Dear Independent

Dear Independent,

There is an article about mental strength that keeps popping up on my social media news feed.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/mentally-strong-people-dont-do-these-13-things-a6760646.html

This article is explaining what people that are mentally strong don't do. As someone who is suffering from mental health issues I took offence by this article. You are explaining traits that some people have and basically saying that if you don't have these traits, you are weak. First of all, thank you! Thank you for making me feel even worse about myself than I already did.

Now when I've said that I think I might need to give you an explanation for why I think you've simply got this all wrong. Everyone is different and priorities varies things in life, for some pleasing others might be the most important thing whilst others might just want to think about themselves. Some people enjoy taking risks, others don't. These things do not affect whether someone is mentally strong or not. It simply means that we are different from each other and being able to be yourself is extremely hard now-a-days when everything and everyone tells us who to be, so telling us what we should do to be stronger isn't really helping is it?

We live in a society where we are trying to get away from the stigma of mental illness being something that is wrong and we're trying to help the ones suffering from it. Let me tell you a secret, telling people with mental illness what not to do doesn't make it better.
You are also speaking about this mental strength as if it's something black and white. From someone who has been on both sides when it comes to mental health I have never felt stronger than the times when my life has felt like the worst thing that could happen to mankind but still managed to get out of bed and accomplish the things I had to do to survive. Someone who is suffering from mental illness but still fights, that is someone who is mentally strong.
Let's use this as an example, a wrestler who never has to wrestle anyone else will never become stronger. There is no need for this person to actually improve because there are no challenges. The wrestler might come across as strong because he/she always wins because, lets face it, there are no one competing against him. Therefore it's easy. It's the same way with someone suffering from mental health issues. They might seem weak because they lose every now and again. Actually, they seem to lose most of the time but that time that they don't they are actually a lot stronger than someone who never had any resistance.
For being a popular and famous newspaper this article made me lose respect for you completely. So what that I sometimes focus on things that I can't control or give away my power. That doesn't mean I'm not mentally strong, it simply means that sometimes I worry or let things get out of hand. It doesn't make me weak, it makes me human.