Mental illness is often separated from physical illness and thus is often seen to be invisible and not real. But it seems that some fail to recognise that mental illness can give rise to physical symptoms and thus can be under the physical illness umbrella in that sense. Anxiety can give rise to physical symptoms that we can feel within ourselves such as tingling and feeling lightheaded alongside the very 'real' fear that we are experiencing. But, they can also present symptoms that people may see from the outside such as sweating, going cold, clammy and shortness of breath. Similarly, depression can lead to looking grey in the face, wearing darker clothing, not sleeping or sleeping too much and eating too little to overeating. For illnesses such as schizophrenia, although only part of it may be the voices that someone hear's in their head, these voices can lead to particular actions in reality which other people can observe.
What comes from inside our heads which can feel and is very real, can present real physical symptoms on the outside which people can diagnose. They present physical symptoms, just like high blood pressure would or having a broken leg. A doctor could tell you if you were having a panic attack. Yet there are still people out there who fail to believe it's real or to simply get over it, even though physical symptoms are presenting themselves, usually which cannot be controlled. Weirdly enough these kind of statements are not said to someone who has high blood pressure, even though a lot of the time the physical symptoms visible on the outside are limited depending on the severity.
It's time for people to pay attention to the realness of the situation. Mental illness is always physical, whether it's the symptoms or the fact it affects our reality and it shouldn't be treated any less of that which is on the list of a physical illness.
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