Physical Manifestations of Mental Conditions
The problem with putting your hand up and saying you have a mental illness – apart from the stigma which surrounds it – is that people have a tendency only to believe in things that they can see. It is all too common that someone will break their silence over a mental health condition, only to hear the response “Oh yeah? Well, you don’t look ill.”
Many sufferers will confess when talking to others that they almost wish that there was something about their mental illness that caused their symptoms to be impossible to ignore. In reality, no-one actually wants that to happen to themselves, but it would be easier to be taken seriously if depression caused you to break out in spots, or GAD made your hair go gray overnight.
There are, however, physical symptoms to many mental illnesses, and it is often these that convince a skeptic that the sufferer really is in the control of an anxiety disorder. These are not necessarily stand-out symptoms, in that they will often “merely” be sweating, muscle spasms or headaches, and they do not tend to leave permanent or semi-permanent marks as a more physical illness would. But they do exist.
It is probably best to accept that some people will never “buy” the whole idea of mental illnesses being as debilitating as many physical illnesses. This skepticism may be down to lack of understanding or pure, bloody-minded bigotry of a sort. For the former we can merely hope that they will accept a sufferer is unwell, and for the latter, their views are something we must accept, as ignorant as they may be.