Mental Illness

When you have a mental illness, and you tell someone, the first thing people think is that you're lying. The second thing they think is that you must not have 'real' problems so you thought yourself into one. They don't understand statements like 'I want to die' and they think that you exaggerate and make problems out of nothing. I have bipolar disorder. It's hard and stressful and it makes me doubt myself constantly. My own family doesn't understand it. I try, for my own sake, to keep it hidden and pretend that i'm okay but i'm just so angry. I'm angry that no one told me as a kid that it was possible to have a mental illness without being called crazy. No one told me that mental disorders could kill you just as easily as any other physical illness could. People make it hard and it shouldn't be. It really really, shouldn't be.