lifestyle

21 Mentally Ill Patients Made These Profound Insights

17.

I have a psychiatrist as a friend and she tells me some of the things her patients say. One example, a girl who had extremely, hardcore conservative parents was struggling because she was going to end up completely the opposite of her family. She’s a Bisexual, Atheist, Feminist, Liberal, and an active participant in all of their respective communities. She was suffering with pretty severe Depression and Anxiety. She said, “It’s so horrible. I am split in half. I am half of a fake person and half of my real self. It is the halves that have you in half. Out of a sense of duty and loyalty to your family you slowly wither away, but is the constant happiness of your family worth your constant sadness? When does your loyalty become unquestioning obedience? When does duty become unthinking action? Is it selfish to hurt your family with truth for your own happiness?” then she paused and said, “If your family vehemently despises a certain type of person what will they do when they realize they created their own enemy?”

18.

I’m a PA student doing my psychiatry rotation at a VA hospital. We see a lot of vets with PTSD. I saw a man break down and sob as he told me the reason he can’t sleep at night is because he has nightmares of his best friend crawling out of a humvee on fire, screaming and then dying, after they hit a roadside bomb. And then the vet tells me he thinks it’s his fault they hit the bomb, and he wishes every day that it was him who died instead of his buddy. I can’t imagine going through that kind of sacrifice, and it makes me feel like all the trivial things I whine about seem pathetic in comparison. And I’m grateful for that, because I really should go through life complaining less, and being grateful more.

19.

“Say that you know what green looks like, you are absolutely, positively, 110% sure that’s what it looks like, but everyone else says that green is blue. That’s like Schizophrenia. How do you know that you all aren’t the mentally ill ones?”

20.

I have a brother with aspergers, bipolar, ADHD, ADD, just about everything. He was meeting with a psychiatrist with both of my parents, when they were discussing the reasoning behind why my brother would suddenly go into fits of rage. He would ball his fists, puff up his chest, grit his teeth and try to intimidate people by looming over them and making them think he was going to punch them, which he would often do. My mother then realized that my father would often do the same thing. My at the time six year old brother, with the most simplistic expression on his face, turned to my temperamental father and said “sounds like we have the same problem, dont we?” I just thought it was a surprising thing for a mentally impaired six year old to say.

21.

I once had someone that adamantly wanted to kill himself. He was bawling crying, screaming, cursing, with full abandon. Then he farted. He was absolutely stunned. Then he started laughing. I asked him what made him laugh, he said “Sometimes shit is funny, no matter how you feel” It was the first time I heard him laugh, and marked a wonderful turning point.

Written by Irvi Torremoro

Irvi Torremoro is an Austinite by way of Las Vegas. She's worked in various outlets in food & beverage and is now focused on writing, eating all the things, talking about Beyonce, and petting all the puppies. She runs flavorandbounty.com, a lifestyle blog about people in the service industry.