BBC It's a Mad World: Free Speech

Things didn't start off well, when four minutes in one of the panelists suggested that mental illness was down to us all being tired.            

When called up on that by a member of the audience, who asked "...do you not think it's more complex than that?..." she gave this response:

"There's an awful lot of people making a nice living out of pretending that it's incredibly complex...being depressed is a natural reaction to life, it's not a giant disease, you know I've been depressed, everyone's been depressed"

NO. Just NO. If you think that, then you most definitely have not been depressed. Depression is not having the energy or motivation to get out of bed, not being able to face the day ahead, being exhausted by tasks that other people don't even notice, like getting a shower. It's losing interest in anything in your life, hating yourself, hurting so much that you would rather just kill yourself than have to bear one more second of it. It's feeling utterly bereft and hopeless and worthless...and then feeling nothing at all.

It is NOT just feeling a little down for a couple of weeks and then getting over it.

I think that it is such a huge problem that illnesses like depression and anxiety often seem to be normalised to the degree that people think everyone experiences them and therefore that people should stop being so over-dramatic about them - it's a different kind of stigma than that of say psychosis; people don't tend to think you are "crazy" or a "freak" as much, but they do think you should just get over it "like everybody else". The whole point of it being an illness is that we don't have control, we can't do that.

And apart from anything else, she completely minimised the experience of mental illness to depression. They are not one and the same thing, depression may be the most common, but there are SO MANY people out there struggling with SO MANY other issues.

She goes on to say that to really help people we should focus on practical solutions to problems like poverty, rather than "pumping yourself up with pills" which we don't know the long term effects of.

Yes she may have a point, but that view is mainly a massive oversimplification of the issue of mental health. Not everyone who is mentally ill is in poverty and for those who are, a lot of the time it is as a result of their mental health issues - ignoring that then is only dealing with the symptoms rather than resolving the problem.

When covering social media opinions, one tweet read "I do sympathise that some people have genuine psychological issues and should receive treatment, but most people who use this issue are either attention seekers or mentally weak. People just need to toughen up"

Thankfully, the debate went on to cover far more sensible and less stigmatising viewpoints and another panelist said that one of the positives about modern life (the question was whether modern life was driving us mad) is that "people are able to speak about mental illness in a more open way and I think that's a positive thing - there's a decrease in the stigmatisation of suffering from a mental illness"

Whilst I think that that is true, the views that some people clearly still hold show that there is still a long way to go and much improvement to be made. This makes me glad of communities like Minds Like Ours, who have come together to fight the stigma together!

www.mindslikeours.co.uk
BBC Free Speech Programme

Has anyone else seen the programme? What are your thoughts?

Where depression started...

I've been reading back some old journals for therapy, trying to have a look at how things developed. Some of the entries make me want to cry, because I remember feeling that way, but it's so wrong for some one so young to have to feel that way, because of the way people treat her. Looking back now on who I was then, I can see that I didn't deserve it. Yes, I was slightly on the heavier side, but that wouldn't have turned into the hell it did if people didn't feel the need to constantly focus on it. On the one side is the bullying, ensuring that I was always the outsider, making me believe that I wasn't a 'good' person; I was selfish, boring and unwanted. Next to that was the constant commentary on my weight - "Do you really need beans with that meal?", "That dress would look so nice if you lost half a stone", "I can't afford to keep buying you bigger clothes" and of course the favourite insult of "fattie" employed by my brothers. Inevitably, my head reasoned "No wonder they don't like you - they can't dear to be seen with you, look at you. If only you could lose weight, be thin like everyone else, THEN you'd be accepted".

But I couldn't. No matter how hard I tried I always failed. I spent so much time alone and food was the only thing that was there for me in those times. It was all I had, how could I give that up too? Then I'd have nothing. So I figured, okay, I'll make myself sick then. I can still eat the food, but not keep the calories - perfect solution! But I couldn't even do that right. It just wouldn't happen. So the self-disgust, self-hatred just grew and grew until it had nothing to do with anyone else anymore, I didn't need them to hate me, I hated myself enough for all of them.

So this is where it started.
Some of it is too much to put on here.
But I'll leave you with my 15 year old thoughts.

23.12.07 (age 15)

...I'm also starting to despise myself 'cause I'm so horrible and ungrateful to Mam and Dad and don't do much to help them. Also, that I don't seem to be good enough for my friends and there must be something wrong with me 'cause I'm involved in every argument. And I care about them so much, but they don't seem to care about me at all and the people I should care about most, I don't care enough for although they sacrifice loads for me.
I really want someone to talk to, a friend who'll understand 'cause no one I know ever will.

