Eliminate the Stigma of Mental Illness » suicide

Men and Mental Health

Addy — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:58:24 +0000

I have a confession to make.
I do.
I have been lying to you all.
Yep.
Absolutely!
I’ve been lying to everyone for the last 28 years, 11 months, 3 weeks and lord knows how many seconds! Now, a week or so before my 29th birthday I have decided to come clean, stand up and confess. Has to be done, no question about it, can’t keep up these lies any more.
Ok…?
Here goes…

[deep breath]

I
am
NOT
a
MAN!

[blimey that feels good!]

It’s like this fifty eight thousand tonne weight has been lifted off my somewhat hairy back. It’s true though – I’m not.

It’s perfectly understandable why you’d all think that I am, what with; the presence of a beard, chest hair, rippling muscles, an Adam’s apple, a penchant to get a hard on at the mere passing thought of a naked woman, and the ability to turn into a raving ape at the actual sight of a naked woman…and oh yeah, I’ve got a penis.

But alas, I am not a man.

Why?

Well, I don’t feel the desire to – when ratarsed – piss in shop doorways; I don’t wolf whistle at woman as they walk down the street; I don’t chug pints of beer as a hobby; nor do I watch sports [breath] I don’t shag other women when I’m in a relationship; I remember birthdays and anniversaries and all sorts of grossly inappropriate important events; I never leave the toilet seat up nor do I feel the need to play the “I can get less urine in the bowel than you” game [breath] I think beer tastes like luke-warm yak’s vomit; I don’t feel the need to lie to a woman constantly in order to (a) impress her (b) cheat on her or (c) bang her; I don’t play football nor receive ridiculously pseudo-erotic pleasure from watching guys running around a field in tight shorts but I do however receive ridiculously pseudo-erotic pleasure from watching a man in a waistcoat screw a ball the length of the table [breathe] I see woman as more than just t-a-c; don’t keep a tally of how many lays I’ve had; I drink alcopops…in public…have never vomited into a pint glass; stolen a witch’s hat; got into a fight; screwed my girlfriend’s best friend nor would I no matter how tempted I may be [breathe] I’d never slap a woman in the face; nor on the ass as a means of coming on to her [smaller breath] I would never give a woman a job based solely on the quality of her posterior; nor get into a discussion about rating my friends’ tits on a 1-10 scale; I wouldn’t scribble 100 words for a woman’s sacred garden above the urinals in the pub…sacred garden? You need more proof? Fine…my mood changes frequently; I talk about my emotions; am not afraid to cry if I want to; nor even when I don’t [breath] I want babies; I want commitment; I like living somewhere where I can see the carpet; I’ve never measured my cock when I’m alone; when I’m talking to a woman I’m looking at her eyes – not her tits; I really don’t see the appeal of a g-string; think cricket is bloody stupid; and would much rather be sitting on a beach talking to a woman about the advantages/disadvantages of John Howard than sitting on a beach staring at her arse [breath] I really don’t see why women need to shave their legs; or their armpits; or their moustache and to be blunt would much rather sleep with someone with a bush hairier than a badger’s back than a bald bush smoother than that of a prepubescent schoolgirl; oh, and I care more about woman orgasming than I do my own, colour me selfish that way [breath] I have no problem ballroom dancing with another man; I have no problem hugging another man; I have no problem talking emotionally with another man; I have no problem crying in front of another man; I have no problem going to see a Doctor if I’m sick; nor do I have a problem with eating an egg and broccoli quiche whilst asking for directions from a man chowing down on a steak sandwich; and oh yes, I admit to making mistakes.

[breathe]

[before I pass out]

Bloody hell I could go on all day, but hey, the easiest way to prove my massive (almost) 29 year long deception – I have no problem with standing up before the whole of the world and announcing: I am suffering from depression!

[oh]

[hang on]

[ummmmmm]

I…ummm…made…a…mistake.

Sorry. Sorry everyone. Dammit, I got it wrong.

I am actually a man after all.

A hell of a man!

Far more so than anyone who fits into the categories I described above; and any man who dares say otherwise may very well be the second person to get a bitch slap from me. And any woman who dares say otherwise – well – if I don’t know them they may get a scolding glare, if I know them, maybe a slap on the butt (‘cause remember I don’t bitch slap women nor do I slap their asses as a means of coming on to them, keep up!)

To be a man, is to be one thing: courageous.

