I was looking online for a t-shirt that said those words, but I wasn’t able to find a single one. There were a lot of shirts that said “Proud to be a breast cancer survivor”, “Proud to be a lymphoma survivor”, and “Proud to be an HIV survivor”, but not a single t-shirt that proclaimed pride in being someone who continues the struggle against Depression and who hasn’t given up the fight. Statistics say that over 41,000 people die every year from suicide, with most of them suffering from some type of mental illness. That makes suicide the 10th leading cause of death in America, and yet, I can’t even find a t-shirt anywhere that proclaims my pride in myself for still maintaining the struggle against this daunting and sometimes seemingly invincible opponent.
So why is this? Why can’t I find such a t-shirt? It’s because our society still has a significant amount of stigma attached to mental illness and suicide. The topic of mental illness is still currently stuck where being gay and HIV positive was about 30 years ago. We need to do what we can in our communities to eradicate the stigma of mental illness, just like the gay community worked to eradicate the stigma of being gay and having HIV. We need to do what we can to talk about this topic that has traditionally not been talked about in public so that we can erase the shame that’s associated with it.
Recently, I’ve been talking a lot more openly about having Bipolar Disorder with my community and I’ve noticed some remarkable changes that have occurred, not only in others but also in me. So many people around me started telling me of their own struggles with mental illness and that of their relatives. And as for me, for the first time in my live, I’m finally beginning to truly accept and love myself in spite of my condition, and that’s been such a huge relief.
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