Disjointed and Being Stigmatised- Don't call me Mental
I haven' t been very good at keeping the blog going about
understanding me have I? Well that's the thing see when you write about
yourself and you are trying to unpick the tangled mess that lies within. You
lack energy and motive. And, well understanding. After all if we understood it
we could perhaps deal with it. We sufferers of the Manic Depression/Bi-Polar
disorder can be very erratic and disjointed. We can stay in bed and hide under
the covers all day and all night. Or we can get up through night and be
creative. I have an Aunty who is a fellow sufferer and who would ignore the fact she had
children and stay in bed all day but get up and create masterpieces through the
night- painting, sewing, music. She can turn her hand to anything effortlessly
and make the most extraordinary art. Yet she cannot function on a day to day
level in 'ordinary society'. Thankfully I am not that bad- not because I
wouldn't want to be that exceptionally gifted, but because my children and my husbands
would have suffered far more than they have. I could always give my mind to the
children's (and husbands) needs and ran an orderly household. For me order is
essential. I am good at organisation. Some depressed people just let everything
go to the point they live in squalor. I am 'muddly' but it is an organised
muddle and I know where to find things. It only drives my husband mad. I am not
phased by it. At the height of my breakdown it was an entirely different
scenario.
I have never made a secret of the fact that I suffer with
depression. I don't get the stigma thing. I haven't even found that to be the
attitude of most people -if any-not even employers. There is one exception
which I will come on to. What I have found is a lack of understanding of the illness
which I think most people confuse with Stigma. When my depression came to a
head - bit like fleas- and I finally had a breakdown (or breakthrough as I like
to call it) no-one around me understood. Family in particular found it
extremely hard to cope with and didn't even try to understand and I was
labelled mad. Depression isn't being a bit under the weather or a bit blue.
Even the kind you suffer from when you are in mourning or broken hearted is not
the same. People usually pick themselves up and dust themselves off with love
and support and perhaps some grief counselling. I am not being flippant about
the toll grief or heartbreak can take on a person. I am just trying to differentiate
between the two. When you suffer heartbreak you usually move on and find
another person. You find your happiness (hopefully). When someone dies, you never
forget them but you accept that death is part of life and you learn to live
with it even if you miss them daily. You can't bring them back but you have
other people that need you and so you have to get on with life. And again I
accept that its not the same for everyone. The kind of depression I am talking
about is deep in our souls and we cannot make it leave us. It is physical as
well as 'mental'. I hate, hate, hate that word with a passion. (I prefer mind
full, or mind doing overtime).This is where the stigma is. I once offered to go
to a funeral with someone very close to me and he declined my offer saying 'he
didn't want to take me because he didn't want people to know he was
'associating' with someone who was a 'mentaller'. This is not only the deepest insult I have
ever received and the most hurtful but its not even a word. It's the kind of
word that you find in a school playground. I forgave him. Why? Because he was
one of the few who was aware of the stigma attached to this kind of illness.
Because of his childish attitude to someone with an illness he didn't
understand. He needed to learn about it, to learn love and kindness on a level
such as he had never experienced before. Some time after that the same person
told another person that I was a nice girl but a bit f**ked up. Again, same
stigma and same pain for me. Other issues surrounded this incident but I won't
go there - it hurts. Had I been stronger and in a better position it would have
been a good idea to have kicked that person where it hurts and ceased
association but I wasn't and I didn't. Despite having moved on greatly the pain
and the memory of those incidents and the lack of understanding will reside
deep within me. Until I die. What other people fail to recognise is that they
are part of your depression once they have you in their lives. So if you are
embarking on a relationship with a sufferer, unless you can be 110% sure you
can handle it with love and kindness don't even go there. The kinder thing in
the long run would be to leave them to find someone who can help them. Your
understanding, Your support and Your love is essential for you to maintain a
level that you can function at. For the Sufferer the people who are in your
life need to understand you and there is not enough help for them and you need
to understand that. Sure if you are a sufferer you can go and have counselling,
see a psychiatrist etc., but what help is there for those who have to live with
you daily? So you find yourself firmly
perched on the outside of the family. Sure they do the usual cliches - 'ah
you're just a bit down', or 'I had that once', or 'what you need is a good
night out; to surround yourself with people; a good holiday; get out more; walk
plenty; a little job to take your mind of stuff', and worst one of all they think you need
cheering up with an endless round of jokes. Actually no I feckin don't. I don't
care why the chicken crossed the feckin road or who is knock knocking at the
feckin door- just leave me alone. Sometimes, in small measure all these things
do help a little. But you see it is what is going on inside of you they cannot
help with. They cannot stop the crying inside and in their frustration because
they think they are helping they sometimes inadvertently make things much worse
and much more painful by saying or doing hurtful things. They cannot easily
understand because they haven't really been there. And although I wouldn't wish
this anyone- I just wish sometimes they understood the pain.
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