In today’s world, where men are vilified by woman on an almost global scale and forced to become the Neolithic apes they despise so much in order for them to be interested in you (I know, go figure!) being a man is to have the courage to: cry whilst watching Bambi; actually ask for help from the female shop assistant when buying lingerie for your girlfriend; talk about tampons and hormones with your girlfriend; order quiche in the restaurant; actually buy lingerie your girlfriend would like and feel sexy in rather than something you want to see the female shop assistant wear for you; tell your girlfriend if you’ve had a fight with your best mate; cry whilst eating the best piece of tofu you’ve ever tasted; nervously shake when you kiss a woman for the first time; say no to your girlfriend’s best friend when she’s seducing you in the nuddy; realize sport is a complete waste of your life; that pissing in doorways just makes you look like a twat; take your girlfriend’s tampon out of her bag and give it to her without treating it like a live hand grenade; nervously shake when you kiss a woman for the first time badly; ask where her clit is & if there’s anything you’re doing wrong; cry if you’re feeling upset; not hit the first thing you see if you’re drunk, angry or stupid; say I love you in circumstances that don’t involve blow jobs; nervously shake when you kiss a woman for the first time badly and then joke about it afterwards; not always follow your penis’ every request; admitting to how you’re feeling; follow your beliefs no matter what they may be or how derisive your friends are being; not always cum first and then falling asleep; put the toilet seat down; go to the Doctor; tell your girlfriend you have a problem; hell, tell any of your friends that you have a problem.

Being a man is having the courage to stand up and admit that you have a mental illness and not care what anyone thinks.

[And I’m not just saying that because I’m a man who is doing this same exact thing]

That one simple word is all what being a man is. Believing in yourself so much that you don’t care what other men or women think of you. If other men can’t handle it, then, they don’t deserve that beer they pretend to like so much. If women can’t handle it, then, remember that the most important thing is the emotional connection you have, not how many or how often you’ve shagged.

Quality, not quantity.

This insipid culture we now live in where a man is considered to be weak, worthless and spineless because he admits to having a mental illness is what is costing lives. More men die from suicide every year than women. More men go through life in pain than women. Why? Because they’re too afraid to admit they have a problem. Why? Because they don’t have the courage to stand up to the fear, derision and masculine stripping vilification they will receive from all corners if they do. Why? Well, that’s just because everyone’s decided what a man should be instead of realizing they are – like women – human. Men don’t come from Mars any more than women don’t come from Venus (and just for the record, you don’t have to like visiting Uranus to be man).

One of the purest forms of the stigma against mental health is also one of the vilest forms of stigma out there; sexism. And however controversial this may sound, it’s being propagated by women just as much, if not more so, than by men.

Women desire men to be men and this means not having flaws or problems or weaknesses.
In order for a man to be accepted they must act in this way regardless of how they’re feeling.
For we wouldn’t want to be weak now would we!

In a discussion on mental illness I was once told by someone that they could believe and accept in the existence of a woman suffering from post natal depression, but could not believe that depression was something a man could suffer from. In other words, in women it is perfectly acceptable but in men, it is seen as a weakness, a trait to be avoided, ignored, derided and laughed at.

Is it any wonder why so many men are blowing their heads off or chucking themselves off bridges?

Tell me, what’s more courageous?

1. Bottling up all of your emotions so that a woman can respect you, only for your brains to redecorate your office?
2. Admitting to a woman that you have a problem, even if it means never visiting her sacred garden again?

Yep, you’re right.
If it is indeed true that a woman can’t be attracted to a man that cries, then there is something seriously wrong with the world in which we live. Men have feelings, men feel pain, men hurt – and they should be allowing to show it without recrimination.
Women need to realize this.
Men need to realize this.
We all need to realize this.

by Addy
Originally posted on All that I am, all that I ever was… (November 2007)

An Alternate Viewpoint on School Shootings

sociopathicregret — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 00:02:40 +0000

The focus on gun control and mental illness after school shootings is largely unjustified. Of course, this is common knowledge to people with any shred of logicality, but I’m going to take it a bit further. There are many factors involved in these shootings, including parental neglect, reading insane material, depression, and…..

ZERO TOLERANCE POLICIES!

Yep, I said it. The very policies that the schools supposedly ‘rely on’ to ‘prevent’ violence are actually a major cause of explosive violence and school shootings.

Why? They don’t differentiate between self defense, retaliation, and aggression. This creates a catch 22 for people who are made fun of and feel as though they have nothing to do. Their parents can commonly be seen calling the school, but the school does little, and if they do, the insults continue behind administrators backs. Even so, they’re called rats and made fun of even more.

