Great question “when you going to stop moaning and manup”, I was going to ignore this but today I am angry and fed up so lets answer it.
Firstly I agree with you whoever you are and I also think, sorry know, you are a moron. There will be a lot of contradictions in the following but in the confusion I hope there will be some understanding??
I, like you, do not give a sh*t about me, this will change and does change day to day. In fact if I had more guts I would not be here, but fortunately I have fight in me and more importantly compassion for others, fight and compassion are probably the two things I like about me. The question you put to me is a question I ask myself all the time, well very similar, the way I ask it is “why don’t you strap on a pair and get on with it you F pussy?”. The answer is I can’t, I want to but I just can’t and to my mind that is pathetic.
I agree with the “manup” (although I think it is actually Man Up (two words!!)) I should man up, I should stop crying at nothing, I should stop pretending not to see people because I can’t face them, I shouldn’t find popping to B&Q for a couple of little things to build something, I know will be crap, extremely tiring and about all I can cope with today, I should be back at work, I shouldn’t find it difficult to go back home to see my cats and then get upset because I am wonder if they think I have abandoned them and don’t love them anymore, I shouldn’t drive down a bypass or a motorway and think to myself if I put this in the barriers it will be all over, I shouldn’t be sh*t scared that Christmas is nearly here but those are the facts. They make no sense but they are real and I would put money on it that there are others out there that think exactly the same.
On the other hand I think I am actually a very strong man, a man who has been fighting against depression for over 20 years and up until fairly recently I won that battle most of the time. Part of me hates the fact that I have given in and let depression beat me, part of me thinks I am actually for the first time fighting the battle properly and concentrating solely on it to do something about it rather than plodding along like I have for the last 20 years. I lay in bed again last night telling myself I have wasted a life and at the age of 40 everything has been a complete waste of time. I put it to you that a man that thinks like that and can still get out of bed in the morning is a strong man.
I started this blog because I happened across a guy called Danny Baker from Australia and I read his memoir, it seemed to switch back on the fight in me and I wondered if I could switch the fight back on in others. I thought whats the worst that could happen, people could think I am a complete w**k*r but I think I am anyway so that cant hurt me. I have kept going with this blog because a number of people have asked me to and let me know that I have helped them, either for them or for someone they love. Finally maybe I have found a point to me, maybe I am here to go through pain so I can help others, maybe I am just delusional and more ill than I can accept.
The reason I am “moaning” is because one of the things that I find difficult is the “am I mad?” question, the thoughts that go through my head don’t make any sense they are not rational but when I started reading other peoples words on the internet I realised other people think in the same way and for some reason that gives me some relief and I hope that me writing the stuff I do can give others relief. Mental Illness is horrendous, the experts don’t seem to know how to fix it and to get to see the experts is a long frustrating battle that people do not need when they think they are worthless anyway. When someone says to you “you need therapy and we will see you in 2 months” it destroys something else in you. I am (today) at the stage that I feel I have been written off I feel that what the NHS are basically saying to me is “what we will do now is just maintain the nutter, he will be ok on benefits”. I might get the right treatment eventually but now I have to battle the fact that I was right I am a failure at life I am not worth helping.
There is a lot of stuff out there about being positive and driving forward with Mental Illness, taking it a day at a time, getting better slowly and I guess that is all great advice but things like Mental Illness and Alcoholism are not positive things there is a lot of negativity and we need to talk about that too.
There is a lot of stuff about stopping the #stigma about mental illness and the stigma should stop, but do I believe it will ever stop, I’m afraid my answer to that question on this day at this time is NO!!!
Anyway thank you for the question, I don’t know if you are a man or a woman but to tell me to “manup” and to fill in “Name” with AA and “Email” with AA@AA.com isn’t very manly I would say it is a bit cowardly, if not a little funny “AA” very clever :). I hope I have answered your question to your satisfactory and I hope not to here from you again!!
