Maybe it's because society still uses disparaging comments about mental illness as a way of indicating something else == paying lip service to its existence while using that lip service to deny its reality. For example: you do something considered socially inappropriate and people make nasty, cutting comments about how you are "sick", "psycho", or "need medication" (or "must be off your medication") EVEN IF/WHEN they have NO idea whether the person they are talking about really IS sick (mentally ill) or on, or in need of, medication.

Beyond the heavy "stigmas" still associated with mental illness -- the myths and lies that are scary to people -- there is still this "trendy" way of joking about it and/or using it as a verbal weapon in society that reinforces the feeling-sense that such things are our "fault" because we are "bad" or character-flawed or immoral or WHATEVER. In other words, it's not a cause for compassion and understanding but for judgment and condemnation instead, whether that comes heavy or just "lightly" in a careless, snide aside comment.

We already feel self-conscious because of the weirdness and extremes we experience in our thoughts and feelings and the level of "difference" we live with between ourselves and "normal" people. We may already feel guilty or bad about ourselves for a bunch of reasons, whether because we were ab*sed (physically, emotionally, and/or sexually), neglected, harrassed, picked on, rejected, etc. or because of our personal "failures" in the areas of relationships, career, religion or "path" in life, etc. and these negative reinforcers feed into and exacerbate those self-hating, self-punishing feelings, and cause us to feel it is OUR FAULT we are this unacceptable "thing" that we are.

But if medical science is true, then it's not our fault at all. When the body is sick it gets feverish, chills, coughs, "the runs", puking, pain, etc. When the brain is sick it manifests in our feelings and thoughts which are the product of neurons, synapses, neurotransmitters, etc. which are affected by the sickness just like the body's "guts" are affected by body illness. Would we feel "at fault" for throwing up because of a stomach virus, or fever, chills & pain because of flu? Of course not.

Just some thoughts rambling on here ... nervous energy ... next appointment with t-doc is in an hour ... i'm still new to this so i'm still nervous even though last week went well (or seemed to). (i live in constant dread -- either things will be bad or if they were good they will stop being good! because i don't deserve it!!)