Life As a Mentally Ill Psych Major

I'm studying for my Abnormal Psych test right now and am laughing sarcastically at some of the statistics. According to the book, generalized anxiety disorder (which I've had since I was a kid) usually doesn't onset until adulthood. It also says only 5.7% of the American population has it over their lifetime. 5.7%?! Out of the millions upon millions of people in this country only 5.7% deal with anxiety their whole lives. That leaves me in a distinct minority. Don't get me started on depression. I was so upset just reading the textbook chapter that I ditched class both days it was talked about because it hit too close to home. I felt like I was being reduced to a pile of symptoms and statistics and that wasn't a comfortable feeling. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has these sorts of problems because a good chunk of psychology majors I know do have some form of mental illness themselves. There's something oddly poetic about the broken becoming the healers. I'm partly driven by a need to understand why my brain works the why it does but mostly because I don't want anyone to suffer the way I have. Every mentally ill psych major I've met is driven by a similar need. When living with yourself is a nightmare you want to prevent other people from experiencing the same. Even though I know what my reasons are and that my reasons are good, it's still really hard some days. In a way, it's slightly masochistic putting myself through the inevitable discussions about my own mental illnesses and feeling like a bug under a microscope even if I just sit silently in my chair. I keep reminding myself that it will be worth it if I can make any difference at all to someone with depression later on because of those days I have to force myself to sit through class now.