29.03.09 (age 16)

I don't know where I am. I don't know what's wrong with me. I feel like I'm not really living, it's like everything is moving too fast and I can't keep up. It's like I'm separate from everything around me. But why do I feel this way? What possible reason is there for me to be like this? It's pathetic. The only time I exist is at school, otherwise it's like I'm drifting.
But why?! There's nothing massively wrong in my life. It's like Mam said before - "When's it going to stop being all me me me?" I'm being completely self-centered and I don't want to be like this, but I can't seem to help it. Exams in seven weeks. And still it doesn't feel real. What am I doing? There's no sense of urgency...there's no anything.

19.05.09 (age 16)

I can't deal with this anymore - it's getting so out of hand...I need help but I can't tell anyone...I just can't take it all anymore. The stress just gets to me. I don't even want the food. I don't even know why I eat it.

A lifelong illness?

Amy recently posed the question "Depression - in it for life?". This is a really difficult question and one I've struggled with a lot. Some disorders, such as bipolar, are generally accepted to be lifelong, although they can be controlled with medication. It would make sense then for this to apply to other mood disorders i.e. depression. And the reality is that whilst you can control behaviours to some degree we cannot control how we feel - and what if those feelings never completely go away?

I think the honest answer is that depends on the individual. Some may experience a single episode of depression and then recover completely. Some may live their whole life with a low level of depression. Some may alternate periods of complete wellness with complete disability and still others may struggle with it for years, cycling through mild and severe periods and yet eventually make a full recovery.

I believe heredity must have an influence - my mum and grandma have also struggled with long-term depression and eating issues. Age is also an important factor. Particularly those people who have struggled throughout their teenage years - our brains grow through major changes at this time and it makes sense that mental illness during these critical years could leave a permanent mark, adapting our systems to be more vulnerable to depression. And this way we have never known an alternative.

Personally, I view my depression as a chronic illness that needs to be managed. The correct cocktail of treatments will become a part of my routine and control the symptoms, flare ups will be more likely when under stress and will need additional treatment. But I don't think this is the same for everyone.

Perhaps it could end up better than I imagine. Maybe there will come a day when I don't think about depression at all (my own depression that is, given that I want to become a therapist), a time when I am so recovered that I don't particularly need to keep an eye on it. But this illness has been with me so long that I can't imagine who I would be without it. Even when I go through extended periods of relative wellness I have never felt recovered, I've never felt that it has left me, I've never forgotten.

During the good times I can accept that this might be the way it has to be, that perhaps depression is just a part of the person I am, that 98% recovery is good enough. But when I am ill I dread that I will never be free of it, that it has forever left its mark.

Maybe a tendency towards depression isn't necessarily a bad thing. Provided that it is well controlled, we may even be able to use to our advantage those thought patterns so detrimental in depression. Some of its traits can be beneficial in small doses - perfectionism can motivate us to achieve our best, overthinking may help us to make that major change that is needed, a slip downwards will be more noticeable and prompt us to change things more quickly. Emphasis on the small doses of course.

As the saying goes, the light shines so much brighter in the darkness and we have experienced such darkness, so how bright must the light be?
Maybe we can translate our horrendous experiences into some good.


Do you view your mental health issues as permanent or transient? Chronic or recoverable?

Limbo

I haven't been blogging, because I haven't known what to say. It almost feels as though I have nothing to say, but I think it's more that I don't know how to put it into words. Whatever it is. Words rarely fail me.

It's not that things are bad - they aren't by any means, but I'm stuck in a sort of "limbo" state of wanting change, knowing what I want, but unable to move forward. ED is not improving and I guess I am just sort of despondent and drifting at the moment.

Anyway, I've always loved Birdy and I realised that the lyrics from "Comforting Sounds" (originally Mew) really resonate with my experiences of depression and eating disorders.

What do you think?

I don't feel alright

In spite of these comforting sounds you make

I don't feel alright

Because you make promises that you break

Into your house 

Why don't we share our solitude?

Nothing is pure anymore

But solitude.

It's hard to make sense 

Feels as if I'm sensing you through a lens

If someone else comes

I'll just sit here listening to the drums

Previously I never called it solitude

And probably you know all the dirty shows I've put on 

Blunted and exhausted like anyone

Honestly I tried to avoid it

Honestly

Back when we were kids

We would always know when to stop 

And now all the good kids are messing up

Nobody has gained or accomplished anything

The disorder tricks us into believing that it can make us happy, yet inevitably it does not work. It isolates us from everyone and everything around, putting up a barrier between us and the world around, forces us to put on a mask, act ‘normal’, which seems unbearable at times but the only option. We used to know how to keep control, but we can’t maintain it anymore, the disorder takes over and stops us from achieving anything.

