Play Acting has been a very important tool in my life and I’m sure it has been, and is, in other peoples lives with or without mental illness. It keeps you going and taking part in “Normal Life” but, for me, eventually it became too tiring and confusing. I still have to do it at times but a lot less these days.
To the question ” are you OK?” the answer would always be something like “Yeah cool”, these days I am more often honest and say “No, not really but I will be”. Although I am doing this blog, me answering in this way is not me after attention and sympathy, it is not me doing the old “woe is me” thing, it is just the truth and I find that truth incredibly freeing. (Give it a go and say F**K OFF to “English Pleasantries”).
The reason for this post is a question my Dad put to me yesterday, “you seemed to of been fine over the last couple of days it hasn’t all been play acting has it?” and my Mom texted “u seem 2 have coped quite well”…… No, it hasn’t all been play acting and I have coped better than I thought I would and most of that is down to the people around me. My family and friends all know I am unwell and they seem to be happy to just accept that, they help when I ask but they accept that I might disappear suddenly and that I might be quite for a while (I think they actually enjoy the “quite” thing cus I do tend to talk a lot of bollox!!). Yesterday I had been invited to go over to my cousins and I really wanted to go, but in the end I just couldn’t as I wasn’t feeling too good in the noggin, it’s a shame but “it is what it is” when you find the courage to speak about your mental illness most people accept it and so they should because at the end of the day it is just an illness if I had a broken leg I wouldn’t be expected to drive to a get together, I have a Mental Illness and mentally I could not cope with lots of people yesterday.
Yesterday I posted on Face Book: –
“Starting to see the point of them sprog things… Yesterday my older nephew wanted to sit by me at lunch and today my younger nephew wanted to sit next to me aswell, earlier i did his insulin injection for him and when I popped down my bro’s to rob all the ingredients for tea the littleun just came up to me and gave me a hug… Turned a strange day into a top day :)”Â
A friend of mine has got a nipper that seems to like me, I bought him a Santa’s Little Helper costume for Christmas, at first he cried when the hat was put on, so I put it on my head and he laughed. He then spent the next 15 minutes running around like a nutter and when the hat fell off (I think on purpose) he kept coming to me to put the hat back on……. Priceless 🙂
So…. to the point of this post……. Don’t hide your Mental Illness, yes you will probably have to do some “Play Acting” at times but you can be honest as well and that honesty will free you, hopefully? Being Mentally Ill is nothing to be ashamed of “it is what it is” you are ill, you haven’t asked for it and you definitely don’t enjoy it and the “attention and sympathy” it brings you!!! You can do something about it, you can fight, ask for help and take that help. You can try everything possible to give you a better chance whatever that is, if someone told me that if I stood in a bucket of custard for 10 minutes a day it would cure my Mental Illness, I would do it :). If it stopped working I would try something else.
Accept that you are unwell and there is something you can do about it, be honest, talk about it (even those things that seem bonkers to you in your head might make sense to others) and keep fighting!!!
Keep Smiling 🙂