Just a Pile of Extra Work

      We have probably all experienced the mental health stigma that told us that mental health conditions are scary monsters that live in our brains from which we can never recover. This, of course, makes us expect people to run when we mention our mental health condition. Why should people be expected to put up with a scary monster when it has no chance of being "fixed" or at the very least, less broken? So, we're made to believe that having a mental health condition makes us something tragic, hopeless, and scary, which is just too much to expect someone else to reasonably and continuously deal with.
     Since I've been struggling through the worst of my anxiety for the past couple of years, I've noticed this recurring fear. This fear likes to pop up usually when I've had a particularly rough time with my anxiety, usually in the middle of hysterical sobbing or when I can't bring myself to be alone, when I'm at my most vulnerable. The fear: What if my OCD is too much for anyone else to deal with, and they just leave? What if everyone I love decides they can't deal with me anymore and they just...leave?
     I never worried about this sort of thing before the OCD had me in its grip at the age of nineteen, but now it's a regular thing that's on my mind. I worry that my friends will get tired of my anxiety-riddled, rambling messages. I worry that my mom is going to get tired of the tearful phone calls and the meltdowns and the being careful of triggers. In the middle of a sobbing, hysterical meltdown, I've asked her time and again if she's going to make me move out of the house because she's tired of my anxiety. (She would never do that.)
     Logically, I'm sure these things won't happen. It's just the anxiety. Anxiety picks up on your worst fear, and then anxiety beats you over the head with your worst fear until you can barely function. The fear is that a mental health condition can make me unlovable. Anxiety shoves you right over the edge from average-person worry into catastrophe. (The average person worries that their loved ones may just up and no longer love/like/care for them. Then the anxiety distorts that into thinking that I am unlovable.) I can use logic with anxiety all I want, but that doesn't erase the fear. Sometimes, I feel like my anxiety is too much for me to deal with, let alone for some other person outside myself to deal with. It's just so much work, which means I am so much work, and what other person wants to have all that extra work when they don't have to? My anxiety answers: No one.
     I know an unwell brain thrives on isolation, so of course my mental health condition pushes and pushes me to be isolated. If I am isolated with no support system, then the unwell brain can rage and wreak havoc with no one to point out anything that might stop it. Yet, knowing that doesn't stop me from getting lost down the rabbit hole and thinking I'm too much work and people don't want to put up with me.
     Here's what I want us all to realize and hold on to: Just because your mental health condition feels like too much for you to handle some days does not mean that you, as a human, are too much to handle. Even though a mental health condition is work to live with does not mean that you, as a human, are too much work. The people around you that truly love and care about you do not think that you are too much work. They just see a family member or friend that they want to be there for, that they want to help. You are more than just a pile of extra work in the form of crazy. No one sees you as tragically broken and hopeless. You have intrinsic value and good qualities that people love about you that are not diminished by the fact that you also have a mental health condition.
     I'll end with this: Yes, having a mental health condition requires work to function. Yes, some days require more effort than other days. Just because you have a mental health condition does not mean that you, as a human, are more work than you're worth. You are a human being, with intrinsic value, a unique personality, and good qualities, and the people that truly care about you see that. They don't see you as a pile of extra work they wish they could discard. The people that truly care about you will not leave you because you have a mental health condition.