This unintelligent school policy not only reeks of lack of empathy, but is blatantly in line with the ‘politically correct’ groupthink of today.If these individuals ignore aggression, they run the risk of getting hurt but much more likely being completely humiliated. This leaves one option: fight back.

However, with zero tolerance policies, all parties involved are almost always punished equally. This leads to many who just defend themselves or stand up for themselves to think that they are at fault, and even if they realize that this is not the case, it creates a lot more frustration than necessary.

People who are made fun of and snubbed thus have no option other than to suffer, or explode like many of the school shooters do. Even before these ‘zero tolerance policies’, school policy largely started leading up to this. It clears the school’s ass of blame no matter what and makes for an easy method of ‘processing’ cases without any real critical thought, time or effort.

I’m not condoning school shootings. I understand that they are the minority of those put in this situation; those who have come across certain rhetoric, those who are often abused the worst, those who have formed thoughts that it is okay to commit such a horrible act. But just imagine a poor kid who has been verbally and physically abused in school for eight years. He finally gets the guts to fight back and guess what happens? He’s suspended, or worse, maybe expelled if he does a number on the other guy. What’s more, his parents make him out to be bad. In the short term, it may shut things up, and make the school look peaceful. But in the long term it fuels an explosive rage that just doesn’t go away.

So, next time you see this on the news, don’t think ‘That guy just must be crazy!’ It’s certainly true that some may be in a rather unstable state of mind, but think of the causes of this. Think of the treatment they endure, and think about how all their exists are blocked. Different people have different tolerance levels depending on many different factors, and though we should not condone violence, we must give suffering individuals a method to alleviate that suffering.

Otherwise, we are unfortunately contributing to the problem.

by sociopathicregret

(Some) True Confessions of a Self Harmer

Addy — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 07:17:18 +0000

Disclaimer:

I AM NOT PRO-SELF HARM!

I am not advocating the self-infliction of injury.

People who self harm have a problem and need help and support.

This post contains written examples of injuries I have inflicted.

Please do not read if you think you will find this disturbing or upsetting.

We’ll start with a bang to get everyone’s attention:

I ONCE PURPOSEFULLY IGNITED A FULL BOX OF MATCHES IN MY CLOSED FIST

So what’s your reaction?

OOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!      ?
HO-LY …!!      ?
OOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!      ?
[stunned silence]    ?
OOOWWWWWWWW!!! OWWWWWWWWWW!! OWWWWWWWWW!!   ?

My guess is all of the above, and then some.

Try these…

My top 5 most painful injuries, as inflicted on myself, in reverse order:
5) When I was 14, I stabbed a pencil into my finger whilst in the middle of a class at school.
4) When I was 21, I whipped myself so hard with a belt it I couldn’t sit, lean or lie on my back for just under a week.
3) A couple of days before being diagnosed as having a breakdown, I was sitting on a beach in Port Fairy. I started a small fire, took one of the burning sticks, and burned both my chest and shoulder. It was this event that made me realise I needed to see a doctor!
=2) That box of matches hurt like…well…a box of matches igniting in your closed fist!!!!! I had burns on the palm of my hand, thumb and two fingers for weeks.
=2) In July 2007, I knocked myself unconscious by throwing myself into a tree.
1) The cutting/hitting/burning incident in May 2007 prior to my suicide attempt.

I had to start like that! There was no other way to do it. Like every single form of mental health problem that exists, we need to talk about self harm in order for the stigma to be eliminated. The only way to do this is in a blunt, bloody and brutal way.

Hurting yourself is NOT about attention!
Hurting yourself is NOT about wanting to kill yourself!
Hurting yourself is NOT about bloody EMO!!
Hurting yourself is NOT about proving how cool you are!!
Hurting yourself is NOT about having a weakness of personality!
Hurting yourself is NOT about self-hate!!
Hurting yourself IS a symptom of a larger problem!
Hurting yourself IS a symptom of a larger problem which the person may not even be aware of!!
Hurting yourself IS AN ADDICTION!!
Pure and simple.

Even though burning myself with that stick hurt like nothing else, I’ve still burned myself since. Even though I couldn’t sit down for a week, I’ve still whipped myself again. Even though I bled all over my school books, I still stabbed myself with a pencil again.

Like any form of addiction – gambling, drugs, smoking, chocolate, porn – you simply have to do it again, only with every new time you do it, it has to be bigger in order for you to receive the same “hit”. Cutting yourself once will do the trick, but sooner or later you find you need to cut yourself dozens of times to receive the same fix. This is where the problem hits, because sooner or later you’re slicing a pound of flesh from your arm and not even feeling it.

