Over the 50 years since I was first diagnosed with a mental illness I have had people offer me advice, say awkward comments or ask inappropriate questions.

When you have heard a question once you can handle it but over the years you may have heard the same question or comment so it can be hard to remain polite and have a sense of humour.

I want to open an ABC of all those comments and questions you have heard that have not been helpful. Maybe you can recall the most ridiculous one. It can be any letter of the alphabet and you can choose the same letter as many times as you like or different ones. If you like you can write how you responded or coped with the question or comment. I have many I could choose but I will stick to a few:

A is for “Are you really depressed?”

B is for “But you don’t look depressed? I wanted to say how does a depressed person look.

I is for “I thought you would have grown out of bipolar by now” (I was 40 at the time). Putting a use by date on a mental illness is what  lot of people think.

H is for “Have you thought of taking more care with your appearance, then you would not get so depressed?” I wanted to say even well-groomed fashionable people get depressed.

Just a few ideas.

Moodscopers welcome people to join who don’t usually . You can share funny comments or sad ones or ignorant ones. Up to you. Pick a letter of the alphabet or more and start.

How do you cope with an awkward comment. Sometimes I choose to educate depending on context and sometimes I just change the topic. What do you do?

Leah

A Moodscope member