If only I could escape within the pages of a book,
lose myself in Middle Earth or Narnia.
Begin an epic journey or a quest,
where good and evil are clearly defined,
and we all know where we are.
And whose side we’re on.
A world of dwarves and fauns,
magic and wonder,
spectacular scenery and second breakfasts,
courage and sacrifice.
An innocent world, where we know good will eventually triumph
and valour be rewarded.
If only I could escape within the pages of a book.
This is about the fifth time I’ve started this post, I get so frustrated that I can’t find the words I need. I’m talking to my blog because I need to talk to someone, I can’t talk to my family and most of the people on Twitter have heard it all before and are probably sick of it. Once again it’s 2AM and I’m crying silently in my room. I am so lonely, I have a physical pain in my stomach. I am so SO envious of people who have someone in their lives, someone to give them a hug, to share their life with. I would literally give my right arm for that, I would give anything. There is something so fundamentally unlovable about me that I just can’t overcome no matter how hard I try. If I wasn’t ugly it would probably be a start. Most people say looks don’t matter. They SAY it but they don’t mean it. It must be so amazing to be popular with the opposite sex. Or the same sex, whatever floats your boat. I can’t even imagine it. I have tried so hard and nothing works. I just don’t want to live like this but I don’t have the guts to end it. I’ve tried so many times, I’ve filled my mouth with tablets but I couldn’t make myself swallow. I’ve stood on high window ledges and cliffs but I couldn’t make myself jump. I’ve thought through and planned every way imaginable. All I can do at this point is something I decided last summer. That is to ignore symptoms and not to seek diagnosis for anything that could potentially be serious or sinister. And if I do develop any serious illnesses not to seek or accept treatment for them and just let nature take its course. I’m trying not to catch Covid to protect my parents from contracting it, but if I do catch it and am hospitalised I will ask for palliative treatment only and for a DNA (Do Not Resuscitate) notice to be applied to me. Anyway, I guess that’s all for now.
We see human beings on the news every day , suffering, drowning, dying, and yet we connect them not to ourselves.
We fail to see that we could be them but for an accident of birth. We could be bombed and persecuted, ethnically or religiously cleansed.
(Was ever a word coined which context gave such an opposite meaning to its definition?) There is nothing clean or wholesome about mass murder.
Parcelling our children into small boats and trusting them to the violent oceans, in preference to their violent homelands. Home is supposed to be safe.
And when we reach the far shore we are treated as criminals, less welcome than a stray dog. We who have lost everything but our humanity, have more than you.
I am a cloud on a distant horizon, just an impression barely glimpsed.
I am the mystery shadow under water, its depth unknown.
I am the rustle in the dark hedgerow, of an invisible animal.
I am the faint sound carried on the breeze, unidentified.
I am the hint of scent that only eager leaping dogs can detect.
I am the tang of something almost undetected and not quite recognised.
I am that elusive memory on the tip of your tongue, just out of reach.
I will not cry.
Bite mouth.
Dig nails into hand.
Blink rapidly.
Breathe.
Bite mouth harder.
Distract myself, think of something, concentrate,
Blink.
Dig harder with nails.
Breathe.
Blink.
Concentrate on something.
Bite, dig, blink, breathe…
Flotsam and jetsam floating with the tide under the wide empty sky,
drifting directionless on the uncaring waves, pulled this way and that,
sun refulgent, rain soft and caressing or hard and brutal
all felt, but none can be avoided, surfing at the mercy of the unseeing elements.
Most of the two men and their dog who read my blogs will know that I haven’t been too good mentally for the last week or so, although I am now less bad than I was. What you won’t know though is that for the month or so before that I had been the best I have been in more than a decade. I didn’t say anything at the time as I felt guilty, how could I feel so good when the rest of the world felt so bad? It wasn’t as if I was immune to the suffering of others or that I wasn’t worried about my loved ones, because I was and am. But after a short (few days) initial response to the coronavirus situation of getting really panicky and sleeping even more badly than usual, it passed and I felt so different.
I have subsequently read that many seriously anxious and depressed people have been feeling unusually well since this crisis began. Obviously this doesn’t hold true for lots of people and for many they are feeling worse than they ever have before, but just the knowledge that I wasn’t the only one feeling like this made me feel less guilty and less strange. It shows how important speaking out is, it makes other people who are in the same situation feel less alone. It’s also a reminder to me that no matter how many times I feel that I’m the only one in the world to feel a certain way, that never holds true. (Even though I have been told twice in two different areas of my mental health and by two different mental health professionals that my presentation is particularly unusual! Unusual isn’t the same as unique. Although of course everyone’s illness is unique to a point.) But I digress…
I have tried to analyse what made me feel so well, some of which agree with the experience of the other people mentioned. One part of it is that the “worst” has happened. When you invest so much time worrying about things, usually worst case scenarios, there is some comfort in the fact that you no longer have to worry. The thing has happened. There is a lot of truth in the quotation that “there is nothing to fear but fear itself.” The majority of things I worry about never come to pass and even if they do they are hardly ever as bad as I fear. On the rare occasions they are, the fact that I’ve already worried myself sick about them doesn’t help at all, all it has done is extend the period of the misery. If I’ve been worrying about a journey, as soon as I start on that journey I feel a bit better. I still have anxiety, but the absolute worst part of it is over – the anticipation. In this case we had started the journey of a pandemic and therefore the strongest anxiety was over.
