I’m in a multitude of closets. Stepping out of one usually brings brief relief and then the realization that I’ve stepped into another.
One of my nightmares is a long corridor lined with closets of all different kinds. I walk down the hallway and my heart is pounding out of my chest, anticipating the danger around every door. I’m having a meltdown of nuclear proportions about the sounds I hear in the hallway. The danger that awaits me behind every door.
Mental illness is a difficult closet to come out of. Most are outed by force and not by choice. I wound up in the hospital psychiatric ward. The depths that I had sank to, the demons I was struggling with could no longer be hidden from view. Most in my life knew I was unhappy, but they saw just the tippy top of the iceberg. My struggles, my pain, and my despair went so much deeper than what anyone thought. I had pulled the ole bait and switch. I showed them one person, and when the door was closed I was another.
I’ve had mixed reactions when revealing my mental illness with friends and family. I’d say probably 1 out of 5 can handle it. The other 4 want distance or to change the subject, should it ever come up.
Just be like you were before.
Oh, you mean when I was lying to everyone?
Yes! You seemed so much happier then.
The danger that we feel about revealing our conditions is not imagined. It’s real. Judgment is inevitable. There will be perceptions that we are weak, mentally inferior people. People that cause others annoyance and heartache. Selfish people who live in their own heads who just can’t grow up and get it together. People that are unpredictable, loose canons roaming around in the “normal” person’s life. Some will question whether we are fit to do our jobs, be loving parents or partners.
It probably wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t have those same questions.
I’ve lost friends and people I’ve loved because of my illness, because of opening up about it and asking for help.
I’ve also made some beautiful amazing friends and had weird and bizarre life changing experiences.
My name is Laura. I have double depression and PTSD. I struggle with suicide, self injury, binge drinking, dissociation, and in most aspects of my life I am completely paralyzed by shame.
I am real. I have value to add to the world. I am worthy of proper treatment and love. I have love to give.
And I have mental illness.
Passages In Secret Houses 
Thanks for sharing your blog with us cuddlahs. I can identify with 100% of what you said, of all the people I’ve talked to about my head stuff, many understand and some don’t, unfortunately one of the people who doesn’t understand my issues is my mom. She’s very special to me and we get along great but when I talk about my depression/anxiety and anger comes out she just gets scared and confused. I’ll just keep working at it I guess. Anyway, we all have to work hard to remind ourselves that we aren’t the useless trash that we can feel like at times.
Yeah, my mom understands my depression, but she almost flat out refuses to understand or even hear about anything having to do with the PTSD. So there’s a limit there.
I’m beginning to realize that just because she wants me to share things with her, doesn’t mean I have to – especially if I feel it will not be received well.
When we look at the sky, we see green. One of the most important things I learned early on was to not try and convince myself that I was seeing a blue sky just because that’s what I know I’m supposed to see.
I acknowledge that my pathology causes me to see a green sky.
There is Hell in the form of trauma behind those closet doors, but those doors aren’t the world. And no hallway goes on forever.
Glad you’re writing about this stuff. Look forward to reading more.