I feel stupid, and contagious.

"The reason people don’t go for help is because there’s still a stigma. Because people don’t talk about mental illnesses the way they do other illnesses." - Maria Bamford

Since the person above has had their say, I would like to have mine. I will make it clear before I start that I am thoroughly disagreeing with the above rant. Here's why. 

There are many, many types of mental illness. Not just depression. Some do indeed put you in hospital beds. I have been there. You're right in that cancers and mental illnesses are different kinds of illness. As you say, cancer leaves the sufferer with no control, a body trying to kill itself. Mental illness on the other hand is the case of the mind trying to kill the body it's attached to. I have laid in a hospital bed, my wrists cut, knowing that I have no control. 

I don't know where you got the idea that people with mental illnesses just go to therapy and 'get it taken care of' but you're sorely mistaken. Eight years and counting. Eight years this illness has stolen from me. My entire adolescence and, so far, the beginning of adulthood. 

I'm not going to sit here and act like I know anything about the surgeries and treatments you speak of, because I don't and I'd like you and everyone else who is dealing with cancer to know that I am so, so sorry. If I had a cure right now, I'd give it to you. But I do want you to know that some of the drugs that we get pumped with are absolutely horrific. They do heinous things to the mind. I have been a zombie. I have been obsessed with suicide. I have felt dead. I have slept for days. And I haven't even been prescribed the most extreme of drugs available for mental illness, because fortunately I don't suffer with psychosis thus far. Again, I'm not going to debate this one really because you by far drew the short straw.

Cancer of the mind is exactly how I would describe mental illness, whether people like it or they don't. Because that has been my experience and is my experience. It's so painful some days that I physically lose the ability to breathe momentarily. I can't put into words what it is like to have a mind that wants you dead.

I’ll say that again.