This Journal is DOPE

Mental Illness

I gotta share this, write it down, cause it I keep it in any longer I'm gonna go insane. And I got no one to message at all so like fuck it. Just a little squabble you don't have to read.

Mental Illness awareness, we've all got to get a better grasp and handle on mental illness.

Is this relating to Jonghyun? It absolutely is, hey grief is not short lived all right?

Society does such a shitty job about handling mental illness. Legit if it's not physical? Doesn't exist or is not worth the time. What they don't realize is that we lose more people to suicide than we do to physical ailments. We lose youth, we lose life, and that shouldn't be taken lightly. Korea especially, their Society has the worst handle in mental illness, and it's what Jonghyun was trying to speak out against.

Jonghyun's suicide note was released as per permission by his family and honestly? It was like looking through mirror that rewound time.

Depression is not joke. It's not common sadness, you can't get away with naming sadness as depression.

It's a beast. A beast that gnaws away at you from the inside. A parasite. It's an ILLNESS, and should be treated as such. You feel trapped, you feel alone, you feel hopeless. Depression can fluctuate too, you may seem fine one day but the next everything just comes crashing down to the point where you can't find your way out of the dark. It's a war, it's exhausting, it's painful. It likes to make you think the world is against you or your life is literally not worth living. And you can't tell anyone nowadays because well, literally no one knows how to deal with it. You lose sight of people who care about you because you think you're burdening their lives for having something they can't see. You lose sight of yourself because you think you're not worth it. I went through it, I would've lost, because back then I never received the right help for it.

It hurt to read his words because Jonghyun's been battling this for such a long time. He did his very best but he unfortunately lost. Jonghyun did not receive the right help for this, I'm proud he even tried to get help. But his doctor telling him to just ignore this pain was not what he needed to hear. It just lets the pain grow. Telling someone their pain is not valid, or that someone has it off worse than them is possibly one of the worst things you can say to someone with deep of depression as he had. He's free from the pain now, but we feel a new one.

Recovery from it is not a bad, instead it's the best decision someone can make. Everyone with depression or another mental illness wishes they weren't like this (which is why I sometimes hate media that have a horrible grasp on mental illness, fanfiction included.) and recovery is not always going to be a one path journey. I've relapsed into self harm tendencies like twice and I'm still going to therapy and will probably be on medication soon. Some people take years and years. It's long and it's hard and people may fall again. Which is probably why people fear recovery. But it's worth it. I wished we could've made  Jonghyun realize this.

Suicide is a temporary solution to a bigger problem. People with deep depression see it as a peace and an escape rather than something sad. And that's the scary part. So blind by the pain that you can't see another way out, you can't hear your loved ones. But it's NOT a solution. I keep telling myself this everyday. It's hard. Suicidal tendencies are also either very spontaneous or planned out. Jonghyun's was a decision, to escape the pain. I don't blame him and he shouldn't blame himself at all for his anguish. Also for every Shinee fan out there, please seek out help if this is affecting your mental health negatively. From one fan to another the community doesn't need more loss, but it needs healing. We need each other, and the other members need us. We all can grieve to ourselves but in the end we need each other.

The one thing I regret is not loving him more before now. I loved him, I'm grateful for his words, they helped me when I had absolutely no one following me into this self war. But probably not as much as he deserved, and that I am guilty for.

If this hasn't opened people's eyes to depression then I don't know what to tell them. I think I might start a campaign on my college campus for mental illness or donate to a charity for mental health (if there is one). I'm doing for Jonghyun, myself, everyone who's battling who has lost.

The journey is long and hard, I just hope I'm not in it alone.