This is where people who aren’t even suicidal are killing themselves by accident.

I’m not saying that everyone who self harms isn’t suicidal, nor am I saying that anything which I have written above about what self harm is/is not is set in stone. People self-inflict for all sorts of reasons, but from my experiences not only with my own self harm but also talking with people, who do the same thing, they aren’t suicidal or weak (in fact, some of the people who self-inflict that I know personally are the strongest most beautiful souls I’ve ever met)

I started self harming in 1993 whilst I was at school. I was able to get this under control by mid-1999 whilst working at the video shop. Throughout my time backpacking I was not having any urges to do so and thought I had it under control.
I did relapse however during the last four months of 2000; whilst trying to cope with Rachel’s death, restarting college and after my first suicide attempt [remember that word for later; after.]

From December 2000 to December 2006 I only self harmed on two occasions. It wasn’t until my breakdown in March 2007 that I relapsed and once more began doing so. I was able to get it under control again between May 2007 and July 2007, but suffered another major relapse, and have self-inflicted on/off since.
The last time I self-inflicted was two days after my last suicide attempt, October 2007 [and note the use of the after again].

My trick with self-harming was to attack parts of my body which I could cover – legs, arms, buttocks, back, chest – by throwing on some form of clothing, beit a jumper on the middle of a summer’s day or a long sleeve T-shirt on a cooler one. Always with injuries which wouldn’t leave any long-long term scars.

I would always use similar methods – cutting, burning, scolding, hitting – and every now and then, when the mood struck, would become creative and run into trees or ignite boxes of matches in my closed fist.

I was never doing it because of wanting to kill myself, or hating myself, or wanting to prove how tough and resilient I was. Nor was I doing it for attention – if attention was all I was after I would release a wombat into a crowded shopping precinct or streak Brunswick Street on a Sunday afternoon. It was always about this PAIN-PLEASURE balance I mentioned in an earlier post.

(And no, I’m not referring to this pain-pleasure as in a sadomasochistic way – ‘cause if that was the case whenever I felt like self-inflicting I would just go visit a dominatrix and have some sexy woman whip me rather than doing it myself.)
I’m referring to the coping mechanisms people have when their internal pain becomes too great.

Remember I said earlier to note the use of the word after in relation to my suicide attempts. The reason I self-inflicted after those attempts was as a way to control the inner conflict, pain and turmoil my mind was going through as a result of them. It was a way to stop me from trying again! It wasn’t because I still wanted to die; it was because I wanted to live!

The other times I self harmed was as a way to feel something. Life had become numb, frustrating, painful, empty and meaningless. The over-riding feeling of loneliness and emptiness is a powerful influence, because we live to feel, and if we are feeling nothing then what is the point of being alive? Again I wasn’t self-inflicting because I wanted to die, it was because I wanted to feel something: to feel like I was alive!

Having a tree knock myself unconscious, burning my chest and not sitting down made me feel something that I was missing.

Hence, why, before my third suicide attempt I did self harm – as a means to grab some physical feeling. something to convince myself not to go through with what my brain was telling me to do. However, on this instance, no matter what pain I caused myself, it didn’t work.

Overcoming the urge to self-inflict has been one of the hardest things I have had to deal with through this tumultuous time suffering from depression.
As I said above, IT IS AN ADDICTION. Pure and simple!

And anyone who has tried giving up smoking or gambling or Lindt or badgers will know that overcoming addiction is fucking hard! Not only because of the pure level of addiction, but also because it means having to face up to whatever problem is feeding that addiction in the first place. Whatever buried pain is making us smoke, drink or gamble needs to be faced up to. In essence, we need to become whip-wielding dominatrixies in order to tame and eventually command our problems.

To overcome self-harm we, like with every form of mental illness, we need to start talking about it in order to understand it, in order to help people overcome and control their addiction.

