Have To Admit It's A Constant Thought

[Laura 2]

I disagree that the solutions can be categorically defined as simple. If they truly were simple, then I think there would be less people struggling.

@In Exile - thank you for your reply. But forgive me, I was writing about my own situation, I'm sorry it wasn't clear. The solutions are simple and practical in my case. My experience is literally that no one wants to put themselves out/roll their sleeves up/get their hands dirty and help me. (But, boy!, the failure to help keeps a lot of people in work filling in forms, ticking boxes, staffing useless 'helplines' etc.!)

I believe you're right though that there are a stack of 'reasons' behind why people in my case and generally are unwilling to help. The 'mental illness' stigma is one, victim of crime is another, then there's the public services culture of disbelief in which people who need services are ignored, sidelined etc. There are no barn-raising communities anymore.

Yet, our only hope - as humans generally - is in each other, in each other's care. As I wrote in a later post:

No man - or woman or child - is an island, we are all part of a highly connected whole human network. What hurts you will impact others around you, what hurts me will have impact on everyone I come into contact with - the ripple effect touches all of us.

I was wondering, obviously not very clearly, whether @Impossible's situation is similar. She needs practical, hands on people around her who can support her through her despair and do things for her when she can't.

 

[In Exile]

I was wondering, obviously not very clearly, whether @Impossible's situation is similar. She needs practical, hands on people around her who can support her through her despair and do things for her when she can't.

OK, I didn't get that, and wondered if it were more directed at @Impossible. Sorry for the confusion.

Talking about support, I find that most people are pretty worthless as far as support goes.

I've got a friend with a serious heart condition, and people totally get that there are some days he can do things and other days when he can't, that his heart is acting up and he is too tired.

Emotional issues are different. People just don't get it.

Once when I was doing really bad, a friend came back over from the States for a short visit. He was only in town for two weeks and he would never schedule time to visit. It would always be at the last minute. It didn't matter how many times I told him I couldn't handle it, he couldn't get that my limitations meant that I needed time to prepare myself to be able to leave the house. Not for things like getting dressed, just psyched up enough.

 

[Laura 2]

Emotional issues are different. People just don't get it.

Yes, too true. Which is utterly bizarre seeing as at least 1 in 4 people globally suffers from depression and that most families have a member who has 'mental illness'. And from the NHS England site: Among people under 65, nearly half of all ill health is mental illness [search 'parity of esteem']

Maybe it's fear of somehow being 'infected'? To me it's more like they don't want to face the reality of how neglected we are and why. (If that makes sense?)

Just a note for people in England, NHS staff must now give equal weight/time/resources to people with mental illness as they do to people with physical illness. It's a high priority programme of education for NHS staff called 'Parity of esteem'.

 

[KwanYingirl]

With so many school shootings in the US, people are raising awareness and the need for more mental health services. I have PTSD and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. They both manifest as difficulty tolerating society. And society ignores me and my needs. I almost had to move my office to get away from the business across the hall where they were burning scented candle. Fortunately I have a very supportive landlord. He stepped in and forbade the whole building from using aroma emitting devices. She thanked me by crushing some container plants I had put in to beautify the building. People are just generally interested in their own ambitions whatever the cost is to others.

 

[Laura 2]

I have PTSD and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. They both manifest as difficulty tolerating society. And society ignores me and my needs.

:cry:
Should this be 'and dysfunctional society ignores me and my needs'....?

People are just generally interested in their own ambitions whatever the cost is to others.

...because what many people in our dysfunctional society don't get is that personal ambitions are achieved far more quickly and easily with the mutual help of others...

 

[reallydown]

With so many school shootings in the US, people are raising awareness and the need for more mental health services.

But again, people are focusing on the wrong thing...not the root cause...The root cause is a deeply sick society that produces such people...so if we wanna focus on mental health, we should diagnoze society as a whole...I think it's a cop out to simply say..."oh these guys are mentally unbalanced"...Well, no shit...Of course they're sick but they are a symptom of a much larger problem and until that's fixed, this crap will continue happening...unfortunately. Anyway sorry to go off topic.

As for @Impossible...Maybe we should all stop theorizing and just let her be for a bit.

 

[Laura 2]

Anyway sorry to go off topic.

Actually @reallydown everything you wrote is, I believe, at the very heart of the topic....I keep banging on about this, that 'mental illness', PTSD etc are symptoms of a sick culture rather than something that weak-minded, silly, over-sensitive, mad, bad etc individuals get (and are blamed for).

Many (most?) Western mental illnesses and addictions are completely unknown in so-called 'primitive' cultures.

 

[KwanYingirl]

But many self mutilate and elevate their transgender members to holiness. They mutilate their female members. Horrific really.

 

[silkleaves]

Through growing up with me being how I am all my life, my daughter is more aware (even more than I, I think) and incredibly disgusted with how people with mental illness are treated and disregarded. Whenever she reads a joke or a comment about it, she will fly off the handle.

But really, even with all the greater awareness of depression and PTSD, it's not enough, and often the wrong kind. Like with the school shootings...more often than not, friends of mine who don't know anything about it, base their opinions off of these school shootings. People with PTSD and mental illness are crazy and will kill you. Not exactly anywhere near the level of compassion and care that someone with a physical illness has.

It's also not seen as nearly as important...a physical illness like cancer, a heart condition, etc...those are concrete things that are easily understood as being able to take away someones life. But mental illness is just someone who needs to take their meds and go to therapy and they will be okay. When in fact, I can personally attest to it, that it is life threatening. Very scary that when I nearly lost my life, and for nearly a decade after, I didn't even know I had a mental illness. And at this point, even if not at my own hand, the stress and anxiety I deal with all the time alone can do me in.

It seems very unfair, some people try to get it, and realize how serious this is, while others...most, just don't get it and don't seem to want to get it. The awareness they get from the news is so negative, it induces a "that's not someone to feel sorry for or care about" type of attitude, that yeah..they would rather ignore or blow it off that anything like that could be wrong with me. Where most people would not feel ashamed, and be able to announce they have a physical illness, knowing they will get support and love from the people who care about them, I feel like I have to hide and keep it to myself. The reaction I got, from the few people I carefully chose to tell, was enough for me to be terrified to let anyone in on my secret. It shoudln't be that way...but it is.

 

[Laura 2]

But many self mutilate and elevate their transgender members to holiness. They mutilate their female members. Horrific really.

I was a bit hazy about where female genital mutilation is practised so I checked the UNICEF child protection stats. The countries in which FGM is perpetrated on girls are overwhelmingly Islamic African. (I have another description of Islam. It isn't anything as innocent as 'primitive'.)

I was meaning by 'primitive', those peoples/tribes that have been isolated from the rest of the world more or less - Amazonian peoples, PNG/Borneo deep jungle peoples, those little pockets of the world where the white man hasn't yet infested. And that's my point really...:(