YOU CAN'T SEE MENTAL ILLNESS

“Mental illness People assume you aren’t sick unless they see the sickness on your skin like scars forming a map of all the ways you’re hurting.

My heart is a prison of Have you tried?s

Have you tried exercising?

Have you tried eating better?

Have you tried not being sad, not being sick?

Have you tried being more like me?

Have you tried shutting up?

Yes, I have tried. Yes, I am still trying, and yes,

I am still sick.

Sometimes monsters are invisible,

and sometimes demons attack you from the inside.

Just because you cannot see the claws and the teeth does not mean they aren’t ripping through me.

Pain does not need to be seen to be felt.

Telling me there is no problem won’t solve the problem. This is not how miracles are born. This is not how sickness works.”

― Emm Roy, The First Step