"I have clinical depression."
"lol, cheer up"
Don't do this.
"My depression is acting up, sorry."
"Don't use your mental disability as a shield."
Don't do this.
Both of these behaviors make people who suffer from problems want to keep quiet, and it builds up and causes problems. Worse yet, people don't understand "Hey, why are you overreacting to this problem?" You mention why and they go either "Cheer up!" or "Don't hide behind your disability"
It's a trap... You can't win. Some people will show sympathy, others will actually understand "oh, sorry, I didn't know", but an overwhelming majority will try to state you're using it as a shield... When you're just explaining why something happened...
It hurts.
And people think their words are harmless, or they are without consequence... But it does hurt... And some are weaker than others... And have taken their own lives over more trivial reasons.
If someone trusts you enough to share their problems, do not belittle them, do not tell them it's not a problem, and DO NOT EVER tell them not to use it as a shield. Some people will use it as an excuse to be assholes, but if someone is just telling you that they have a problem to explain why they acted or communicated how they did? Don't be an asshole to them about it.
With that being said... Yeah, I suffer from clinical depression, social anxiety, chronic paranoia, and a few other problems only a trusted few will be told about. I fuck up, but I try to learn from my fuck ups. I may be hard to deal with, I may be scared of you, I may misunderstand you, but this does not mean I hate you, this does not mean I am trying to harm you or do bad things to you.
At the end of the day, I'm insignificant... and sometimes I try to show some significance... But each time I do... people say I have a superiority complex... And I am kicked down and once more... insignificant. I have no impact on others. Those who are close to me, I am not always as close to them... And sometimes I feel friends aren't actually friends, because honestly? They're not... So now I have trust issues. People don't communicate clearly to me. They're not as straight forward as I'd like, and it frustrates me. I'm an idiot, I don't pick up on social cues, I don't pick up on topics that people dance around.
I am also overly sensitive. People state I have a victim complex too, yeah... I've been a victim a lot in my life, and when things start acting out like my past experiences, I instinctively react to it as if it's happening again, even if it's not actually happening... But I get punished for this. It's literal PTSD. And I've had some fucking assholes go "You've never been a victim" because of it... I've been told to kill myself. I've been seriously injured for disagreeing with people IRL. I've been emotionally abused my whole life by my family. I've had people literally use me to get to my friends, only to convince said friends to stop being my friends. I've been abandoned. I've been vilified. All because I'm horrible at social situations. All because I let people walk over me my whole life. I nearly took my own life almost a decade ago because I was tired of all the negativity piling up on me. ... I am tired again...
"But Spoon! You're letting them win!" Letting who win? If I've got a 'victim complex', I'm not letting 'anyone win', am I? If I have a superiority complex... Would it not be better to not have a snob around? If I have an inferiority complex... which I do... why does it even matter? People will just say I'm fishing for sympathy...
I rarely put emotion to text. People put the emotion in place, what they want to perceive... People want me to be angry. They want me to beg for sympathy. They want me to be the bad person so they can throw this negative shade against me... It's wearing on me pretty bad. I'm always the bad guy, all because I am awful at communicating with people. Yes, I write a lot, but that means jack shit if I can't tell when people are joking or serious.
No one ever wants to be around me IRL. The few people who tolerate me grow distant over time. I'm hard to tolerate... I'm a difficult person. It makes me constantly wonder, is it even worth it? To be a burden? To be a disappointment? To be the bad guy?
I don't know anymore. Some people want that 'wholesome' mask I put on all the time. It hurts. I can't be myself. I have little to vent with. I have little who actually care. And I have too many who merely pity me, not wanting to understand me.
Maybe I really am just an awful person, wouldn't it be better if I were gone if that were true? yet people tell me the opposite. They hate me, but don't want me gone, it confuses the Hell out of me. They don't want to be bad people. They don't want to admit that deep down they'd be grateful if people like me were gone. They're in denial... but this isn't always the case. There's always aberrant mentalities... But with so many people wearing their masks, you can never tell which ones are which.
Sorry for having depression. Sorry for having anxiety. Sorry for having paranoia. Sorry for a ton of things out of my control. I am trying, it is hard, but I am trying...
