Category : Blogs

Sub Category : World

*PLEASE Do not dismiss/minimise or tell us what we do or don't know: 
"you know its only your anxiety/depression making you think that",
"you know it'll be fine when you get there",
"you know you're just over thinking things",
"You won't know if you'll feel like that until you try it."

Well then, I don't need medication or counselling or a supportive ear to listen because APPARENTLY, I actually KNOW its going to be OK, after all. 
Whilst the speaker means well, attempting what they believe to be comfort or something akin to it, it merely serves to perpetuate how we're currently (*always) feeling... 

"They think I'm just overreacting, maybe I am, but what if I'm not, but if I continue to show it then they'll think I'm being ridiculous or childish, and then they'll come to think of all my future opinions and actions to be ridiculous or lacking credibility based on how I respond to this ... And maybe they'd be right.... Maybe no one should listen to me..."

Not to mention the feelings of shame and isolation this instills, as it also suggests people think we should just get on with things. 
We would if we could... if we weren't paralysed with fear and indecision... just try bare with us until the paralysis recedes.
Dismissing or minimising our fears and worries, feels like you're saying we're wrong- to feel like or think like this, but our illness has us convinced otherwise. 

Mental illness is the voice of irrationality; singing a rousing chorus in both ears to bring even the most level and clear minded to their knees. 
Oh! How it covers everything:
It has verses about all your perceived failures, verses about your negative qualities, verses telling you all the people who don't like you, verses about who would have a better life if you weren't a part of it, it even has a verse about that stupid thing you did in front of that stranger 10 years ago!I

Its a melancholy lullaby, composed by a demon to put rational, positive thought to bed. It's sung so loud to drown out even the strongest voice inside you that's screaming for the singing to stop.
Can you appreciate how hard it is for us to "hear" you when all of this is going on inside.

*PLEASE Do not make, what I like to call, accusing jokes: 
"ah you really just couldn't be bothered going lol" 
"tell the truth, you just wanted a lie in ha ha" "I wish I could stay in bed and refuse to go anywhere too ha ha" .... 
Ha. Ha. Ha... How do we even respond to this... Are we supposed to laugh at that? Are the symptoms of my condition amusing to you or are you passive aggressively letting me know you think I'm not really ill or rather revealing massive ignorance on your part and feeding the stigma that mental illness isn't like "real" illnesses.

*PLEASE Do not try to work out or ask me to define what is "my personality" and what is my "illness": 
"is it possible you're just an emotional person",
"your Mum is a worrier; maybe you're just like her",
"how do I tell when you're in a normal bad mood and when you're having anxiety or depression mood swings?"
"but you always had a bit of a temper" ...

We often no longer know where WE end and our illness begins. Does our illness now define us? Will we ever feel like ourselves again? Do we even know who we are anymore?
This one adds to those feelings; in addition to reviving our good old friend isolation. 
How could we go on to communicate with you when we now know that yet again, you do not appreciate or grasp the reality of mental illness even when you're trying so hard?

*PLEASE TRY not to ask us why we feel, think or do something regarding our illness:
 "why did you shout like that?" because I'm ill. 
"Why did you say that?" because I'm ill. 
"what makes you think that?" 
*sigh* I could run you through the eternal contradicting exhausting thought train that led to this conclusion, if I've even came to a conclusion yet, but to speed things along... Its because I'm ill... 
"why cant you just..." Because I'm ill. 
I could make myself sick on you if it'll help you get there faster? 

In the spirit of fairness, this is often done in a bid to simply understand- but please understand that we may not even be able to begin to put into words what caused us to think or behave a certain way. 
Alternately, maybe we do know the answer but are afraid to admit it to ourselves or to you, for fear of scorn or ridicule, or even just to hide that we're struggling. Be careful and mindful of this when questioning our reasons.

