• When you’re having a panic attack or a depressive episode or anything else, your brain is not your own.  Telling someone that they need to mentally, logically realize that “things aren’t that bad!” is completely useless.  Because their brain is not under their control.  I know it’s hard to fathom, but guess what!  It happens, and it’s just as terrifying as it sounds.
• Mental illness is not weakness.
• Mental illness is not weakness.
• Mental illness is not weakness.
• Mental illness is also not laziness, or stubbornness, or misplaced fears.  It is an illness, and is not anyone’s fault.
• Hinting that things will get better if you just try harder does not help.  It just makes you feel guilty about being ill.  It’s ridiculous to make someone feel guilty about having leukemia.  Same thing goes for mental illness.
• A lot of times, people with mental illness feel like they’re fighting a neverending battle with the orcs that live inside their brain (yes, this is turning into a Helm’s Deep reference).  They win the war every day that they’re still alive, but it’s really hard to see that when you’re under siege 24 hours a day.
• If someone bursts into uncontrollable sobbing over the phone, don’t assume they’re PMSing.  Hormones can, yes, make things worse if you’re suffering from depression and anxiety, but they are not the only cause for every breakdown ever.
• If you know someone doesn’t feel safe with their own mind, and needs someone to be there for their safety, don’t fucking text them to ask how they’re doing and then leave them be if they don’t answer.  Drive to their fucking apartment (if you’re in their area) and get that door open.  At the very least provide some sort of support until the urge to self-harm or anything subsides.
• Sometimes mental illness is chronic.  A lot of people with mental illness understand this, and know that things are potentially never going to get completely better.  Telling people things will get better and they will have a normal life rings false, and is unhelpful.
• Calling in sick to work because your depression flares up and you physically can’t get out of bed is not laziness.  Having someone call in on your behalf is not irresponsible.  Taking an FMLA day to recuperate after having a violent outburst is not letting everyone down.
• Sometimes there is nothing that will make it better.  Sometimes there are just things that will make it worse.  Learn what those things are, because sometimes avoiding making it worse is the only thing you can do.
• Being afraid of your own body is not silly or stupid.  Just like sometimes your brain is terrifying, your body can be terrifying.  It doesn’t have to be logical, or rational.  If it is, it is.
• Chronic anxiety is like this: There’s a fear response in your brain, right?  THAT SWITCH IS ALWAYS ON.  Low- to mid-level anxiety is a constant in my life, and I don’t think I’d know what to do if it suddenly went away.  Because it’s how I’ve always functioned.
• It’s entirely possible to lie curled in a ball on the floor for hours or days at a time.  That’s not laziness.  Do you actually think people want to do that?  Guess what.  They don’t.  But they can’t not.  Because their mind is not their own in those moments.
• A lot of times people with mental illness will forget to eat, which is bad in all sorts of ways, because usually taking your meds on an empty stomach will make you at the very least nauseous, if not make you actually vomit it up.  Online ordering is a godsend.  Send someone a pizza if they’re having an episode.
• If someone has OCD, don’t take away their coping mechanisms and expect them to magically be cured.  Expect them to react like you just threw them out of an airplane without a parachute, because that’s what it feels like.

Oh, yeah.  And mental illness is not weakness.

Feel free to add to this post.