does make you a terrible person especially when you never acknowledge your wrong doings. You’re just covering yourself.
And my last point I want to emphasize is that having mental health issues doesn’t make you a shitty person. You can just be a shitty person with or even without mental health issues. We live on earth where they are terrible people walking amongst us everyday. Some people are just terrible by nature.
However, this blog was just to talk about my experiences, my siblings, and my friends’ experiences with people who blame their behavior on their mental health issues. A lot of people don’t talk about the other side of things. You can only sympathize and support people for so long before your own needs are unmeant and before you are on the other end being disrespected.
