A lot of people who have never experienced mental illness, or understand it very well, get tempted to tell a person will a condition to ‘snap out of it’. This reaction is so common and so expected that the very first thing health professionals always advise is to not do this.
It’s probably the worst thing you could do. They would snap out of it, if only they could. Asking them to do this is like pointing out another failure to them. It fails to recognise the seriousness and the validity of the illness.
There is a culture in education of expecting teachers to just snap out of it in the same way. Mental illness is rife in teachers, and all the time there are new statistics appearing that show increases in the number off on long term sickness, the number stating that bullying has affected their mental health and the number committing suicide.
A lot of the time, being diagnosed with a mental illness is perceived, by colleagues and by senior management, as a convenient way to dodge and delay capability proceedings, in the same way that those on disability benefit are eyed with suspicion and considered to just be lazy.
When I was ill, I tried so hard to not be. I realised I wasn’t going to snap out of it, and so I put so much energy into exploring ways to help myself, and places to get external support. I was very pro-active. Asking an ill person to be pro-active in managing their illness is not reasonable in my opinion. Asking an ill person to rest and get better is.
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