The Symptoms Of Mental Illness We Don’t Talk About

Mental illnessnes can be so difficult to explain and understand – like how a “mental” illness can have physical symptoms; or when you’re dealing with multiple illnesses and you can’t pinpoint which one is causing what. On top of that, stigma can make us feel ashamed of what we’re going through, an unfair addition to what people with mental illness are already going through..

Let’s talk about the symptoms of mental illness people typically don’t talk about. Because by opening up the dialogue and making people aware of these difficult symptoms, we can continue to break the walls around shame and stigma, reminding one another we are not alone in this fight and resources are available if we need help.

Here Are Some Symptoms We Don’t Talk About

• Dissociating. Feeling as though the world isn’t real and feeling unfamiliar with our surroundings and the surroundings may appear blurry, distorted, two-dimensional or colorless. Feeling disconnected from people and everything. Perceiving the body as a foreign which doesn’t belong to us and feeling like we’re being outside of our body. Feeling disconnected from our own mind, body or self and feeling detached from our emotions as if we were a robot.
• The constant feeling of not knowing what is the truth and what is our head twisting us to believe.
• Suicidal thoughts. Even if we are not actually suicidal, we still can have suicidal thoughts and feelings on a regular basis. People do not feel comfortable talking about suicide.
• We completely turn into a hermit. We don’t wan’t to be around a single person for days when we’re normally the talker, cheerleader and extrovert of the social setting.
• Personal hygiene is not talked about enough. And people get so judgmental about that aspect, but it needs to be talked about more. In one particulary bad depressive episode i had, i didn’t shower or brush my teeth for days. People who suffer mental illnesses often don’t know how to talk to their therapist about that struggle without sounding disgusting and subhuman (which they already feel).
• For some, it’s the numbness. Not so much from their mental illnesses, but from the medications they take for them. Without them they would have extremely low lows, but now they feel like they can’t feel true happiness anymore either.
• Panic attacks seemingly out of nowhere are the worst. It feels like one is in one life threatening situation after another, over and over again. The body is not made to go through this much “fight or flight”. It is soul crushing.
• Aggression, because it’s an intimidating and confrontational aspect people don’t understand. It comes out in facial expressions and tones that people don’t want to know about and to explain it means most run away scared.
• The daily exhaustion. It’s exhausting just living. Having to fight intrusive thoughts, fighting sensible thoughts, fighting anger and rage. Every day is a struggle just to make it through the day, and the side effects of medication do not help.
• Instead of telling others how we really feel, we say “i’m just tired”. Wiped out, fatigued or drained would be better words. It’s easier to say we are tired than the truth because we feel that most really don’t care to hear about our emotional pain.
• The decrease of our cognitive functioning and the memory loss. Some days we feel like we can’t remember important things or how to formulate a complete thought.
• The feeling of being trapped. Screaming to be free; but caged by phobias, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress.
• Our mood swings and our emotions – one minute we’re fine, the next we’re crying.
• The physical symptoms like stomach problems, weakened immune system, headaches, tremors, hyperventilation and shortness of breath, muscle stiffness or heightened risk of a heart attack..
• The guilt. Guilt of knowing we should be doing our chores, work, and taking care of ourselves and knowing those around us expect us and need us to do these things – except we just sometimes can’t.
• Wanting to hurt ourselves and not feeling safe because of our thoughts. Being so scared that we may actually will be capable of hurting ourselves.
• Isolating and pushing everyone away which results in loneliness and constant numbness.
• Not feeling human, feeling like we’re nothing and mean nothing to anyone – even family and friends.
• Feeling unseen or unheard and not taken seriously. Having a mental illness is what the eye cannot see, but the pain and struggle is there.
• Feeling alone even when we’re hanging out with close family and friends and actively participating or having intrusive thoughts like that we feel they just put up with us and would have a better time when we’re not around.
• Loss of interest in things we used to enjoy.
• Having racing thoughts is hard to understand and even harder to stop. Sometimes we have to fight hard to ignore and distract ourselves in order to get them under control.
• The physical/ psychosomatic pain that comes from emotions influenced through mental illnesses. The physical pain one can experience can be very real and should be taken more seriously.
• Having disturbing and recurring nightmares that are being caused from past experienced-/ and unhealed trauma.
• Being in social situations and feeling so anxious that we can’t control the physical symptoms like shakiness of the body/ trembling of the hands; heartpalpitations; getting red in the face; extreme sweating; stuttering; dizziness and the feeling of being close to “fall into faint”. Not to mention how hard it can be to try and hide emerging symptoms, and what it feels like whilst simultaniously still trying to be able to hold it somehow together.
• The insidious delusions. Certain things, phrases or gestures become something else to the point that one suffering from mental illnesses can be living a different story in the same setting.
• Lack of motivation and being stuck in a mood/ situation/ downward spiral and most times not knowing how to get out of it. Even worse, when we do know how to get out of it because it’s a reachable goal, but the motivation isn’t there, therefore nothing gets done and then the mood/ situation/ downward spiral gets worse and the motivation gets less and less. Everything is so close, yet so far – it’s a toxic cycle.
• Uncontrollable blackout rage, trying to explain to people that we don’t recall why we reacted the way we did or that we don’t specifically remember what happened can be frustrating. It’s not something one has ever enjoyed.
• The weird ideas that suddenly pop up in our head and the fear of our own thoughts. Refusing the society around us and ourself included.
• Having days where everything just feels wrong. We don’t feel exactly anxious or depressed or sick – but everything feels wrong. We can’t sleep and everything that we normally find fun or that normally distracts us is just too boring. It’s like all we want to do is to do something but we don’t seem to have the energy to do anything.
• Suffering from insomnia; disturbed sleep-cycle; having too much sleep or getting not enough sleep.
• The battle between wanting to remember and being terrified to remember, because terror is the essence of the memories and we’ve kept them locked away for so very long. We’ll get through this though.
• Disconnecting from people. We lose friends and wind up looking rude or flaky for not hanging out or reaching out. Not being able to be there for others in times of need because we feel empty.
• Shame. We blame ourselves for our problems and believe that we deserve it. The fact that we need help makes us feel guilty because we don’t think we’re worthy of it.

If you experience any of these symptoms, please know you are not alone and help is out there. You should not feel ashamed or stigmatized for struggeling. You deserve help and happiness.