Secondly, I find myself very attracted by a strong sense of community, which is ironic given I’m not at all good with social situations, but still! One of the things I really like about volunteering at the museum is the sense of community we have. The coronavirus crisis really engendered a sense of community across the country and indeed the world, of everyone pulling together to fight for a common cause and people were all beginning to help their neighbours and show gratitude to the NHS and to people who have traditionally been largely overlooked, like supermarket workers, posties and dustmen. It felt like barriers were down and we were all doing our bit and appreciated and that is the kind of world I want to live in. People (myself included) often mock the frequent allusions to the “spirit of the blitz.” There’s no doubt it is invoked far too often and for the wrong reasons but in this case it is apt. I think the reason many who experienced it talked with some fondness of it, despite the terrible dangers and hardships, was the lowering of those barriers, a common purpose and a clearly defined enemy. Everyone knew where they were and what needed to be done. There is a lot of research that shows the happiest countries are those with the smallest gaps between rich and poor, a more equal society. Times of crisis often increase the feeling of equality, to some degree and that can make people happier.
Thirdly, I find ‘appointments’ stressful. I don’t mean by that what you probably mean by the term. I mean anything in my diary that I have to do on a certain date, be that going to the museum or meeting a friend. It doesn’t matter how fun the experience is likely to be, just the actual fact of having to do it at a specified time on a specified date makes it stressful to me and has done for a very long time. Suddenly everything was shut and there was not a thing in my diary. The freedom from stress that that gave me was intoxicating. It probably doesn’t sound like much to you, but it was to me.
Fourthly, it levelled the playing field. Although my goal has always been and still is to level the playing field up and not down, the fact that it was suddenly more level made me feel less outside the world and more like everyone else. Everyone was staying in, it wasn’t just me! Nobody was socialising or going on holiday or going to concerts or festivals, it wasn’t just me. Feeling more ‘normal’ was a nice feeling.
Fifthly, a lot of people were/are very scared of dying in this outbreak. That is totally natural and I sympathise with them very much. I’m scared of other people dying, but although I fear the process of dying, I don’t fear being dead. That therefore made me feel to a certain extent invulnerable and therefore less anxious. When you’re usually feeling much more vulnerable than most people, suddenly feeling stronger than them was a powerful feeling. I think when you’ve spent a large proportion of your life since the age of 9, being suicidal, being dead seems like a good thing.
These are the main factors I have identified but there might be more. They all combined to make me feel so unusually well. It had been such a long time since I had such a good patch and felt that way that I had forgotten how it was. I realised that I had become so used to feeling so bad that I had honestly forgotten how it felt to feel better. I’d lost awareness of just how bad my usual level was. I found I slept better, I felt better and I had energy and motivation. Doing things seemed effortless, I didn’t have to consciously motivate myself at all. I think this was the most powerful thing and I can’t stress enough just how different this is from my normal state. I got SO much done, jobs I’d been putting off for years were all done in a trice and at no effort. I think that in itself increased my happiness too, it’s an invisible cycle of motivation when you’re feeling well. You’re so pleased with everything you’ve got done that you want to do more. Feeling so well was also such a relief. It’s exhausting feeling the way I usually do and the contrast made me see that very clearly. It was like being on holiday for a while from being me. The possibilities seemed endless.
Much like the last episode of Star Trek: Next Generation though, “all good things… “ I crashed back to Earth and the stark difference between one state and the other meant I crashed hard. A classic rollercoaster scenario. Why did this halcyon lull from myself end? A number of factors I think, after the initial surge of togetherness more and more people started to climb out of the boat we were all in and highlight their selfishness and greed, for one thing. ‘Normal’ life reinstated itself to some extent and the temporary armistice was over. I was also very upset by the realisation of how many other people viewed mental illness, as discussed in my last blog. I really let it get to me.
A big factor was that I realised the level playing field (as alluded to in point four, above) was an illusion. Yes, other people were temporarily in the same position as me but the temporariness of it was highlighted by such things as multiple people commenting on how different their birthdays in lockdown had been (mine was just the same) or how much they were looking forward to spending time with their partners again (what partner?). Or the many people who were in lockdown WITH a partner or children and could have a hug when they wanted. (My goals are small!) It brought home to me that after this crisis is over they will all emerge from the chrysalis and I won’t. I wrote this short poem about these thoughts.
