on 04-10-2015 01:01 PM
Mental Health Week commences today with World Mental Health Day on October 10th. To those of us with mental illness and those who have loved ones with mental illness, this is a week that will,hopefully, continue to break through stigma and raise awareness, as well as supporting our wellbeing. The message this year is "Mental Health begins with me." Stay safe and be aware that there could be triggers throughout the week.
http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov.au/media-centre/events/mental-health-week.aspx
Solved! Go to Solution.
on 10-10-2015 04:50 PM
The risk is always there, when you talk to people, that something they say will touch on a raw nerve.
Someone said something, and I wanted to quote myself; writing from many years ago.
I didn't, because I didn't think they'd understand.
Nine tenths of the time I think I know me.
All I know for sure is this - that this cleverly crafted illusion I call my reality is as fragile as the finest crystal.
It would only take one small chemical imbalance to bring it all crashing down.
I dont really know who I am.
I probably never will.
That's how it is.
Nine tenths of the time I sort of know me.
Even depressed, I still know who I am.
The manic.
The dangerous, impulsive, sometimes violent, sometimes childlike, unpredictable, fixated, dream head, all this, and more, all these things, and others, and none of them and all of them.
I cannot completely know someone who is never the same from one meeting to the next.
Sometimes i just want to scream.
I feel so frustrated.
So trapped.
(Insert suitable substitute for potentially offensive term; starts with the letter "F")!!!!
I've just tipped over the edge into I dont know what I dont feel down I feel like my skin is moving all on its own i'm twitching and suddenly tired so very very tired and my skin feels tight like its just too small and I cant stay focused tired twitchy crawly too tight skin no more too say ride it out & move on.
Like a wave silently gliding across the sand and then you're up to your waist in the freezing saltiness facing a wall twice your height but this is not the beach or the sea this is how it comes to you washes over you engulfs you leaves you fighting for breath not knowing which way is up tossed around like a rag doll a sort of prickling hot skin crawling feeling and everything is brilliantly clear you can taste the coffee you haven't made yet you can smell it you can see it if you dont try too hard its so clear but its not there and it's hard to believe because it all feels so real but it's only an idea in your head.
I cant scream loud enough
And I cant run far enough
And I will never find the words to put on paper
and you will NEVER EVER know how this HURTS
This exquisite bitter-sweet sorrow
this loneliness bereft of love
this empty lonely aching crying weeping stupid scared lonely lonely shell of a man who cannot love himself and cannot forgive what he is by birth
I did not choose this affliction to be my burden in this life ...
I have walked a mile in another man's shoes. And that man was me.
Try this - half way through a complicated and difficult project, feel it hit you like an icy wave, solid as stone. Crashing through you. Waves of nausea, fear, that strange all too familiar bitter salty taste in your mouth. That overwhelming feeling that nothing you ever do, nothing you ever could have done has worked. Every thing you try, fails. The grey empty blackness. The flat lifelessness. Empty. Soulless.
I hate the badness of the endless days. I hate the sadness of the bleak, dull, endless, monotonous days. I hate the madness that makes my very existence possible. What would I do without it? The very thing that defines me, who I am, is the very thing I would be rid of, excise, cut away, dispose of, leave behind, hand on. Simply deny, or destroy.
So there you have it.
The admission that could well haunt me for the rest of my life -
I WOULD DESTROY MYSELF IF I COULD.
(In letters tall and bold).
But
I CANT AND I DONT KNOW WHY.
In letters just as tall and bold,
the words that haunt me.
You know what really frightens me?
Really scares me?
Scares me to the point of losing sleep?
Life.
Is there another word?
It's okay if you don't understand. This wasn't really written for/to anyone but me.
My life was a very bleak place, once.
It got better, given time.
on 04-10-2015 01:57 PM
I have this postcard in my bedroom to remind me of simple little ways to stress less 🙂
on 04-10-2015 01:59 PM
I feel like my "Story" is so ordinary. I'm not about to be interviewed by the ABC for some Sunday night special.
I am, as the character Hannibal Lecter put it, a boring, run of the mill manic depressive.
I was terribly unhappy for a long time, interspersed with bursts of inexplicable and on the whole unfocused enthusiasm for projects and undertakings that had a very short lifespan, determined as much by my mood as anything.
As I said, run of the mill.
I'm never going to be a poster boy for mental health. In my more cynical/sarcastic moments I like to say that the best I'll ever do is serve as a cautionary tale.
on 04-10-2015 01:59 PM
You know nothing.
on 04-10-2015 02:01 PM
on 04-10-2015 02:02 PM
@ecar3483 wrote:I feel like my "Story" is so ordinary. I'm not about to be interviewed by the ABC for some Sunday night special.
I am, as the character Hannibal Lecter put it, a boring, run of the mill manic depressive.
I was terribly unhappy for a long time, interspersed with bursts of inexplicable and on the whole unfocused enthusiasm for projects and undertakings that had a very short lifespan, determined as much by my mood as anything.
As I said, run of the mill.
I'm never going to be a poster boy for mental health. In my more cynical/sarcastic moments I like to say that the best I'll ever do is serve as a cautionary tale.
Look at the bright side... being manic depressive is more fun than being ordinarily depressed
on 04-10-2015 02:07 PM
Jessica no offense but I don't think Mental Illness is something to make light of in this case. I could be wrong but I thought you implied somewhere that you have had such issues yourself, so surely you should know better. And your Tips to Stress less has nothing whatsoever to do with mental illness. There are people on these boards and all around us who are wondering if they will make it to the next day. No laughing matter.
on 04-10-2015 02:08 PM
Just because I've two words and you've only got one doesn't diminish you.
04-10-2015 02:11 PM - edited 04-10-2015 02:13 PM
I don't think you are a boring person ecar, quite the opposite. From what I've seen of your posts, I like the way you think and write; you come over as intelligent, kind, and someone who is willing to discuss topics with sensitivity and deep philosophical insight and never argumentative for the sake of it. For that I thank you.
We don't always agree, but we do agree to disagree agreeably which always leaves the door open xx
on 04-10-2015 02:17 PM
@bright.ton42 wrote:Jessica no offense but I don't think Mental Illness is something to make light of in this case. I could be wrong but I thought you implied somewhere that you have had such issues yourself, so surely you should know better. And your Tips to Stress less has nothing whatsoever to do with mental illness. There are people on these boards and all around us who are wondering if they will make it to the next day. No laughing matter.
Clearly it is evident that porkies have been told. It is so tiresome.
Fantasies are fine as long as they do not harm others. This fantasy has.