So how can you help? If you know someone who self-harms here are a few pointers:

- Whatever they’re doing DON”T take it personally. It isn’t about YOU!
- Be available and LISTEN to them if they need to talk.
- ACKNOWLEDGE their pain, it won’t make it go away, but it will make it more bearable.
- DON’T avoid the subject or pretend it’s not there.
- ASK THEM “I know you hurt yourself and I would like to understand it a little more, could you maybe explain why you do it? I’d be grateful if you could.”
- DON’T confiscate their “tools” (because I guarantee you this will lose their trust and they will just get more creative anyway)
- BELIEVE in them and BE HOPEFUL
- DON’T push them
- TAKE the initiative and distract them; take them to the cinema, rent a DVD, bake some chocolate brownies, go to a trivia night, go for a walk, have a playful pillow or water pistol fight, hell, if they’re your bf or gf, do a seductive strip tease and get them thinking about that cute butt of yours.
- DO spontaneous acts of kindness
- Be available, and willing, to LISTEN if they need to talk.
- EDUCATE yourself – slip on your Willow hat and hop on the net for some research.
- SUPPORT them physically; call them up and tell them you’re worried about them and invite them over for a game of scrabble or a blueberry muffin.
- SUPPORT them emotionally; go to the Doctor/Psychologist with them.

And please, please…whatever you do…

- DO NOT TRY TO MAKE/ORDER THEM TO STOP!!!!!!!!! If you make them feel guilty, or punish them in any way, this will just add fuel to their addiction.

And please, please, please, please…whatever you do…remember to…

- Take TIME OUT and recuperate, caring/loving someone who suffers from any form of mental illness is exhausting and you need to look after yourself.

Although it’s confronting, brutal and painful to think that people you care about are inflicting this pain on themselves remember that to them it is merely an addiction. A symptom of a larger, possibly unknown illness or condition, and they just need some help and support in order to get them through it.

As we’ve all experienced from time to time: the over-riding feeling of loneliness and emptiness is a powerful influence. It’s time to stop judging people who self harm, and start understanding what they are feeling; it’s the only way to understand their pain.

More self-harm pages on this blog you may be interested in:

by Addy
Originally posted on All that I am, all that I ever was

The main cause of the stigma of mental illness.

sociopathicregret — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 02:25:56 +0000

I’m going to point out something that many may find convenient to skip over. This is the reality that the ‘medical’ view of depression, suicide and mental illness promotes stigma. Of course, this medical view and the pharmaceutical establishment are ultimately derived from both misunderstanding and greed, the former which can be further derived much from a high paced lifestyle in which critical thinking is discouraged and so on and so fourth.

If a mental illness is an ‘illness’, it’s very easy for people to say ‘Oh, it couldn’t happen to me!’. Perhaps they might say ‘That guy is just messed up! Don’t bother trying to help!’. See, if it is an objective ‘disease’ or ‘illness’ it’s easy to pass off as not subject to influence by others, including themselves. That means that their actions supposedly will not have an impact, and they don’t need to intimately spend time trying to help. It isn’t a human problem, ‘you can’t talk to disease’!

The ‘genetic’ theories of mental illness have been around since before DNA was even discovered, merely on presumption based on no evidence whatsoever. Thus, the cart has become before the horse, and by this it can be shown that these theories have arisen due to social construct rather than genuine scientific evidence. Perhaps personal ignorance and lack of empathy has played into this, after all, it has never been convenient to have to deal with someone who is ‘mentally ill’, especially if you had something to do with it. A bigger picture is that society has a big role to play in why people are mentally ill. We have little left to offer in terms of quality; all that is left comes mostly in the form of mass quantity. Much of the time we are too busy scrambling through a rat race to attend to ourselves or others. In the meantime, we are showered by shallow rewards and distractions so that we don’t wake up from this stressful state. It’s far easier for society to blame the individual for a flaw rather than look at not only the immediate environment around such a person but their large scale environment. In the past, societies did indeed try to cover their tracks, but because interactions were commonly more honest and direct (executions instead of life sentences, etc), poor systems fell more quickly. Now, society covers its tracks very well by virtue of sheer massiveness and replaceable parts.

The stigma of mental illness mostly results from lack of empathy and caring, to tie this up. But that lack of empathy, if one looks closely, has many roots.

by sociopathicregret

My War against Mental Illness

Addy — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 07:01:05 +0000

There is a war raging most people do not know about.

It’s crippling people, ripping apart friends and family, destroying millions of lives across the planet. This war is killing people daily, and yet it’s passing so many people by.

I could reel off statistics to prove this: “by 2020, depression will be the second largest killer after heart disease”[1] or “about twenty in every hundred people will experience some form of mental health problem at some time in their lives.”[2] How about, “up to 12% of people affected by mental illness take their own lives (compared with an average of 1.7% for the whole population)”[3] I could go on and on, citing references, figures, percentages, but what’s the point? It’s boring and no-one’s listening.

In any war, the truth of the conflict doesn’t hit home until it affects you personally. It is the individuals on the front line who are often forgotten about, it’s their stories I’m interested in.

