Why is it?

Let me preface this by saying this a post I've been thinking about for quite some time and has to do with the stigma attached to mental health issues.

Why is it, that a cancer patient gets empathy and sympathy, but a mental health patient gets pity and condescending? I have never and likely won't understand the stigma attached to mental health issues. It is an illness just like cancer, heart disease, Parkinson, arthritis, cystic fibrosis or any of those, but for some reason it has this ridiculous stigma attached to it, that takes so much effort and inner peace to overcome. I just don't understand why.

Why is there is this shame and stigma attached to my PTSD and depression? Why do those of us that suffer from mental health issues get told we're crazy or, my personal "favorite", "it's all in our head" and to "just get over it". All I can do is bite my tongue, roll my eyes and occasionally tell someone just how wrong they are. At the end of the day my depression is a chemical imbalance in my brain that needs to be treated or in some cases with the seasonal depression also a lack of vitamin D and sunlight. That all sounds clinical right? So why are people so quick to brush it off?

I am personally done with it, no more will I hide my issues or my story that is making me who I am. Would I have chosen this path for myself? Do I think my parents or siblings would have? No, but the fact of the matter is, it is MY PATH and all I can do from here is take charge and make myself a better person for it. Has someone who is a rape victim, this gives my attacker power that is not his right to have and he probably doesn't even know or care that he has it.

If you are reading this and feeling ashamed of something in your past, stop, it is so much easier said than done, I know and it is a process, and it's hard but it CAN be done.