Because here's the thing- we have a mental illness; but that does not mean we have a learning disability. 
So we can be excruciatingly painfully aware of how ridiculous, petty, 'psycho' or 'crazy' we might sound.
We are not blind to your plight: the plight of having someone else's mental illness impact your life; maybe so much so that you're at risk of developing you're own just because day in, day out, you choose to attempt the long, exhausting task of loving a person who doesn't feel worthy of love. 
Therefore we may sometimes try and shield you from it to try and provide what little respite to you that we can.
So when trying to improve your understanding, please approach us with caution, either wait for us to open up ourselves or if you're going to choose the questioning route, then remain calm, and strap in for the roller coaster. 
The nature of our illness means our first instinct may be to assume the very act of questioning, is accusatory, disbelieving or proof that we aren't being understood.
We may then put up our defences and possibly even go on the offence.

*Patience is VITAL- The heart of a saint would struggle with us some days. After all it would be hard to keep your cool when the person you were just trying to help and understand is now shouting or snapping at you about how you don't or couldn't possibly understand.
However, If you then respond to our snapping and defensiveness with your own, it will only feed the demon:

"Aha! See! They really don't understand- they never will- you're all alone- they don't care, Every negative thought you've ever had about yourself must be true"

And when you insist "I was only trying to help" "I was only trying to understand" - we may begin drowning in our own guilt and insecurities: 
"Why do I do this, why do i push people away, why can't i believe they're only trying to help, why do I have to be so awful to the people I love- they deserve so much better than this, so much better than you, how could anyone put up with you, why do they put up with me... "
       
Contrarily, we may become even more defensive; not in a bid to "save face" but to postpone the aforementioned, inevitable, stomach churning guilt and the subsequent analysing and criticising over all our past and future choices.

But of course, as Dumbledore poignantly states,
"Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it"

(Now would be a good time to note, If you're feeling confused and exhausted just reading this, imagine being plugged into our brains for 5 minutes!)

*PLEASE be aware that what seems trivial or low priority to you, could, in that moment have very large looming importance for us.I
I have literally "cried over spilled milk"; sobbed because I've broken a cup or knocked over the milk jug!
I don't begrudge a laugh at this. It is quite an amusing sight to behold; to see a grown woman standing in the middle of the kitchen laughing and sobbing simultaneously and to then discover that this sudden onset of hysteria was caused by the pool of spilled milk at her feet!
That god damned milk was what broke the camel's back! It was everything that was wrong with life, it was everything that was wrong with the world, it was some sort of evidence that the universe, truly, was out to get me!
Perhaps we find a stain, we sleep late, we miss an appointment that can actually be rescheduled... and we freak out!
Because for each and every minor and major event that happens to us everyday- we run through the butterfly effect of each and every one. 
Each and every one has the possibility for far reaching consequences in our mind at that moment.

*PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't take it personally.
This! This is so so important for yourselves and for us. This is an enormous ask because sometimes it seems there's no other way to take it other than painfully personal.
But try, in your mind's eye, to separate us from our illness (good luck with that, considering its a task we cant accomplish ourselves). 
Try, try, try to see it as an illness, try to see the symptoms.
If I wanted to leave a party because I got a light head with diabetes, you would not take it personally. If I asked you to go away and don't touch me while I'm vomiting with a stomach bug, you would not take it personally.
But when we say or do awful, hurtful things.... well, all we can hope is for you to know and believe we wouldn't do or say these things if we weren't sick.

Truthfully, there's not a whole lot you can say that will help us, with this or with any of it. The most you can do is take note of all of the above and attempt to make use of it in your interactions with us.
Research, Read, Repeat! Research, Read, Repeat! Try to understand it from every angle.
Be gentle, be kind, be patient and don't rush to try and fix things for us. Try to let us know that you'll be there.
Just observe and listen very very carefully because sometimes a cry for help, starts out as a whisper or fingertips squeezing through a crack in our self containing fortress.
But one wrong step onto our field of eggshells and landmines and we'll have that crack cemented back up again! Then we'll both have to start the laborious task of chipping away at it again.

*Last but far from least... If you are an official or unofficial carer to someone with mental illness:  
PLEASE Look after yourself! Its like when you're on an airplane with a child- You have to put on your oxygen mask first, to make sure you can then safely help fit the oxygen mask on the child. If you did the child's first, you might pass out before you have finished and then neither of you have your masks!I

Sometimes this CAN involve walking away or stepping back. Do NOT feel guilty if the pain and difficulty of it all becomes too much.
Do whatever needs to be done, to keep us both safe.

#MentalHealthAwarenessEveryDay