What I hate more than anything else is the double standard. If someone else offends me, it gets justified. "You have to overlook him/her. He/she has a mental illness, poor thing. He/she can't help it." This paints me as an intolerant so-and-so if the behavior continues to offend me, right? But let ME offend somebody else while I'm having a bad day, and then try to explain that I have a mental illness, and all of a sudden it's, "Oh, quit using your mental illness as an excuse, and take responsibility for your behavior."

Then there's "Did you take your medicine today?" or "Do you need to call your doctor?" every time I have any emotional reaction, no matter how normal, typical, or legitimate. When we have a psychiatric diagnosis, we aren't allowed any emotions at all, are we? I knew a man whose doctor automatically upped his medication, without even seeing him first, when his mother died. They were very close. It seems to me that a lot of sadness and crying and even falling apart would be expected in that situation, right? But no, because he has a mental illness, all emotions become symptoms. They'd give someone who is diagnosis-free a lot more leeway, that's for sure.