It’s all in your head.
Just get yourself up and dressed, you will feel better.
You feel tired because you sit around doing nothing. You are just bored.
How many times have you heard these statements?
Mental illness isn’t just mental. There is a whole list of physical implications I battle with regularly.
Here are just a handful:
1. Feeling nauseous.
I, like many who struggle with anxiety and other mental illnesses can often feel physically sick. Medication and upset stomach from nervousness are just a couple of reasons why I battle with it every day. How is my mental illness just mental when it makes me feel physically sick?
2. Feeling dizzy or disengaged.
Many of us know all too well what it feels like when the room is spinning around us and we cant seem to think/look straight. Feeling off balance is a common symptom of anxiety. I can’t concentrate on what is around so it feels like everything is moving at 100 m.p.h. How is my mental illness just mental when it feels like I’m walking in space?
3. Experiencing shortness of breath.
When it all gets too much, I just can’t seem to catch my breath. What could be better when you already feel anxious? Let’s just throw in the feeling of dying! How is my mental illness just mental when I can’t physically breathe sometimes?
4. Shaking.
When I say shaking, I don’t just mean my hands. My whole body shakes. From the outside, it must be quite uncomfortable to watch — times that by a million and that’s how it feels on the inside. How is my mental illness just mental when I physically can’t keep still?
5. My heart pounds.
So if feeling sick, being disengaged, having shortness of breath and my whole body shaking wasn’t enough, my heart is pounding out of my chest. Any minute now it feels like I am going to die. Oh wait, but it’s just mental.
Do not underestimate what your mind can do to you physically. Please think twice before you use the phrase “It’s all in your head.” Yes, mental illness is in your head, where else would it be? But it affects people physically, too. Physically to the point where some may feel like they are actually going to die. Scary, huh?
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Thinkstock photo via vDraw.