Mental illness.

I have OCD an avoidant personaliy disorder AND depression and a lot o' undiagnosed thingies methinks. "But how", I hear you ask "should I, as a normal wonderful person treat a fragile creature such as you?"
Well here are some basic do's and don'ts when dealing with mentally ille people....Well seeing as I can't speak for all mentally ill people I guess this list is just for me...Which brings me to point number one

Do NOT... Treat us like we're all the same. There are almost as many diagnoses in mental illnes as there ar in physical illness. Adding to that we're just people. Some of us are nice, some of us are douchebags. But we are not all the same. Imagine if you would, someone  complaining that he is sick. Do you just accept that or do you ask him WHAT disease he suffers from? Does he have a debillatating lung disease, or a cold? Pretty important to know isn't it? Some diagnoses are so far apart that they are actually describing complete and utter opposites.

Do NOT...Treat us any differently to "normal" people. Nothing is more annoying than being treated like a child. even children hate it. And mentally ill people are the same. Don't give us special treatment or avoid topics, just because we're there. It's offensive and hurtful to treat us like that. We are normal people and we may be different in some ways but NOTHING will make us retreat more easily that being treated as a fragile child. This is again just my opinion, some people with mental illness may disagree, but at the very least ask us before you assume that we're to be treated like 5 year olds.

Do NOT...Give us advice. This is a no-brainer. If you were looking for help for an undiagnosed cough would you see a phycisian or ask your 22 year old cousin? We don't need or appreciate your advice regarding our illness. You don't know anything about it. Thats nothing to be ashamed of, I don't know how to diagnose diabetes, that's not my area of expertise. And don't think that just because you know how to handle things that the mentally ill person doesn't that makes you an expert. To bring it back to physical illness, that would be like me giving out good advice about how NOT to have asthma.

To be continued....