This week, new stats came out about the rate of suicides in the UK. The difference between north and south, and the difference between men and women. It looks pretty bleak.
So between these statistics, and having spent the week reading Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, and battled grief, mild depression and anxiety for the last 4 months, I felt I needed to write this blog that's been brewing.
Until now, all my mental health issues have been a past tense conversation topic. I call for there to be less stigma, more open discussion about mental health. For us to open dialogues so that those with mental health issues can talk about it with their families, friends and colleagues. So that bosses know how to help make the work environment more positive and accepting of mental health issues. So that friends don't take it personally when someone doesn't want to hang out, or doesn't even feel like leaving their house. So that families don't feel like they've let any one down or brought them up wrong.
But now I'm in the beginnings of what feels like a long journey back to positive mental health, I feel all those things.I feel like I need to be stronger. That this is western privilege, that there are people out there with nothing and here I am with so much and I can't appreciate it. Or that I should be stronger and deal with this by myself. That I'm being melodramatic when I try to imagine the future and all I see is darkness. That I'm being stupid when I cry for no reason, or get panicked and anxious over anything. That I'm pathetic for finding solace in unhealthy coping mechanisms. That I'm letting people down.
You learn all over again to keep things hidden. To keep things secret. Or at least try to.Finding out someone has mental health issues, that they've had them in the past, can make you treat them differently. I know this because I've done it. Knowing I could not cope with a man's mental health issues because I needed to deal with my own, made me end whatever I had with him. But I also spend more time making sure I listen to my sister and ensure I am there if she needs me to be. (At least I hope I do Claire?) These acts don't counteract each other, my actions with my sister do not make ok the way I treated this guy. It's just a personal observation. I've been dumped for being suicidal, and treated with utter kindness and empathy. The latter attitude is the path that people should take, and should be taught to recognise. It's still taboo to be mentally unwell, and it shouldn't be when 1 in 4 of us suffer from mental health problems. Or in the case of my family, 3 of the 4 of us, although you could count my father's alcohol addiction as a mental health problem. So 4 out of 4 of us.
Being able to talk about having mental health problems can lift a weight so great you didn't realise how much it was hurting you to carry it until it comes off. It might not get rid of the weight entirely, but a problem shared is a problem halved, and having someone listen to you, for however short or long a time, professionally or personally, can only be a good thing. If we are scared to reveal we're struggling, we internalise that fear, and turn it on ourselves, it colours our world view. The world becomes a scary, unforgiving, unempathetic place. It becomes filled with people that we are jealous of, things we are paranoid about. Situations we can't deal with. Emotions that overwhelm us.
If you think this post is over sharing, I want you to think about why you feel that way. Are we so caught up in being polite, putting on a brave front, being so British, that we can't cope when people share their negative feelings? We don't know where to look, what to say. We squirm uncomfortably. I know, I've been there, I've done it, I've been lost for words and wondered why can't they deal with this themselves. Despite the fact I've been through this all before, despite knowing that talking about this can and will help, despite the fact that briefly talking about it to a friend online today made me feel tons better, I'm still unwilling to admit this failure publicly. Because it feels like a failure. I'm failing at coping. Coping with life, stress, work, family, all of it. I AM FAILING. Failing damn miserably.
But it is because I am so, so unwilling for you all to know, that I'm writing and publishing this post. It's self-indulgent, yes, but I need that. I need to indulge and wallow in this pain inside my brain because I'm trying to make sense of and work through it, and I know I'm not the only one. I might feel utterly alone but I know I am not alone. Out of 8 of us on the street, there's at least one other person who understands.
This Wednesday night I'm going to a networking event. When I went to the one in January, I was just round the corner and I froze with fear. I just started crying and the anxiety swept over me like a tsunami and I just drowned in it. It took a phone call with my nana to sort me out. It took several deep breaths and a glass of wine too. This Wednesday, dressed in long sleeves, I will go there a little less fearful and anxious because I know I can do it as I've done it once before.
But is that enough to get through all of this, this time? I've done it before. I can only keep trying.
