How You Can Have a Mental Illness Without Being Mentally Ill

I promise you that this post is not as nuts as the title sounds.

I have a dear friend that I get to have some great conversations with. She seems to be one of the very few people who are able to understand what I go through without fully going through it herself. I say it like that because she does not have mental illness. She does, however, struggle with bouts of depression and anxiety periodically. Depression, anxiety, bi-polar, etc., are all considered mental illnesses - or mental disorders. However, there is a line that is drawn between a mental concern and a mental illness. She and I just had this conversation a few days ago, and I thought it was a great topic to cover.

What my friend deals with, is actually what the field of science refers to as a mental concern. It's usually brought on by stress. Sometimes being a parent can make you feel depressed for a short period of time, other times the death of a loved one can cause it. Anxiety has a much more wide range of stressors that can cause it, but for a mental concern, it's usually something like money troubles, the loss of a job, or any other major life changes. What sets mental illness and mental concerns apart from each other is the concept of whether or not it affects your daily life to the extreme, for long periods of time. Those with mental concerns typically find that their depression or anxiety don't usually cause an interference with every aspect of their daily life. A mental concern doesn't usually affect the daily life for more than a few months at a time. It passes, and the person is typically able to deal with it normally. Those with mental illness find that it drags on, sometimes for years at a time. The field of science refers to mental concerns as the social aspect of mental illness. This means that the person's emotional well-being is affected by their social class, family, employment, poor health, or financial situation and not by the psychological or biological makeup of the brain - aka their neurotransmitters or hormones are not affected by the small bout of depression or anxiety. 

Your neurotransmitters are fascinating little things. Contrary to popular belief, they are actually what release your hormones; there is no separate component to mental illness psychologically that makes up your hormones found in the imbalances, other than your neurotransmitters because they are what control the hormones that are found in the imbalances. Your neurotransmitters carry messages from one nerve cell (neuron) to the next in the brain. Because your neurons don't actually touch, they need something to relay the messages between them. Your neurotransmitters can affect your mood, ability to concentrate, your physical process, and your memory. When they are disrupted, the messages are not carried to the next neuron, thus causing a malfunction that can lead to mental illness and addiction. When the malfunction occurs, the chemicals needed to prevent mental illness are not released causing the levels to decrease. There are different neurotransmitters inside of your brain. The most common ones found to malfunction, causing mental illness are dopamine, acetylcholine, GABA, norepinephrine, and serotonin.

For example, if the movements of your serotonin or norepinephrine are interrupted, depression or anxiety disorders can be a direct result because the two hormones regulate your concentration, appetite, and mood. For those with depression, it is commonly found that the message produced by the serotonin to a neuron is not completed and the message is instead sent right back to the original location.

The lack of dopamine is commonly found in schizophrenia and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Feeling more tired than usual, poor motivation to accomplish the simplest of tasks, and high levels of stress are all linked to low levels of dopamine. Dopamine is the chemical that allows your brain to feel pleasure. It is released during sex and any kind of addiction (i.e. shopping, drugs, sex, food, etc.). It is also the most common imbalance found in the lack of motivation or lack of pleasure that is found in patients with depression. Dopamine is also essential for your memory. When the levels decrease, your memory suffers, thus causing both short term and long term memory loss. 

The point of mental health medications is to stop the hormones from returning to their original location, and instead helping to deliver them to the next neuron. 

I won't bore you with anymore science talk, because I'm sure you get the picture now.

Mental illness is most commonly caused by your biological and psychological make-up, aka your neurotransmitters or biological (less common than the psychological aspect) make-up through your genes. Mental concerns are caused from the social aspects, thus not leading to the malfunction of your neurotransmitters – right away, that is. If a mental concern does not make any improvement, it can sometimes lead to a full blown mental illness that may need treatment. Mental concerns are usually where you see someone struggling with depression for several weeks or a few months and they suddenly just snap out of it. They are able to "bounce back" in a normal way. Those with mental illness are not able to do so normally because their neurotransmitters do not "allow it." 

There are many reasons as to why I know for a fact that I have mental illness and not just a mental concern. There are the obvious things like my medications, long term treatment plan with therapists and my psychiatrist, and the fact that I have felt completely numb since the age of 13. But I think that sometimes people forget that mental illness is not a mental concern. It does not come and go, it is not present some days and gone the next. Mental illness is always present in whatever I do. I wake up every day, and my morning routine is affected by it. My motivation levels to communicate to those around me are affected. There are phone calls and text messages I must tend to, but can't seem to do so. There are things around the house that need to get done, but I can't seem to make myself do it. There is a job that I must go to five days a week, but dread going not because I hate it, but because I hate having to get up for it. There are friendships that I must put the effort into holding up, but instead allow myself to let that part of my life go, causing me to lose friendships because I'm too "lazy" to put in the effort. The times when I need to go to the store to get the essentials or to the grocery store to get myself food in order to live don't happen unless someone is with me because I have an extreme and unrealistic fear of going anywhere in public alone. There is the reminder of the trauma I have endured within the recent years each morning when I wake because somehow, my brain always finds a way to start thinking about it. There is the dissociation, flashbacks, panic attacks, and random mental breakdowns sometimes brought on by nothing. There is the paranoia brought on by my borderline personality disorder. Nothing major, but I spend each day convinced that everyone in my life somehow hates me but they somehow hide it perfectly. There is my addiction to food that somehow consumes my thoughts. Most days, I can't wait to get home just so that I can eat everything in sight as a way to cope with everything. There is the overwhelming feeling of just wanting to go to bed when I’m away from my house. Not because I’m so tired, but because I’m exhausted from trying to hold my body up through the extreme fatigue.

And that my friends, is only one day out of the week. I wake up the next day, and do that all over again. Throw in an abnormal stressor that isn't an everyday thing for me, and I can promise you that you won't want anything to do with me that day.

I am in no way dismissing any of the mental concerns that people may suffer from. They are completely valid, and they are extremely difficult to cope with. I hope and I pray for those currently struggling with mental concerns. I hope and I pray that it doesn't eventually turn into something that becomes psychological. I hope and I pray that your neurotransmitters are able to endure the stressors for you to come out of it normally so that you don't end up like the rest of us. 

But the words mental illness are thrown around just as loosely as anxiety, panic attacks, and OCD. Just because you have a mental concern does not mean that you have mental illness. If you believe that you may have a mental illness and not just a mental concern, please see a mental health professional for an evaluation before you start throwing the term around. The more it gets thrown around, the less valid those of us with mental illness actually feel. Telling people that you have something when you don’t, is a lie and quite frankly, manipulative. It would be the same as you telling someone that you had cancer when you hadn’t actually been diagnosed with it. It is so important to see someone about it, because you may actually have a mental illness and any mental illness left untreated can be a disaster. But please do not refer to your mental concern as a mental illness unless you have been told that you in fact, have a mental illness.

If you or someone you know needs support right now, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or text START to 741-741

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