The World is Full of Dwights

"The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don't."

This quote from Joker has been rattling around in my head since I watched the movie. When I saw it on the screen, I knew it was something profound but I couldn't quite understand why. 

So I took the words and put them in my mental back pocket. For the past few days, I have been examining it with interest. I scrutinized it, traced my fingers around it, smelled it, tasted it (it's like chomping into a porcelain figure, btw, I wouldn't recommend it). It struck me to the core in a way that I couldn't put my finger on. Certainly I felt I couldn't fully relate to it as I have had nothing but support from people around me after my diagnosis. But there was something about that sentiment that I immediately understood. Why?

Why came in the form of my employee evaluation. I am about to be transferred to a new unit and it was mandatory for my supervisor (which I will call "A" for the sake of anonymity) to evaluate my work performance thus far. As I have been a longtime employee of 4 whole months, A had a lot to work with. 

One thing that A wrote was that I needed to learn to work independently ie stop getting into a panic and begging for help as soon as you see something unfamiliar in a case. I agreed it was something I needed to work on. Then A said "I think it's an issue of confidence."

There I had it. The lightening bolt of realization. 

No matter how supportive someone is, they don't really understand what it means to live with a mental illness no matter how much they might want to.

I tried to explain, in as professional and subtle a manner as possible, that I am getting treatment for my anxiety to deal with that. A looked uncomfortable and repeated "I think it's an issue of confidence."

 QUÉ????

I will have you know that I have complete confidence...when it's not being affected by my severe anxiety.

I don't hold it against A. They were doing their best with a half nuts employee who comes flying to their door in a panic at the drop of a pin. How can I expect them to understand that my anxiety is linked to my job performance and that I would rather die than mess up on a file in any way? That I have lost sleep on a case I finished weeks ago because I worried i gave the adjuster the wrong advice and settled the bills for much higher than I should have? That stuff literally no one cares about is the stuff that I spend hours fretting over? I can't. 

I once wrote that I hated the idea of being treated like a porcelain doll but I also now hate the idea that people know about my condition but act as if I don't have it. It's a fine line between acknowledging the ways my illness affects me and acting like I am a normal person who happens to have an illness. Frankly, it's too much for me to expect of people to balance that line perfectly when I don't even know how I want people to treat me, tbh. I want to be treated like a regular person but I also get a little mad when they pretend I am.

The world is full of Dwights. I am one of them.