Illness is not a character issue

By Jessica Coleman
Staff Writer    
   “Well, Bob, since the accident, you just haven’t been the same. I know you’re paralyzed from the waist down, but have you at least tried getting up and walking? No one can help you if you don’t try to help yourself, you know. Something something something bootstraps, Bob.”
    This is not just ridiculous and absurd. It is offensive. It is heartless and hurtful and you’d be all but tarred and feathered in the town square for saying such a thing.
     “Sharon, I know you’re depressed, but have you just tried smiling more? Let loose and just have a little fun! Bootstraps, Sharon, bootstraps!” 
    Somehow, that is seen as  acceptable. How is this a more ok thing to say? 
    The answer is, it isn’t.     
    See, if you were in a wheelchair, and you could not access a building, or a social gathering, they would build you a ramp. “Oh. You can’t walk in? That’s ok. Let us help you.”
    Three men would surround your chair and lift you over the curb and wheel you to your spot. I know, because my mother suffered from Multiple Sclerosis. She became wheelchair-bound when I was three years old, and I learned that if you really want to see people come together to help another human being, add a chair with wheels and two legs that are just for show to any given situation (ok, admittedly, Mom’s big blue Disney-princess eyes probably didn’t hurt). The response will absolutely restore your faith in humanity.
    For some reason, though, if your disability or prohibiting factor is mental, and not physical, a lot of people are less eager to assist. 
    If you can’t walk into the building because your legs don’t function, they either build you a ramp, or relieve you of your responsibility to go, or even physically pick you up and carry you to your destination. However, if your limitation is, say, an inability to get out of the car because you feel like you can’t breathe and you may be crushed under the weight of your responsibility to interact with other humans today, we, as a society, say “Suck it up! Just do it. You’ll be fine. Bootstraps.”
    We tell depressed people “Just smile.” We tell people with anxiety disorders “Just calm down!” We tell people with PTSD “Just move on with your life! Let it go. It is in the past.” And if they can’t, we tell them they’re weak. We tell them that they aren’t trying hard enough.
    We equate inability with unwillingness and then with weakness. It seems irrational when it’s put into words like that, doesn’t it?
    I am talking to you, you sparkling example of human fortitude. If you crawled out of bed this morning, even though it felt like you were melded to the mattress and you had a hundred pound weight on your chest, you are not weak; not by any definition of the word that I know of. 
    You are a fighter in ways that those who judge you can not even imagine. People who have never known what it is like to have to pep talk yourself out of bed and into the shower through a torrent of tears and with quick, shallow anxious breaths can’t possibly understand what that crushing weight feels like, but you fight it, every day. Bless you a million times. 
    If you wake up screaming from nightmares which recall an event or series of events in your life that you still can’t escape, and somehow you still manage to get the kids up and dressed and off to school, you are an absolute rock star. Don’t you let anyone tell you otherwise. If you feel like a prisoner in your own mind and you managed to brush your teeth today, or even if you didn’t manage to brush your teeth today, you are amazing. 
    I am not here to tell you how to fix anything. I am not a doctor. But I am here to tell you that it is ok to be sick, and you do not have to be ashamed of depression, anxiety, ADHD, any other mental illness that plagues you, any more than mom was required to be ashamed of her wheelchair. 
    Illness, whether physical or mental, is not a character defect.