Keep Smiling 🙂
I think the comment about “man up” and “moaning” that triggered this post says more about the person who wrote that comment than it does about you. Alex
Hi Alex, thank you for your comment and for following me on Twitter, I have followed you back. I agree with you, I thought about ignoring it but in the end it gave me to opportunity to reply to the way people do think about mental illness, whatever level it is. I wonder if the person who sent it is actually suffering themselves and is not willing to accept it, I know I have been there? I see from your twitter profile you are a student mental health nurse, so the fact you are following me and commenting on here makes me very pleased! I look forward to any other comments you have, I hope I can help you and i’m pretty sure you will be able to help me and others. Keep Smiling 🙂
Thanks for this Jon. I am brand new to twitter and trying not to go overboard as don’t want to add so many people that I can’t keep up. I mostly want to expand my learning and keep up to date with policy & best practice, and if it means crossing path’s with some very interesting individuals then that’s an added bonus! I had one quick look at your blog and it hooked me in. I also admired some of your honest tweets, can’t remember how I came across them! You’ve also got a fantastic twitter profile picture LOL!! 🙂 kind of reminds of Charles Bronson. I’m sure you won’t mind me saying that, it’s in the best possible taste as Kenny Everett would say! I’m new to mental health nursing, but not knew to mental health generally. I’ve only skimmed through your blog it but will look at it closer during the week. Not much of my stuff on twitter will be that interesting for you right now, but bear with! Will be in touch soon, all the best. Alex
Hi Alex, my pleasure, I’ve been on Twitter quite a while now and I still don’t get it? I have found there are some great people on Twitter on the subject of mental health. I am going to be a little over assuming now and hope I am one of the “very interesting individuals” :). Thank you it is so nice to get feedback like that about my blog it makes it worth doing. Unfortunately sometimes my tweets maybe a little to honest, but that’s how it has to be now. The profile picture is good isn’t it, did it for Movember, it is now the 2nd December and I still have the ridiculous mustache….. but I think it might go tonight. I don’t mind the Charles Bronson comment, in fact I enjoy it, maybe a little too much :). Kenny Everett, i’m guessing you are not a whipper snapper then (soz). “Not new to mental health generally” is an interesting comment, I would like to hear more about that at some point. I look forward to seeing your tweets and you would be surprised at just what I find interesting. I look forward to our future contacts. All the best to you as well. Keep smiling 🙂
Thanks Jon. Yeh no whipper snapper. I’m late 30’s, very late 30’s LOL. I’ve had family members in mental health wards. I’ve also encountered and dealt with suicide attempts up close and personal with family. I’ve also battled to overcome anxiety myself. I was not planning on writing this as their is a lingering paranoia about disclosure on-line, BUT, I work in mental health and am passionate about battling stigma, so there is always a debate going on in my head about “practice what you preach” and be open like some others (you for example) are being. It’s a fine line sometimes between being a “professional” and being a “patient” and if 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 of us suffer from a diagnosable mental health problem, lets face it… nurses, psychiatrists, social workers or support worker are NOT immune from “issues”!!!!!
As a friend would say… “peace out”. It always makes me laugh when he says that. I googled it once and it cracked me up 🙂
Peace Out
1. A slang term telling someone good-bye, used with a hand gesture in which you pound your chest with your fist twice, then give the peace sign.
LOL to “Peace Out” definition, I might start using that?? I’m 18, with 22 years experience!! Thank you so much for being so open I think that is very brave, my personal feelings are people cant understand unless they have real life experience, lets face it people struggling with mental health issues don’t understand it themselves so just how do the “experts”? Don’t get me wrong I am constantly amazed at what the experts manipulate out of me and their ability to seem like they care, perhaps most of them do, but I have been in sales for a number of years and I can manipulate and care as well. “fine line”… for me it is simple “professional” or “patient” we are all people and we all have a part to play in making things much much better. Stigma is a difficult one for me, it has to change and I think it is changing but if you were to ask if I think it will ever go away then i’m afraid my answer would be very simple….. NO. 🙁 Keep smiling 🙂
Man up or manup, what ever! But man up? It takes a man to live with depression most if not all of their adult lives, it takes a man to be able to talk about the fact that their is something wrong with their noggin, and it takes a man with depression to face every day and get through it.
I thought I was doing OK with my recovery/cure or whatever, but I didn’t get the help I needed to deal with the mental issues. I took a mighty fall and have slipped all the way back to the beginning and it has cost me my relationship.
But I am man enough to know that I need help and I have already sought it and man, I am starting to feel good.
So to all those who say man up and and deal with it, why don’t you try out shoes on for size and see if you are man enough to deal with it.
Well said dude, in theory I dealt with my booze issue in 2003 when I was in the booze clinic but I don’t think we even touched on the mental illness that drove my path of destruction and low and behold 10 years later I had a mental breakdown. Through booze, mental illness and a whole bag full of denial I’ve lost many relationships, even to this day more recent dalliances with the fairer sex have broken down in part due to my mental illness. I have no bitterness about this as cus I believe women deserve much better than I can give them, that might sound like I’m giving myself too much of a hard time but I’m not, it’s hard enough for ourselves to deal with our shite, why should some amazing ladies have to deal with it. We have to deal with our issues, whatever they are to satisfy ourselves, at the end there may be the bonus of a lady but if we try to “fix” ourselves for a lady or any other individual we a doomed to fail. Be honest with you dude or nothing will ever change.