One thing I see in many mental health communities that I hat

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Let me put it like this.

I am an alcoholic. I could either.....

A) Take responsibility for who I am and keep myself safe.

Or....

B) Use my addiction as an excuse to swim in seas of bourbon, not take any responsibility for my actions while intoxicated, and demand that people tolerate the fact that I am a very sick alcoholic no matter what I end up doing.

Replace the word "alcoholism" with "bipolar disorder". Or "schizoaffective disorder". Or "borderline personality disorder".

And people wonder why a large portion of the world's population have a dim view of people who suffer from mental illness.

Too many people are taking option B.

Too many people define themselves by their illness, and use it as an excuse to evade personal responsibility. And they demand that others tolerate their irresponsibility.

Nobody is defined by a diagnosis.

And I have little patience for people who do not have enough dignity to act like there is an actual human being beneath their diagnosis.

Odd, most people I know have overwhelming guilt associated with their mental illnesses precisely because of things like what you say. This compounds their mental problems. What you said is also pretty damned close to the 'pull yourself up by the bootstraps addage'- odd that you should say that when recently, out of nowhere, you can move on. Just imagine what could have been your life if you got the approval you've been seeking. What you see as demands are seen on the other side as pleas to not be abandoned. It is approval of their beings, not their actions that everyone needs.

I honestly don't believe that most people are very much in control of their actions most of the time. We're all just finely-honed with our biology and our settings, such that the smallest misalignment brings about things like mental health problems. I certainly don't believe for a moment that it's right for society to hold the individuals themselves who suffer from things like delusions and impulse control disorders and addictions, accountable. Therefore I do not think the individual themselves should hold themselves accountable either. If their actions are criminal then we have a criminal system for it. If they are odious then their families can leave, we have medical systems for it.
Whether someone is acknowledging that they are causing problems is another separate issue that involves people blinding themselves to their own flaws, which quite frankly is something EVERYONE does to surprisingly large degrees.

Really though, I'm so sick of this crappy western philosophical ideology that to 'man up' is the only way to live. This highly individualistic, 'you change or else I'm leaving' phenomenon that seems to have a firm hold in our heads, is the opposite of how to help people who have problems. They need love, and support, and care, and forgiveness, just like everyone else. There's actual science about stuff like this to back it up too.

If this is your impression then it is likely you have simply not been as close as you may like to believe to someone with one of these conditions. I have had a fair amount of experience with people with serious mental illnesses and have seen many of them both when well and during manic or psychotic episodes and can assure you that they do things that are very clearly down to illness and not part of their normal personality or due to a simple lack or self-control. I also struggle with severe depression and anxiety myself at times and can tell you that those, in interaction with my autism, impact on my own ability to function and lead me to behave in ways that I would not when feeling better.

Nobody I know, myself included, is happy about the way they behave when mentally ill. Relationships, finances, physical health and jobs can be damaged or lost and I have known people to lose their homes and families through it. This is something people have to attempt to reconcile once they have recovered from an episode and often leads to considerable guilt and despair, together with substantial fear for the future when many of these conditions are lifelong and it is unclear whether or when someone will have another episode (and yes they do sometimes happen even if someone takes their medication and does everything their doctor says).

It is not unreasonable to ask for a little understanding of how someone's particular condition affects them, particularly from those who they are closest to. Just because a condition is variable over time and you cannot see it, does not mean it does not sometimes have substantial impact on the very things you cite as important (taking responsibility, keeping oneself safe etc.).

You can choose not to drink. You can't choose not to have bipolar disorder.

I totally get what people are saying in this thread.

I was not referring to people who are suffering from symptoms of their illness.

What I WAS referring to was people who knowingly do outrageous and inappropriate things, and then turn around and say, "It's my illness, so f**k you, I get a free pass."

There is a difference between somebody legitimately suffering from symptoms, and somebody with a diagnosis who knows the difference between right and wrong at the time but does not care.

For the record, I used to be somebody who used his bipolar symptoms as an excuse for sh***y behavior when I knew the difference between right and wrong at the time, so I know that others out there do the same thing. What annoys me the most is what I am familiar with myself.

I hope this post makes things clearer.

I get your point, it's true.

But somehow people do can define themselves a little in terms of their disorder.

I only see it a little appropriated when it's autism or a personality disorder. Cause that defines what the people is, the nature of the person. A depression is (hopefully) something transitory, but autism or personality disorder really defines you. The same way you could say "I'm spanish, I'm a woman".

On the other hand, psychologist are making the effort of changing people's language to say for instance "PERSON WITH schizofrenia/autism/..." instead of saying that someone IS A schizofrenic. So that it doesn't define the person. But then we hear people saying "I'm an aspie". .... well. It's a choice.