What are your opinions on the fact that people say that self-harmers should just suck it up and stop feeling sorry for ourselves because we don't have any "REAL problems like the people in Africa do!". I mean, they do have a point to an extent and to a point I believe that they are right. I have food, water, a roof over my head...what right do I have to complain and be depressed when there are people who aren't even getting their basic needs for survival met. How do you respond when someone says this to you?
"Some people get by, with a little understanding. Some people get by, with a whole lot more."
It's ridiculous. I usually ask them something along the lines of, "So because there's children starving in Africa, I no longer have problems? Starving children in Africa overrides pollution, and debt, and cancer, and abuse?"
Then they'll either say something that makes them even more wrong, or just look at me like they shut down. And I'll finish it something witty to make them feel stupid and they end up walking away.
Pree much.
Do what you love to do, and you'll never work another day in your life.
I usually explain that a mental illness is not "complaining". It is a disease that one does no choose to have. If a feeling or emotion is felt, than the feeling and emotion is valid. No one chooses to have any sort of disease. And if they see it as complaining, I tell them to go educate themselves and to stop being closed minded.
I hate this.
People don't get how bad it is when you have something properly wrong with you.
Yeah, physically I'm relatively comfortable, but mentally I'm a train wreck.
I actually got told the other night to stop feeling sorry for myself.
It properly p*ssed me off because the person, my "friend", cheapened all my issues for no reason. He just had a total personality change on me. Apparently I've got nothing wrong with me because he says so. Yeah, tell that to all my wounds and how I constantly feel and how I think. I was happy to sit alone, depressed with my thoughts in the garden and he just sets off on me.
See, I might look like I'm sitting feeling sorry for myself, I'm so sorry that when I took that booze it messed with my head and cleared it, thus making me feel more depressed.
Ugghhh, people just need to stop being so damned ignorant.
"Tutto è bello..." - "Everything is beautiful..."
Nicola to Matteo, La meglio gioventù
ya i usually tell ppl who say stuff like that to shut the hell up and mind their own bussiness. everyone has problems and how they deal with it is their bussiness
I just say nobody chooses to be like this, swear at them and walk off very angry and upset. Of course SheHasHope's way is much better aha. I hate ignorance.
Take all your chances while you can,
You never know when they'll pass you by.
❤
When someone tells me to "suck it up," I usually point out the bitter way they were complaining just yesterday about their other half, or their job. It's just a matter of perspective. Ask them if they're criticizing you out of a guilty conscience. ;)
What a thread to start! I was shocked at what I was reading. How dare you be so prejudiced towards other people when you don't know the circumstances and backgrounds of the people you are making assumptions about.
I have anorexia and it has always made me mad when ignorant idiots have said to me, 'think of all those starving people in Africa who would do anything for some food and you have it and are refusing it'. Mental illnesses are not something we choose. They are random, striking different people for different reasons. Some people have been bullied, some abused, some people may be ill because they are genetically disposed to it. The list goes on.
Maybe you need to look at yourself and not others.
GRANT ME THE SERENITY TO ACCEPT THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE
THE COURAGE TO CHANGE THE THINGS I CAN
AND THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE
I see every point. I understand why people would think that SIers have a royal time compared to people in Africa, but mental illnesses were never chosen.
Happiness is a form of courage
~ Holbrook Jackson
''Although the scars of yesterday remain, you can go on living as much as your heart believes. You can't be born again, although you can change.''
People in Africa do have some choices. They choose to have more children and therefore create less food to go around (and dont go on about lack of contraception)
I feel this is much less to do with Africa and more to do with the bigoted views of some people in western world. This should not be made into a comparison against two completely different countries with different values, beliefs and conditions. Thats my two penny worth.
GRANT ME THE SERENITY TO ACCEPT THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE
THE COURAGE TO CHANGE THE THINGS I CAN
AND THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE
Self harm in itself is a real problem. It's a different type of problem to starving people in Africa, but it is still just as valid & just as important, as is every other mental and/or emotional difficulty.
I believe I have real problems. I had to quit school because I can't leave the house. I have debilitating panic attacks. I can't cope with everyday things.
Sure, my problems may not be like the problems starving people in Africa have, but that does NOT make them any less of a problem. It is comparing apples and oranges, in my mind. I may have food, but my quality of life recently has been dismal at best. Some things have changed and I feel as though I have hope for the first time in so long, though, so I really do hope that my quality of life improves soon.
I hate people who say things like that. My (ex) best friend once compared me to someone she knew who'd committed suicide, and basically told me that since I wasn't suffering as much as he was (although how she knew this I don't know), I had no right to make a big deal out of my illness.
When my 'friend' told me this I responded very badly. I started off being very very upset (to the point where I didn't eat or go to school the next day), but then I just became angry. I still have lots of anger about it but in a way I also find it amusing that a person could be so ignorant and outwardly bullying to someone they had been close to for years, like we had been. She actually thought it was an ok thing to say to me!!
Every problem is relative to the person. Just because you don't look physically ill, because you seem happy enough or because someone else might have it worse off than you does not mean your feelings are not legitimate.
When I was inpatient a nurse told me to be thankful for my life because there are starving kids in africa would would kill to have my life. I was in for suicidal idealization and so I think she thought it would help but it seriously just made me worse. I have this core belief that I'm a bad person and her saying this just made it even more true. I wasn't able to say anything back to her though, I'm a baby when it comes to confrontation of any sort.
It's the children the world almost breaks that grow up to save it.
-Frank Warren
I have been told this before, and it basically ****s me right off. People can be very ignorant, and non-educated on mental health issues.
Sometimes it makes me wonder why people say these things, is it to **** you off? is it to make you more down? is it to make your better? Because in all honesty, nothing will change in that short period of time, especially with mental health issues. I don't know why people bother sometimes, in saying such things!
I wish a saying a sentence could cure us, but it doesn't. It's like saying 'oh you're smiling'. SH*T I must be cured!
And I would rather be homeless and starving, than having this **** go through my mind, going through these emotions all the time. To some extent.
Anyone can get a mental illness, look at celebrities with mental health issues. It can affect anyone.
"Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes." - W. Gibson.
I hate it too... Its like when people say: you just have to 'pull yourself together'. It pisses me off, making me feel like im being an attention seeker, basically reinforcing all my horrible thoughts and images that i have of myself, that im selfish etc....
People can't compare self harm and mental illness to starving children in Africa, they are in, so to say a different world. Everyone has little problems that they may talk about once in a while, the problems we face are just on different levels. Mental problems are different to physical ones. Only people who dont understand say things like this. They dont know what it is like.
Have you ever looked fear in the face and said "I just don't care"?
