Mike CernovichVerified account

So my mom is in an mental institution and will probably live out the rest of her life there. Not a way I wanted to start off a thread, but my family has seen America's mental health system inside and out, and maybe others deal with these problems. Here goes....

One fear you have when relatives have severe mental illness (my mom had been in institutions and her mom died in one for severe schizophrenia is, - Will it happen to me?

Because mental illness isn't spoken out publicly much, people haven't a sense of what it's like. It's not "feeling blue" or something. My mom's mom would put towels over every mirror as she saw people looking at her through them. Crippling hallucinations.

I work in mindset, what most people have is a need for a tune-up, some negative thought patterns rewritten. So they generalize and think, "Just be happy, you depressed people." Depressed people can't *not* be unhappy. Their minds have turned against them.

Unhappiness doesn't even begin to describe depression. Depression isn't a mood, it's physiological. Imagine your entire body ached, like you just got beat up or had the hardest workout of your life or got into a car crash. That's how depressed people feel *every day.*

I've never actually dealt with depression, most people haven't. Being sad or having some existential angst is part of the human condition. Legitimately depressed people don't need a pep talk. One issue, however, is this - What causes depression? No one knows!