Today I feel anger. Today I feel violence. And heaven help those who cross me.
When you look on the internet, in the papers and on the news you’d be forgiven for thinking that mental health is a big thing that we are all encouraged to talk about, to be supportive of those who struggle and that help is out there.
But I’m here to tell you it’s bullshit.
People don’t like to associate with those who have mental health struggles.
It’s a dirty little secret that should not be seen or heard.
Hide it away. Bury it deep inside, and never let your crazy show.
Fight it down until it bubbles over and then you’ll get shunned and hidden away from sight because you’re unstable.
But the hard bit is that when you’re at a point that you’re nearing your worst, it feels like your mental health becomes your identity. It’s so all consuming that you need to justify your behaviours, your anxieties because of your history.
You feel you need to explain why you are the way you are so you share your story.
And then you get accused of oversharing because it makes others feel uncomfortable. Even those who have experienced it themselves or seen a loved one struggle. So they silence you, they segregate you which just fuels your feelings of being unworthy.
It’s fucking cruel.
But not only does society shun you, the medical profession does too. They avoid giving diagnosis because it means they have to treat you. They just offer drugs to keep you quiet. Keep you stupified to the point you can’t function, but at least you’ll be quiet.
I genuinely thought I’d just had bad luck when I reached out to the local mental health team and they didn’t fill in the paperwork to get me the help I needed. Their holiday took priority over signing the form we had spent 30 mins going through. I’ll add they turned up 15 mins late, hadn’t read my notes and we were in a rush to leave so cut my hour short.
They missed the 24 hour deadline to get me in the system after that initial appointment despite agreeing that I obviously very much needed the help. They then never called to rebook that vital appointment and 2 weeks on I was no further forward in getting help. No further forward in a recovery I so desperately wanted.
I thought that there was no way that other people would have to go to the lengths of slitting their wrists to get heard to get the referral for help.
I had just been fucking unlucky.
Then 2 months ago I met a friend on social media. We had both commented on the same post and instantly we knew we had someone out there who gets us. So we started chatting.
They were where I had been back in February. Knowing that things were going down hill they had reached out for help. But the help they had reached out to did not fulfil their obligations. They cancelled, they talked to them like a friend rather than a paid therapist and even shared their own personal issues with a patient. Completely unprofessional.
They then disappear giving them no continuity of care. Care to someone who had identified they had issues of abandonment.
I made sure not to share my own negative experiences as I truly believed help was out there and it couldn’t happen again. I reassured them things would get better and they would get the help.
But yet again someone who was desperate for help only got it after a trip to the emergency room with bandages around their wrists.
Confirmation that you had to be past a point of crisis where your life was at stake to be worthy of getting the help and support you had been asking for for weeks and months. It never had to get this far if they had just listened.
I am left filled with anger that all the talk of mental health support is just bullshit.
No one is out there helping the people who need it and I feel so broken by that reality.
It makes fighting to recover even harder knowing that no one cares and you can only rely on yourself and those few diamonds out in a sea of selfish fucks that hide their faces from your truth. Look down at you like a leper and want to wash their hands of you like you’re a blemish that never contaminated their lives.
One thing I’ve learnt is we all hit rock bottom at times and I hope the way you get support is different to how you have treated others.