My name is Andrew Lake, I am 28 years old, and I exist in Melbourne. I have been fighting on the front line against chronic depression for fourteen years now, and have no military training.

The first time I nearly killed myself was in November 2000.
I’ll never forget what it was like to stand so close to my death. The tails of my trench coat dancing in the maelstrom that the Scottish wind orchestrated. The ice cold drizzle, that delightful West Coast drizzle, raining from the heaven above to mix with the tears already dribbling down my face. It was a gloomy Friday in early November, a few weeks from my 22nd Birthday, and it was on this day that I had chosen to die. I didn’t jump, I turned around, and I kept on fighting.

The second time I nearly killed myself was in March 2006.
It has to be said the weather was a darn sight better. A balmy march evening on the South Coast of Victoria, Australia. With the laughter, music, excitement and passions of the folk festival ringing in my ears I walked humbly to the beach where I had chosen, a few weeks previously, to be my final resting place. I sat there, on the soft white sand staring out over the black void of the ocean. The gentle sound of the waves egging me on. I remember my hand shaking as it held the cold steel blade against my wrist. I didn’t slice, I threw the blade into the ocean, and I kept on fighting.

The third time I nearly killed myself was in May 2007.
Twice before I had committed the error of pausing, to reflect, and it was something I decided wasn’t going to happen this time. I’ll never forget lying naked on my bed staring at the ever-growing crack on the ceiling. I emptied the remaining white escape pills from my pack of anti-depressants and downed them with the sweet nectar of Glenfiddich single malt. I placed the bottle clumsily onto the floor, and closed my eyes. When I woke up my head pounded, my body swum and through the haze of numbness and pain could only vaguely recall what had happened. It was the letter and the photo I found beside the bottle of whisky that slapped me back to reality. I didn’t die, but only through my own stupidity of not taking enough pills, but all the same I kept on fighting.

The fourth time I nearly killed myself was in October 2007…but we’ll get to that later.

The underlying reason why I had decided to kill myself on each of the above attempts was the same. It wasn’t because of a song, or a movie, or a person, or a place, or an action, or an event – on all four occasions the reason I had decided to end my life was simple: the pain I was feeling was so great that I just couldn’t cope with it anymore.

Reading this I’m sure you’re all thinking the same thing ‘sad little twat, if you hate life so much just stop bloody whinging and do yourself in already’. Well, you’re all wrong. I LOVE life! Absolutely adore it. Period!

I love walking in the rain. I love the smell of maple syrup. I love dancing to cheesy 80s songs. I love singing Chasing Cars at the top of my voice. I love laughing and smiling and talking. I love the looks people get in their eyes during moments of joy or excitement. I love the noises women make whilst making love. I love wombats and daffodils and rainforests and turtles and sunsets and snow and instrumental piano solos. I love prancing around the room pretending to be David Tennant with my sonic screwdriver. I love Pub Quizzes and whisky and dreaming and green skirts, spanakopita, goose bumps, pancakes, beaches, flowers, bellies and whipped cream. Bellies and whipped cream! I love Glenfinnan and Port Fairy and Melbourne and this list could just go on forever but hey – jam! – who doesn’t love jam?

I love life so much that the thought of not having it any more fills me with such a deep sorrow I just want to burst into tears. It makes me feel so utterly confused because all my mind keeps telling me is to die, because death seems the only way to make the pain stop.

Aye, there’s the rub.

What’s the point of all of these wonderful things about life that I just want to snuggle with, when I am in such a constant state of pain that I can’t actually enjoy any of them?

The first time I hurt myself was when I was fourteen. I was sitting in my bedroom feeling incredibly alone. Repeatedly bullied at school for being overweight, wearing glasses, the way I spoke, eating a sandwich, who knows why people decide to bully someone. I was feeling so cold and numb that I just wanted to feel something…anything. So I picked up the compass I was using for my maths homework and started scratching my arm until it bled.

The second…look, there are so many times throughout my teenage years that I would cut, hit, burn, whatever myself to inflict self harm that I can’t possibly go into all of them. Believe me you wouldn’t want me to! I did slowly start getting this under control, and by the time I was eighteen was no longer hurting myself.

Over the years I did occasionally regress and always for the same reason. The loneliness and numbness of feeling nothing overwhelmed me so much that I inflicted pain on myself in order to feel alive. It is something I hid for a long time, telling no-one, and always hiding the wounds from sight because it is something people just don’t understand.

