Why?
Why is there a stigma? Why is it, like the troublesome root of japanese knotweed - attached to mental health? Planting it's roots, causing more harm than good, taking hard work to rid the root of the problem.
Why do people deem it socially acceptable to talk about sex, periods, weight problems. All intimate subjects - yet freely talked about across the world day after day, yet cannot tell someone if their mood is even slightly low?
I understand, if someone has not been blighted by such troubles in their life, it can be hard to comprehend. But why are minds sometimes closed? Like parachutes, they will only work when open. Unfortunately, too many people won't speak about problems such like, until it's too late.
If someone tells you they are struggling - how do you necessarily know they want help? Maybe they just want to offload & a friendly listening ear... Maybe they don't know where else to go, and where the help is? Let's face it, help for mental health issues is hardly readily advertised.
You can pop to your local chemist, doctor or even asda, & check blood pressure, cholesterol and obtain the morning after pill. Go to a chemist and tell them you have a problem but it can't be seen - they are flummoxed.
People also apologise for "being like this". What is this? There is absolutely no shame in needing help, receiving help, and speaking about it. People should never feel ashamed about the person they are. You are given things in life as a test; a test of character, and because you CAN come out the other side; and be more
Proud of yourself than ever.
I'm going to ask a question, and think hard about your answer. Pick a person you know - how are they? Now how are they really? Do you honestly really know? Many people will shrug it off because of this stigma. Think to yourself, how many things do you know about, things that are available etc through people speaking?
Communication is the key to recovery. You are never alone, at times you may feel alone, no one cares, you apologise for taking up their time and being silly. But it isn't silly, it is serious. Never ever feel ashamed of what you are, and what you are feeling. Be yourself and reach out for help if you need it. You only get one chance, don't spend it searching for something, ask. Speak. Listen to your body and mind.
Never let anyone make you feel inferior, or that you are weak for feeling like this. It makes you stronger as a person and you appreciate more in life. Always remember the strength you carry deep down inside even if you can't feel it, it's there.
Life doesn't have a map, or an instruction manual...
And until people in any kind of standing understand this, there will always be this Japanese knotweed creeping, climbing and settling in. Take it on. Break the food chain that it thrives on, and speak.
If anyone is struggling, please just let me know and I can supply my email address to offer support. I am by no means a qualified doctor or mental health nurse, but i can speak from experience. I can point you in the right direction for help should to need it, and more than anything I will talk openly. Lauri xx
Lauri, this is lovely. We seem to be kindred spirits and I hope you can let me know when you post your blogs, so I can make sure to throw in a few retweets.
ReplyDeleteReading this, I just had the realisation that - in probably the majority of cases - WE are creating the stigma.
Sure, some people will always be prejudice to anyone 'outside the norm', but I think the greatest damage to our self-confidence comes from ourselves.
More than anyone else in the world, the person who constantly attacks our own sense of self-worth and value in this world is... of course... us.
I hope you can take a moment to read this entry in my blog - The Futility of Regret:
http://lesism.blogspot.com/2011/01/futility-of-regret.html
And I really hope we can keep in touch. Love your writing.
Hugs,
Les
Lots of food for thought here. I have several mentally ill creativity coaching clients, and this is a much-chewed-over topic. Mental health is still a taboo topic because there isn't a cure. We try to "fix" people, and when we can't, the fixer feels diminished, helpless, and then, of course, angry. Cancer, and to a lesser extent, diabetes works the same way. We offer sympathy at first, then we shun them. We get angry at accommodations we have to make, and snap at the diabetic to eat the birthday cake we baked and "just take more insulin." Perfectionists in an imperfect world, what we don't understand frightens us.
ReplyDeleteSome really poignant and profound words Lauri. It really worries me that as a culture and as a society, it seems we're moving not away from the stigmatisation of mental illness, but towards it.
ReplyDeletePlatitudinous utterances are made about how the suicides are tragedies - Yet still, we're expected to work ourselves and stress ourselves past a point of no return for measly remuneration... Expected to conform: to be pretty, to be smart, to be funny, and to jump through other's hoops... And more than anything, we're expected to be normal. Expected to be happy.
Yet when we fail. It's our fault, and we're cast aside. Those on incapacity benefit are demonised as lazy. If only those hurtling towards a nervous breakdown were allowed to be lazy, and not peer-pressured into stretching themselves until their mind breaks.
I wish we lived in a society that constantly talked about depression. One which was desperate to illuminate the black dog. One which made sure people were staying sane, rather than staying productive or staying quiet. One which protected each other and actually cared about each other.
A brain, a psyche, is a complex network of neurons and chemical reactions. Telling somebody with mental illness to pull themselves together is like telling a footballer with a broken leg to run it off. We're all too quick to assume that we/they are just being silly. I wish it was the other way round.