Mental Illness is not an Asshole
Mental Illness Is Not an Asshole — It’s a Wound That Can Heal
I remember a person wrote a book with the title Mental Illness Is an Asshole.
No. It’s not like that.
In the beginning stages, it feels like that. It feels like an asshole. It feels like something hijacked your brain, your sleep, your life. It feels like demons when you’re really dealing with depression. It feels like the world ended when your mother died and no one gave you a roadmap for grief.
In the beginning, it is an asshole. Because you’re in the dark. You don’t have language yet. You don’t have meds yet. You don’t have a therapist who can tell you this is PTSD, not personality. You don’t have a case manager. You don’t have housing.
But as you get stronger and more confident and come to terms with the trauma that you experienced that led you to be broken, you start becoming healed from within. Which means you don’t let things break you.
That’s the part the book title misses.
Mental illness is not your enemy. It’s your signal. It’s your body saying “something happened to me and I haven’t processed it yet.” It’s your brain saying “I’m missing chemistry, not character.” It’s your soul saying “I was hurt, and I need help to carry this.”
Proper medication, therapy calms the brain. It makes what is missing possible to get the relief and strength again that you simply need to live. Not to be “normal.” To be functional.
No, mental illness is not an asshole. And whomever wrote that, I disagree.
That title shames people who are already ashamed. It kicks people when they’re in ashes. It tells them their suffering is a character in a bad memoir instead of a condition that responds to treatment.
People at lower levels of mental illness struggle especially when they don’t know themselves and have not looked within. That was me.
Medication didn’t make me less me. Therapy didn’t make me weak. They gave me back my mind so I could use it.
Mental illness is not an asshole. It’s a wound. And wounds heal with care, not with cruelty.
I’m in partnership with it.
And that’s not an asshole. That’s a miracle.
Cathryn M. Murray
Salem, Oregon | August 1, 2026
