It is very hard to accept that you have a mental illness. Even a minor one. Most people who don’t have one act like they would not accept it even if they did. I have known many people in my life with untreated and even undiagnosed issues that went on for years, if not lifetimes.
Anxiety disorders are different because they are so painful and ego-dystonic but even there a lot of folks don’t want to admit it. The fact that almost everyone has low levels of anxiety on a regular basis nowadays does not help matters and it enables you to think you are just like everyone else.
Manics are notorious for not admitting they were ill. I have known a number of them in my life and probably 50% refused to admit that they had it. It is not helpful that the manic seems quite normal to many of his friends drawn in by the overblown charm of the hypomanic. I have sat in rooms with flagrant, raving, idiotic hypomanics charming the whole room with their grandiosity. I sat there shaking my head. It’s obviously an illness. Yes, it’s possible to be too damn happy. Hypomania is a case of excessive happiness. They are so happy, they’re nuts! If you do not believe that hypomanics are crazy, spend some time around one if you get a chance. This is not normal, healthy happiness, which I actually believe that there cannot be too much of, despite society saying that being too happy is “not adult” and “acting like a child.”
Schizophrenics almost all deny that they are ill. It is a hallmark feature of the disorder. Even after they have been told countless times that they have schizophrenia, even after multiple hospitalizations, even after years on antipsychotic drugs, they still insist that they don’t have schizophrenia. This is not so much a denial mechanism as a feature of the disorder. The disorder is such that it blinds you to the fact that you even have it! This disorder feels completely real, as if this is the normal way that life is.
OK, suppose you went to classes at college yesterday. The next day you tell people that you went to college yesterday, and everyone laughs at you and says no you didn’t. And to make matters worse, says you’re crazy for thinking you went to school yesterday. What would you think.? You remember full well that you went to school the other day. You remember it loud and clear. How they can they say that some obvious thing that I clearly experienced did not happen. After a while, they start thinking it’s everyone else that’s nuts and not them.
Almost all people with personality disorders deny that they are ill, as mentioned above. Everything is everyone else’s fault, and they go through their whole lives like that.
