Mental Illness - Affect Of The Associated Stigma

SparklingDaz04

The reason I am writing this little blog is so that the people I have chosen to tell about my illness can better understand what I am going through. Since I’m mainly staying anonymous, I hope that people can get a glimpse of the suffering that people with mental illnesses have, although it must be said that not all mental illnesses are the same and each one vary in their severity and how they impact on those they grab hold of.

For me, my mental illness is a war that I am involved in and no matter how hard I try I cannot escape from it. Officially, diagnosed two years ago with post-traumatic stress disorder which had originated five years previously after a near death experience. In this war, my enemy is negativity. An enemy that attacks at every possible opportunity, an enemy that is relentless, an enemy that can take hold for very long periods making daily life very upsetting and difficult. Often, leaving a lasting feeling of ‘being down.’ There is only one weapon to tackle this and that is positivity, however, often it feels that this weapon is nowhere to be seen.

I’ll give a couple of examples of how my enemy has attacked me. One evening I had heard that there had been a car crash nearby, immediately I’m a mess panicking that a family member or close friend is involved and is seriously hurt or worse, even though I didn’t know any details of the crash. Heart thumping, feeling like it is about to burst through my chest. Worrying, not able to think about anything else, unable to get my mind off it no matter how hard I tried. Positivity was nowhere to be seen that evening when it was desperately needed. Does that make me weak? Some people might think so, I’m still not sure what to think but I feel that at times my illness can be very confusing. One thing that I’m sure of though is that we live in a society that I don’t feel comfortable publicising my identity for fear of me being judged by some due to the stigma attached.

Another example of how negativity attacks me is my self-esteem. That feeling that I’m useless, that I’m a thick, ugly etc. My final year of college, more times than I care to remember, having these attacks of doubt especially during stressful times. Doubting whether I’m smart enough to get a good grade. Worrying that I will let my family down even though I had nothing but support from them. Negativity had created pressure, a massive invisible weight on my shoulders. Wanting to quit, wanting to jack it in on a weekly basis.

I had made previous attempts at going to counselling, they only had short-term benefits. It took an awful lot of encouragement, persuasion and sometimes fighting with some amazing friends to get me to attend counselling in the first place. The concept of counselling scared the absolute **** out of me. Initially I went, mainly just to please my friends. In denial, refusing to truly accept that there was a major problem. The stigma attached to mental illness making me believe that if I really open up here that I’ll be whisked off to the looney bin (no offence intended by using this phrase). The counsellor was very nice to be fair, made me feel somewhat comfortable but the fear I was experiencing led to me not going back again for about a year or so. In that time, things got very bad. This negativity brought a feeling of pain to life, wanting to be dead just so it could end, just so that the suffering would stop.

Suicide, it’s all around us now, we probably all know somebody who has committed it. I’ve heard it described as the ultimate act of selfishness and I can understand and accept that opinion. However, I also know how it feels that there is no other option, trust me, it truly feels that there is no way back, that life won’t improve. I knew that I didn’t want my family and friends to know that I went down that path, so I thought **** it I’m walking out in front of this car coming down the road and it’ll look like an accident. I had been drinking heavily enough, had had enough, couldn’t take it anymore and stepped off the footpath out onto the road. Luckily for me, that car managed to swerve and avoid me. I kept on walking home, crying, not knowing how to feel whether it was happy to be still alive or sad that the suffering hadn’t ended. Either way, it was a second chance.

Things remained as bad for the following couple of months. Deep down I knew that I needed help, I couldn’t go on like this anymore. Friends who were pulling me through each day being made upset by the late at night texts and calls that I wanted to die, that I was going to take my life. It wasn’t fair on them, it wasn’t fair on me. I knew I had to go back to counselling, I was given that second chance and this time I had to take it.

I went back initially for a few visits to try and understand why I feel the way I do, what the cause was etc. This is when the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder came about, it felt like an enormous relief to finally know what was wrong. The next step was to know how to deal and cope with it. Positivity – feeding it into my mind at every possible opportunity. That’s what had and has to be done, however, it’s a long ass journey. Week after week went by, doubts each day that there is any major improvements. Suddenly it hit me one day, “jeez, I actually can’t remember the last time I had that attack of negativity. I feel pretty happy, no worries or anything holding me down”. Positivity seemed to come naturally, it was everywhere to be seen. This is great I thought, absolutely chuffed to have battled through all that **** and get to this stage.

This lasted for about a year, then I noticed negativity was creeping back into my mind. I tried not to overthink it, hoping these were just isolated instances of negative thoughts. That hope quickly began to disappear as my enemy was coming back fighting, becoming more regular, beginning to affect me again leaving longer lasting impacts of feeling down. As I wrote this last night, I was in that ever too familiar rut of feeling sorry for myself thinking why am I going through this again? As I go over this, improving grammar wherever I can, I feel determined to fight on and keep going. I’m grateful for that second chance I got and know that I’ll never give up. So many people don’t get that second chance.

For those of you that I have opened up to and chosen to involve in my battle I hope this helps you to understand better my battle. For those who don’t know me or about my battle, I implore you all to change the society we live in, to normalise mental illness and remove the stigma associated with it. I have so much admiration for people who are making their stories public to try and help others. A lot of us will have seen the speech made recently by Bressie on mental health. A few days later, a friend shared his speech on her Facebook page and revealed to all that she was battling with mental illness. We need to live in a society where somebody suffering from a mental illness can say “I’m not well” as easy as saying it when we have a physical illness. Only until the day that this stigma is removed, there will be many people unnecessarily suffering in silence. Please look after anybody you think may be mentally ill and if you are ill yourself don’t be afraid to get help.

D.

Tokyo

Hi OP,

I have moved your thread to the Long Term Illness forum, as it is more open to discussion than Personal Issues, which is solely for seeking advice.

Regards,
Mike