By EC
When people talk about mental health and mental disorders when it goes wrong, they usually talk about the biological and psychological aspects of people?s lives with mental disorders. Comparatively less is talked about the social effects having a mental disorder can have on both the ailing people and other people around them. This is more often than not an overlooked part of life because it is not as intuitive or easily understandable as the chemical and psychological workings, everything that happens is confined within the human skull, which isn?t true for the sociological aspect, which involves not only other brains inside other skulls, but other live human beings and the entire environment which their senses can handle.
I am going to be honest: from the year I was officially diagnosed with OCD to today, I have had more bad social experiences than good ones that were influenced by my mental disorder. Other people around me were generally unkind about the influences my OCD had on me.
Having said all that, there is the figurative silver lining around the dark cloud. Among the people that me, you and everyone else engages in day to day life, some people would be kind with you and befriend you regardless of your mental disorder. Such people would do so despite you having your mental disorder or might even treat that not as your problem but as a part of who you are. People with mental disorders would have a much more difficult time socializing with other people or even to get out of their home for people with clinical depression but it?s certainly possible and there can be good results for the investment put in if you put your best foot forward.
To conclude this short essay, the social lives of people with mental disorders are much more difficult to talk about than the biological and psychological aspect. This is because it involves people interacting with the world and the people they engage with. People could expect to encounter more nasty experiences than nice ones in mainstream society. It?s with this background that having people who accept and befriend you all the more stand out and beautiful. People with mental disorders can have friendship and happiness with other people but only if they hold on to themselves and rehabilitate to become better versions of themselves.