One of the last times I hurt myself was in May 2007. It was the worst I had ever inflicted. Taking a pen knife I sliced dozens and dozens of cuts into the flesh of both arms, so much so, that the blood red colour outweighed that of the flesh. After doing this I burned myself several times with cigarettes. Then I hit myself repeatedly first with my hand and then with a belt – because I wasn’t getting the release I needed. I still wasn’t feeling anything. (After all of this, well, I reached for those pills and the Glenfiddich I mentioned earlier.)

Sounds frightening, right? Well it is. Feeling so empty that the only way you can feel something is by hurting yourself is one of the most frightening experiences. But hey, all wars incur some form of injury, yes? Sure I had some control over my actions, but, on those occasions although I knew what I was doing was wrong, I wasn’t able to stop myself from doing it. Almost as if I wasn’t in complete control of my choices.

No-one chooses to suffer from depression. I am NOT a depressing man; I have a positive, optimistic outlook, I have a sense of humor and a passion for humanity that knows no bounds. I am a man suffering from an ILLNESS – and this is what a lot of people do not understand. As soon as the word ‘depression’ is used, a label is placed on me that will never be removed. They cannot comprehend that depression is an illness and not a state of mind. This persecution is the root of the stigma that people with mental illnesses encounter on an almost daily basis. It is these people who make the war so hard. Those who assume that the solution is to just ‘cheer up and get over it’ or ‘just go for a jog, you’ll be fine’. Would you say this to someone suffering from cancer, or diabetes, or any of the myriad of physical illnesses affecting millions of people around the world? With these illnesses because the symptoms are believed, then anyone who is fighting against them are given all of the encouragement and help they need.

How many of us have visited a physically ill person with a bunch of flowers or grapes to wish them to get well? How many of us have talked to a physically ill person about their symptoms, how they’re feeling, tried to emphasize with what they’re going through or what can be done to help them get better?

Most of us have, at some point.

Now, how many of us have visited a mentally ill person with a bunch of flowers or grapes to wish them to get well? How many of us have talked to a mentally ill person about their symptoms, how they’re feeling, tried to emphasize with what they’re going through or what can be done to help them get better?…

…

A lot of people don’t want to even admit there is something called mental illness, let alone trying to understand it. If overcoming an illness was as simple as ‘cheer up and get over it’ or ‘just go for a jog, you’ll be fine’ then we have just discovered the cure for every single disease mankind has ever known. HIV, Cancer, Whooping Cough, Measles, Polio, the Black Death…yep, all you have to do is stop complaining and you’ll be fine. Why didn’t any of us realise this sooner?

The first time I started taking medication for my illness was in 2001. It started with pills that would help me cope with anxiety and panic attacks. This then moved onto anti depressants. I hated being on them because of how they made me feel, the way they messed with my head and played games with the chemicals and thought processes of my mind. I didn’t stay on them for long.

The second time I started taking medication for my illness was in March 2007, following an emotional breakdown. This breakdown was triggered by several events which all occurred within the same two week period and made it impossible for the defenses I had been using in my war to be effective. In essence I needed to call in ‘air support’. The side effects I experienced during the first five weeks of this medication were gruesome: nausea, vomiting, increased heart rate, tremors, a somnambulistic state, confusion, sleeplessness, mood swings – pretty drastic ones at that – and they’re just the effects I remember. The medication in essence changed who I was, and was another skirmish I needed to fight through. I’m still on them now.

My ongoing war against my own mind has destroyed my life. It has affected my ability to talk, to communicate, to laugh, to make decisions, to form whole relationships and friendships. I have lost everything; possessions, friends, family, any chance of the life I wanted. This seemingly never-ending conflict has left me feeling like the husk of a man with nothing to offer anyone – not even myself.

Don’t get me wrong for I am not making excuses. It certainly sounds like I am blaming everything that has gone wrong in my life on this “illness”, but that is not the case. I am more than aware of the mistakes I have made and the cost of those mistakes both financially, personally and on the people who tried to care about me. That’s one of the things that is so hard to fight against. My mind is constantly reminding me of everything I once had, the people in my life, the moments in the past where I reached a crossroads and took the wrong route. Over time the memories and words and laughter, all of those moments where you wished you had done this or said that won’t leave you alone. The continually perplexing question of ‘what if…’ that haunts every single one of us at some stage of our lives dominates my thoughts all of the time. What if I’d done this…would I be further along the road to recovery? What if maybe I’d said that…would that have stopped this war from even kicking off in the first place?

