CMV: If you have a mental health condition, it is your responsibility to get help.

I have been seeing a trend, lately, of people essentially blaming mental illness for their behavior. ‘BPD the reason for this, and Tourette’s is the reason for that.’ Now, I’m not trying to make it seem like having a mental health condition doesn’t impede your ability to function and can sometimes cause you to do things that you wouldn’t do if you didn’t have the condition. However, you still have a choice. If you know you have a condition that causes you to do certain things, or if you recognize patterns of negative behavior in yourself, it is your responsibility to seek help. This isn’t the same as saying it is the afflicted persons fault that they have the condition, anymore than it is a cancer patients fault that they have cancer. But just as a cancer patient would seek chemotherapy to treat the problem, someone with a mental health condition should seek professional help.<br><br>EDIT: I am trying to clarify this. I am not saying that you always have a choice. If you are having a manic episode and you end up doing something you wouldn’t normally do, then that is not necessarily your fault. What I am saying is that when you are in a state of mind to recognize that you need help, it is your responsibility to seek it, or to at least try to. If you can’t get help because you don’t have access to it, that isn’t your fault. If you can’t get help because you recognize that you need it but are unwilling to seek it, then that is your fault.