Not Waving But Drowning

Having a mental illness is like swimming with sandbags around your feet. Everyone else is staying afloat just fine. They’re laughing and splashing up a storm, but you don’t find the water quite as pleasant. You keep vanishing under the surface and gasping for breath. Your fellow swimmers can’t work out why you refuse to float like they do or why you look so goddamned miserable, so they judge you as weak… or fragile… or angry.

The drowners aren’t fragile. They’re just not as able as you are. They have sandbags tied around their feet, and they’re hardly ever the people who put them there. Sometimes the extra weight is caused by their physiology. Sometimes it’s past abuse. Sometimes it’s a traumatic brain injury… or an underlying illness with psychiatric symptoms… or trauma from an assault.

Stevie Smith wrote:

I was much further out than you thought
[…]
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

This is the gist of it. We’re not waving but drowning, but mental illness isn’t as easy to understand as a wheelchair or seeing eye dog. Joe Public doesn’t know how to tell the difference between waving and drowning. Maybe he has a cursory knowledge of depression and PTSD, but he rarely understands how these disorders present in everyday life. If you have a more obscure issue like dissociative fugue or a neuro-developmental disorder, you’re on your own. Nobody understands you. You’re waving, not drowning.

In March this year, I fell into the worst depression of my life. I was dissociative, hyperreactive, and confused. The whole world turned into a trigger. Everywhere I went, there was glass on the floor. Everyone else was walking that surface with their shoes on wondering why I was bleeding. They judged me for the symptoms of a disease I had no control over. Some of them are still judging me.

I’m all for accountability and self-care, so I healed with the help of friends, therapy, and medication. Still, if someone triggers me, I drown. Not my sandbags. Not my fault. I’ve been working on this for over a decade and have made exceptional progress.

But I’m not cured. This takes more time than you think it does. Don't judge me for failing to heal as quickly as you'd prefer.I still have sandbags around my feet. Sometimes I drown. I always find my way to the surface, but if my head slips underwater, it’s always the people holding me down who are the hardest part.

These are often intersectional feminists with an excellent grasp of ableism. They understand that people with sandbags around their feet are not at fault. They just don’t know what drowning looks like or what kind of sandbags you’re dealing with.

People with mental illnesses don’t get a disabled sticker to stick on their cars. If you love someone who is affected, learn about it. Hell, learn about it even if all your loved ones are waving, not drowning. Most importantly, stop assuming that all drowning is evidence of a weak swimmer. Look underneath the surface.

Consider this post public property. Do with it as you will.