It’s a dangerous cycle, but the problem is that when you suffer from a mental illness you do have decreased control over your thought processes.

Depression can impact on every facet of everyday life; eating, sleeping, working, friendships, relationships, even how a person thinks about themselves. The most innocuous of playful personal criticism can do irreparable damage. You are also affected physically, depression can affect; “your central nervous system, your sleep-wake cycle, your hormonal system, your stress response system, your immune system and your gastrointestinal system”[4] so “when you are depressed you feel physically unwell”[5]

How to put this another way? Well, have you ever felt so sad and worthless that you just can’t get out of bed in the morning? That simply going about your normal day seems pointless and impossible.

Imagine what it would be like to feel that every single day. To feel so sad that not only does getting out of bed feel like climbing K2, but that constructing a workable TARDIS from the contents of your fruit bowel sounds far easier than walking to the shower. Let alone getting dressed, making breakfast, eating breakfast, going for a cycle, heading off to work, hanging out with friends over lunch, meeting your psychotherapist, grocery shopping, cooking dinner, eating dinner, cleaning up, cruising down the pub for a few bevies and flirtatious conversation.

Imagine feeling mental and physical pain every single day of your life with no end in sight. Forget smiles, forget laughter, forget cuddles, forget giggles, forget chortles, forget glints in the eye and warm fuzzy bunny feelings.

Imagine feeling so worthless that anything you do feels like a minor battle. That’s what living with depression is like – a daily grind to accomplish even something as simple as peeling an apple, let alone achieving any moment of happiness.

The fourth time I nearly killed myself was in October 2007.
For three days I was in what I can only describe as a trance. I knew where I was, what I was doing, but it was almost as if my brain had given up and I had no control over my actions. I left a suicide note and I walked and walked down all these streets I’d never been to or even knew existed. All I knew for sure was the rough direction I had to go and I just let my feet take me there. My eyes would glaze over as I passed families, mothers with their children, friends having fun – reminding me of the future I would never have. My feet just kept walking until I reached the Dandenongs, where my soul wished to be. I tied a scarf to the tree and the other end around my neck and all I needed to do was let myself fall into the peaceful quiet oblivion. At that moment death was all that I wanted. As I allowed myself to drop, the trance ended, I struggled for breath but managed to fight myself loose and drop to the ground. Once again, I had failed to achieve the peace I crave so much.

Why?

To be honest, I just don’t know. Maybe it was to do with the survival instinct that lays dormant in all of us. At the moment I was hanging from that tree I wanted to die. It’s hard to explain to people who have never been there – the overwhelming urge, the need, the desire for death. The contradiction of loving life yet craving to just let it all go. I wasn’t thinking about the people that care about me, because my mind has convinced me that no-one does. I cared only about ending the war. I’ve tried explaining to people over the years what I feel and what I suffer from in the hope that they will understand but, well, skip back a few paragraphs! Sure there are some people who get it – usually those who have suffered from or know someone who has suffered from a mental illness – but most don’t. They judge or mock or laugh or attack or, worst of all, just don’t listen to what is being said to them and pretend it’s not there. It’s a shame, because if more people took the time to listen then maybe things would be different. That’s really all I ever needed.

I honestly believe that this fight with mental illness will never be won. Not for me as an individual, nor for the millions and millions of people around the world who wage their own wars. The human cost of mental illness is staggering and this needs to be understood before change can occur. Lives are being torn apart; family, friends, hopes, dreams, passions and desires. Everything is combusting and turning to dust.

Victory will never be reached until one thing happens: acceptance.

People need to accept the fact that mental illness exists.
People need to accept the fact that mental illness is not a choice someone makes.
People need to accept the fact that mental illness can happen to anyone.
People need to accept the fact that mental illness is not who a person is or who they will always be.

Nor is it who they want to be. They are so much more.

I have the utmost respect for people who are suffering from mental illness because I know from personal experience how exhausting it can be. How hard it is to live and not just exist.

Until people stop judging and compartmentalizing people with mental illnesses, nothing will ever be achieved to overcome it. By endlessly sweeping this issue under the carpet we are losing the war.

It is a war being waged not with guns, missiles or bombs but with our minds: the most dangerous weapon available.

by Addy
Originally posted on All that I am, all that I ever was

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[1] WHO report on mental illness released October 4, 2001.
[2] SANE Australia (referenced 18/10/07)
[3] SANE Australia (referenced 18/10/07)
[4] BeyondBlue (referenced 18/10/07)
[5] BeyondBlue (referenced 18/10/07)