What other music speaks to you?

Fear of Success

“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars.

You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.”

- C.S. Lewis -

We all know about fear of failure - we don't do things sometimes, because the consequences if we failed would then be worse than the consequences if we did not try at all. Makes sense.

But no one ever talks about fear of success. Because the truth is that we can fear this more even than failing. Illness provides us with a place of safety and an excuse for failure. If we don't live up to our full potential then we can blame it on our illness, which robbed our lives from us. Recovery means taking responsibility for our own lives, our failures and shortcomings as well as our attributes. What if that is just too much to bear? It is worse to fail when we are being our authentic selves, because it pierces our very being, threatens the person we think we are, our sense of self. And discovering that our image of ourselves is flawed threatens everything - nothing is constant anymore, how can we be sure of other people, of the world, when we cannot be sure that our interpretation of our selves is correct?

A little success also leads to the expectation of greater success, making it all the more disappointing when we inevitably slip up at some point in the process. So we might think "Why take the risk?"

Yet we must. Because whilst it may be difficult to do that thing which you fear, you come through it with a little less fear, a little more belief in yourself and closer to your goal. If we avoid the thing that scares us, then the fear takes over, eats us up, gets stronger and becomes that much more difficult to face the next time. When we do this repeatedly, our lives become wrapped up in a bundle of avoidance of those things we fear, rather than being focused on what it should: building a life around the things we love and the things we want to achieve. And that is not not living, merely getting by.

So do you want to get by? Or do you want to LIVE?

On the whole things are okay

My last post was atrociously negative; but then that's what you get for posting at 3am!

For the most part I am able to reign in the thoughts; reason that just because I don't neatly fit into a category, it doesn't mean that my issues are any less real or important. For the most part.

But then at other times those thoughts and feelings just coalesce into a mess of shame and disappointment and anger that things aren't different - that I am not different. I just have to hold on to the knowledge that I am fighting back and I am trying my best, which is all I can do. 

So I am glad I was honest; it's all about honesty right? That is how it hurts; shame has always prevented me from admitting that that is how I feel to others. It's refreshing to be able to be so honest on here and have people genuinely care. Not that people in my life wouldn't care, if I told them, but I can't talk easily, things get all muddled up and I can't think. I've always been able to explain myself in writing though; I guess that comes from the journals I've always kept - I still have all of them since I was ten, writing has alwasy helped me to work out what it is that I think and feel. Talking on the other hand has always been something I've avoided and I'm only just learning to do that in the past year since being in hospital. 

I need to stop wishing that things were different and start making them different. Which is the hardest part right? Baby steps. And admitting my true feelings is a part of that.

And besides - that was a moment of weakness, because on the whole things are okay at the moment. At least, they have improved and I am glad to be able to just enjoy the fun things for little while now that my exams are over.

Soldiering on!

fat hatred.

I hate this. I hate myself for being so fat. I hate myself for not having any self control. I know it shouldn't matter, it shouldn't define who I am blah blah blah...but it does affect my life. It does matter I can't help it.

I just want to be normal, I want to be able to look in the mirror without wincing, I want to be able to look at photos and think about how much I enjoyed myself not how bad I look. I want to be able to shop in high street shops for clothes, I want to be like every other girl my age. I want all this work I'm putting into recovery to actually pay off. I want to be able to wear nice clothes, to be able to go swimming again, to not have to fight food every waking minute. I want to be able to walk around without being conscious of my body every single second. I want to live my life. Is that so much to ask?

I just want my life back. I'm sick of this.

Probably shouldn't admit this on here, but although I am glad there is so much support to be found online I still don't feel like I fully fit in and have the right to be there - most people struggling with their eating are normal or underweight and their eating disorder makes them feel fat; but I actually am way overweight, like in medical terms. I feel like a fraud. Whatever I've got can't be an eating disorder; I'm not anorexic, not bulimic.  I'm just weak. I just have no willpower. I'm just lazy. I'm just making excuses; I should be able to just lose the weight. Even the professionals think so; in four years they have never taken it seriously until I started to throw up. But that doesn't count anyway, I barely do it.

Don't even know why I'm posting this, I'll probably delete it anyway. Shouldn't be being so negative online, I'm just feeling the need to rant.

Whatever. Pathetic much?