Mental health snobbery?

[Ana54]

I was in a mental hospital for the first time in April 2008. My friend and roommate there said she had been on five psych meds and had 5 diagnoses, including schizophrenia and a personality disorder, and bipolar disorder, and she REALLY had bipolar disorder. So I thought I was a lot more mentally healthy than her. She had also had traumatic experiences I hadn't had. But then I got traumatic experiences and was diagnoses as schizoaffective and bipolar and a personality disorder. I have now been on 14 psych meds. This is totally like WAY more than her. She was 32 when I met her and I'm only 22 now. So I'm the sicker more messed-up one. She seemed so normal, more normal than me, and now I realize I'm just as bad as them. I thought I was more mentally healthy than all of them in a way, because I had a PDD, and thought that was most of my problem, and because I had only started taking meds when I was 19, and because one of the psych techs on the unit said to me, "I didn't want to say anything in group, but you're doing better than all the others. The problem is that you don't think you are. Look around. Look at them. They ain't doin so good." I looked around at them but they just looked normal to me. I thought, If I'm doing better than all of them and am in this much pain, I can't imagine how they must be feeling and what they must be going through. Now I realize, and I always sort of knew this, that in another way I'm doing worse than all of them. They all got along at least. I got along with them too, but that was probably because they knew what triggered people like themselves so they knew not to do/say those things.

 

[Emor]

I actually plan on writing a story about someone's self-awareness regarding how the world around them perceives them and the story would be about the gradual realisation of how people really perceive them.
BTW... sorry to go nit-picky on you, but afaik, Schizoaffective is a personality disorder.
But yeah, I used to think I was normal but now I find my self noticing I do all these weird things and months after doing something noticing how weird it would have been and it just makes me paranoid tbh about how the world perceives me.
There's a guy in my year who's what one would say severely aspergic I suppose. Everyone talks down to him and patronises him and I honestly think he's clueless to how people perceive him. Now I start to wonder that maybe people do the same to me and that I'm also perceived as a bad person. It's not just winding up.
I wish I could be NT for a day and look at a video of how I act on a normal day and see how that comes to me.
Up until like 2 years ago I actually thought I was pretty normal and people hated me because I was a bad person. But now I blame people hating me or picking on me on my AS, and I wonder 2 years from now what I'll discover.
I don't really find it depressing, I'm actually sort of intrigued and it's a reason for me to live.
I'm actually quite interested in this subject.
You never know Ana, maybe you were right in the first place?
It's not like it really matters what the arrogant perceives you as. It's just a ***** that it's in our nature as human beings to be arrogant little bastards .
I think AS people having poor ToM is ********. Maybe in practical social contexts then yeah. Maybe.
But as a minority the only way to really survive is to have amazing ToM or you just end up hating the world for their lack of ToM.
ToM=Theory of Mind for those uninformed.
Wiki it.
EMZ=]

 

[Ana54]

Thanks for that last bit. That is hiow I felt yesterday to the extreme.


I also want to say that I have never had any conflict at all with anyone diagnosed with a mental disorder except in two instances: 1) with my bipolar/depressed/PDD-NOS boyfriend, and 2) with a woman who saw a shrink and was on meds but said something very generalizing and even cruel about manic depressives and me and how I was a manic depressive so therefore I was **** in this way.

 

[Emor]

I fall out with people with mental disorders all the time tbh.
I don't feel like I relate all that much with people with mental disorders, at least, not any more than I do with NTs.
EMZ=]

 

[Ana54]

Oops; what I meant was, I only had conflict twice with people who were actually DIAGNOSED. Probably because the diagnosed knew they had something wrong so they got diagnosed.


It's normal people who have it good that I don't identify with. I feel they are bratty and as a result, mean and snobbish.

 

[mikkyh]

I have a mental disorder, depression, yes, but a mental disorder. Even I fell out with a loada people with depression. I dont know why.

 

[Emor]

@Ana: I've fallen out with people both diagnosed and self-diagnosed tbh. I think I fall out with self-diagnosed people more often though for various reasons(not regarding their self-diganoses).
@Michael: I think it's 'cause there's not that much you can relate too or have in common when you're depressed tbh.
With AS teenage girls I relate quickly and get on really well but I tend to fall out with them too pretty quickly, even though we're pretty similar. I think you're actually more likely to fall out with people who you are alike over small things tbh. I'm always falling out with Atheists over ethical issues, but don't even bother with Christians bringing it up. If that's a good enough analogy.
EMZ=]

 

[Ana54]

I have been diagnosed with everything. I think I have Mental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, which I suspected 2.5 years ago, from what I recall. I sorta knew you cna pretty much slap any label on me, because I fit the criteria for a lot of things.