I have anxiety and depression and I really want to get help and get better but I just can’t work up the courage to tell my parents. I’m worried how they’ll take it. I’m scared my dad won’t care. He understands if you have a fever or a broken leg but he doesn’t understand mental illnesses. And I don’t think I could take it if I told him about my problems and he didn’t think it’s a big deal. That might be the last straw for me because I love my dad so much and I respect him a lot and if he didn’t care about my mental health I’m scared of how much that’ll affect me. I’m scared my mom will look at me differently and treat me differently. I just want them to know about my issues, care about them and understand when I need to take care of myself but not have our relationship changed.
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Same problem here. Why do parents care about your physical health when they doesn’t give a shit about your mental health? The mental health is at least as important as a healthy body, if not more. You can be happy with sick body, but can you be happy with a sick mind?
Guys, listen. I don’t know what kind of parents you have,meaning i don’t know how they will react but i was in that exact place. I was scared my mother would be even more hurt than i was. But i told her through ugly mcfugly tears. i couldn’t really explain everything. I told her i was scared and that the reason why i got it was school and she took it surprisingly well. I was worried she would start crying but she made me feel better. Later she told my dad and his initial reaction was “Others have it worse” but i realized that the reason he said that is because he has that kind of “everything can be fixed.nothing is a bad as it seems” mentality. So in a way he was trying to calm me down. I expected the same thing you expect, not understanding. But to my shock it was totally the opposite. The next day my mother googled depression lol, and told her friends and my grandparents and got advice and ever since she has been understanding and is giving me time and space to solve this on my own, because i asked so. My father has done the same thing, presumably because she showed him the google research. I’m trying to say: Yes, it will be uncomfy. It will be hard af. But maybe, just maybe, they might surprise for the good.
So, tell sb. Even if not your parents, tell a friend.
And i think, the reason they don’t get the whole mental health thing, is that they grew up believing they have to be tough. Y’know, life brings you down and you have to fight to survive.Whereas we are the ‘woke’ generation so we are stuck with the feels.