I live my life in lockdown
is a truth I’ve come to see.
All the things that you find odd
aren’t so strange to me.
Realising that I do live my whole life like I’m in lockdown is an incredibly depressing thought, my life is so curtailed. Unfortunately, depression being what it is, all these thoughts caused me to lose the happiness I had temporarily found. Now I am back to how I am normally. The worst of the crash is over but as I have so recently discovered, my ‘normal’ level is very low. Last night I again woke multiple times with nightmares and so started my day tired and depressed as usual. I have to make myself do anything and I realise now just how much effort that takes. I think lack of motivation is one of the least understood parts of depression, if you don’t feel like this you can have no idea of just how much it takes out of me to do even the simplest thing. Even I had forgotten just how far below normal I am in this area. I was aware of a serious lack of motivation of course and have tweeted about it in the past, but when it is every day, every week, every month, every year, you become so accustomed to it that you lose the proper perspective.
Anyway, that’s about it for now. As always folks, be kind. It’s so true that you never know what the other person is dealing with.
Picture the scene. You’ve broken your leg and other people’s reactions range from “why are you moaning?” to “have you tried just walking?” to “there are people much older than you running marathons, surely walking isn’t that hard, why don’t you just get on with it like they are?” How would that make you feel? If one of those people then posted a meme making fun of you for not being able to walk, would you expect tens of thousands of people to ‘like’ it? Or would you be appalled at their callousness and lack of empathy?
The meme itself is bad enough, especially when liked so many times, but now you have the comments on the meme to deal with too. You’re a “snowflake” for not being able to walk, you’re a “crybaby” or you need to “grow up” or “realise how lucky you are.” Having a broken leg doesn’t actually feel that lucky. You are accused of playing the “broken leg card” too.
You’ve probably guessed that I’m using a broken leg as an analogy for mental illness. All those comments above, and many more, were directed at Sam Smith because they admitted they are struggling with the lockdown. They have spoken before on their mental health struggles, so the fact that they are struggling is not particularly surprising. Many people also decided to use their mocking of Smith’s illness as a springboard to mock them in general, particularly their gender identity. “You’re pathetic for having a broken leg and you’re pathetic in general.”
Is it the same people who imagine you wake up one morning and decide to be gay – because the harassment and abuse looks like SO much fun – who also imagine you wake up one morning and decide to have a mental illness? And mental illness doesn’t even have a Pride. (Please note I’m not saying there shouldn’t be Pride, because there absolutely should.) You can report a tweet for homophobia and racism and so on but not for illness. There is a category for disability, but many mental illnesses wouldn’t fit into that category. We are, it seems, fair game.
I still find this lack of empathy for mental illness incredibly frustrating and upsetting. So many people retweet various campaigns encouraging people to speak out about mental illness, but when people actually do speak out, they mock them. Gee, I wonder why people are afraid to speak out? What is actually a life and death struggle against mental illness is perceived by many as moaning. I’m sorry mental illness doesn’t fit into the neat box you want it to or that it isn’t what you expect, but it is what it is.
A great many people also tweeted about being kind, after a recent celebrity death by suicide. Many of those same people were only a few weeks later attacking and mocking Smith. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Being kind is not just a slogan. Sam Smith is a real person with feelings and emotions and vulnerabilities. What you say and do online matters, it impacts on real people. And it doesn’t ‘only’ impact on Smith, it impacts on all of us who struggle with our mental health.
I now know just how many people think I’m pathetic, something which I already think myself and everyone who ‘liked’ that meme has reinforced. I know tens of thousands of you (probably many more in fact) think I could get better if I just tried, that if I speak out you’re just going to think I’m moaning. A big part of me feels ashamed that I can’t cope with things like many other people can, it makes me want to hide and not talk about what I’m feeling. I already find it really hard to tell people offline that I have mental illness. But you know what? One of my favourite quotations is “to thine own self be true” and this is who I am. I have mental illness. I didn’t choose it, I would never choose it in a million years. Who on earth would?! If you don’t get that then you don’t understand it at all. You don’t understand me or any of the other people affected by mental illness. And there are a lot of us. It’s very hard to tell people about, you might think you don’t know anyone in person who suffers but I’m telling you, you do. People don’t speak out, they’re afraid to. How many times have you read of a suicide and all their friends and family say “we had no idea, they always seemed happy.” Well this meme and things like it is why you had no idea. It’s why a lot of people who could be saved aren’t being, they’re not getting help because although people are retweeting the mental health campaigns, they’re also retweeting this meme.
People get the message. We understand what you think of us.
It's a Topsy Turvey world! 