We have an photo exhibit here for the next two weeks.  It’s called Nothing to Hide and deals with people affected by mental illnesses.  Each photograph is of a family or person who has OCD, Depression, Schizophrenia, etc and is accompanied with 2-3 quotes from the family and person with the illness. 

I know the point of this exhibit is to educate people about mental illiness and make those with it feel that they aren’t alone but it’s still painful to read and understand what some of these people deal with from day to day.  But does it really educate?  Does it really make someone feel comfort? 

When I get the courage to say, “I have OCD which brings on anxiety and depression,” people think I’m Monk or Jack Nicholason-esque from As Good As It Gets.  I don’t feel comfort in that.  I have a hard time believing that those pictures and stories dispel popular TV shows and a movies. 

I wish I didn’t know…didn’t understand the secrets of an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder person.  I wish I didn’t know what it was like to count things over and over again.  I wish I wasn’t able to catch when something was out of place within a second of seeing it.  I wish I could handle when someone organizes something different from the way I would. 

I wish I was normal.

~ by daydreamwriter on October 7, 2008.