shortcake

Ugh. I'm so sorry, Shorty. Keep breathing.

I don't like that teacher. People who treat mental health like that I immediately dislike. You've got this though. We believe in you!

First of all, I want to say that that is very  unfortunate and frustrating. There is a little bit of a but:

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and he just said that people with "mEnTaL iLlNeSsEs" are much more likely to get involved in substance abuse than "nOrMaL pEoPlE”

Many times, due to certain circumstances, people with mental illnesses or disorders will be given drugs of various types to help relieve the symptoms. They might come to rely on that to help them feel better. It could be your teacher thinking this makes them drug addicts, but it doesn’t exactly. If I had to guess I’d probably say that people (no matter the issue, mental or otherwise) who have been prescribed a medication are slightly, very slightly more likely to get addicted to drugs. 

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and he thinks that having a mental illness is something that can be "cured"

Mental illnesses I don’t believe can ever be “cured”, but I think they can be treated and helped. 

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and he thinks that mental illnesses are the same thing as mental disorders

This is interesting. At this point, I think it’s the difference of personal definitions of the words. Someone can absolutely have a mental illness and not a disorder, in my opinion. This is a definition I’ve heard before for a disorder of any kind, and it helps me look at it in a better way: A disorder is something that makes various things very difficult for you, and I’m not explaining this well. If something is rendering you unable to maintain a healthy lifestyle, in your relationships and responsibilities, I think it becomes a disorder. Otherwise it can be classified as a mental illness, but it could be no more than a character attribute or a quirk.

This is kind of my take on it, and I don’t think he was intentionally trying to hurt anyone. Im sorry he gave you a panic attack, those aren’t fun. But anyway, I like to look at issues from all sides of the argument, to see where I stand. Better luck with him next time.