I think your perception of reality is severely warped.

I've never heard voices, but I can tell you my own story as an example: I grew up with bipolar disorder, and no one knew. I was not diagnosed until about four years ago, when I was 23. Before that I lived my life thinking that being depressed and not wanting to be alive was normal, and that periods of racing thoughts and extreme irritability were normal as well. I just thought other people were able to manage their moods, whereas I was the one who was "bad at life". I was told off all the time for my terrible behaviour, and my "laziness" (when I was depressed), and I thought I deserved that. I had no sense of normalcy.

My wakeup call came when I finally went to see a doctor because of how physically exhausted I was. My GP took one look at me and wanted to screen me for depression. I thought the very idea was preposterous. Me? Depressed? Of course not!

As most of us will know, they ask you about the various symptoms of depression and ask you to use a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the highest, to indicate the extent to which you feel the different symptoms. As my doctor was asking me to rate how I was feeling, I found myself thinking, "Actually, I feel like I should say 5, which probably means I'm depressed, so I won't say that. But surely no one feels happy enough to say 1! I don't want to make myself sound too happy. Normal people probably feel somewhere between 2-3 for most of these." So my answers were mostly 2s and 3s. I thought I was doing well. When I was told at the end of it that I should be on medication I had no idea how that could be the case, because I had lied, giving the answers I'd presumed to be "average".

That day I learned, even if I denied it out loud, that the way I had felt throughout my life was not how it's supposed to be. I'd spent my childhood and teenage years accepting harsh criticism everywhere I turned because I thought other people were right; I thought I was a bad person. I thought I was weak or something. Instead it turned out that I was mentally unwell, and that it wasn't my fault. As a child I was mostly a rapid cycler, and most of the time I had no idea what was going on, only that I couldn't control it. Then I would come down from my "upswings" and feel extremely ashamed of myself. I'd beat myself up, knowing that others would do the same. I accepted that this was my reality. I accepted it as the truth.

But it wasn't the truth. I thought the idea of being mentally ill was scary, but I have come to realise that I'd be just as bipolar with or without a diagnosis, but with a diagnosis I can get help. I can get the treatment I need to feel better.

The overwhelming majority of people will tell you that you're not well, because you're not. No one here is going to tell you that the way you feel is okay. You need help. Just because you think something is "normal" and how it's supposed to be, that doesn't mean you're right in thinking that. In my case, I was wrong: not everyone experiences those kinds of mood swings. In fact, it isn't normal at all, and once I accepted that, I could also accept that I needed help.

Please get help, eden. Life has the potential to be so much better for you than it is right now, and you deserve a better life. You deserve a life that's free of abusive voices.

Take care of yourself.