Should I Be Offended, Morbidly Amused or Glad...?

[mysterylover17]

My nine year old cousin is visiting with me and my family this weekend. And, after ice skating (my body is still protesting teaching her how to skate), we drove back to my house and were playing around on the computer. She was excited to show me how good she is on facebook and all the games she plays. So, after playing farmville until I wanted to

Comments

[wirral_bagpuss]

I am glad your cousin now has a better understanding of what is happening. That is good news. And she is only nine. I had no idea of what was wrong with ny Grandfather at that age. it was only in the last two years of his life that i realised what the reason behind his mood swings were. That was down to lack of knowledge but now i have researched things, learnt much more about bipolar and have a very good understanding of what it is all about.
However with society in general there is a general ignorance of the subject and of mental health issues in general. And because of this it has become a taboo subject, ie it is not discussed so openly. A good example of the ignorance of society is the subject of ailens and UFOs. For many years that has been a taboo subject and people who dared speak openly about it (such as myself!) were told to shut up or be regarded as being odd ! Now though there is a new awareness and it is becomming acceptable to talk of this openly without being laughed off and ridiculed. Especially as there is now more and more evidence of the Government knowing much more than they are prepared to admit. I could talk for ages about that, but for now that is just an example of how society treated people who beleived in the subject.
Back to mental health issues, again for many years this was not discussed openly. Slowly things are changing. You are so right in standing up for yourself and educating people. Without people like you things would not change. I decided after many many years of silence to make public my battle against depression and suicidal thoughts. Like you i want to raise awareness and stop the ignorance and break the taboo stigma. Telling my team colleagues at work about my depression was the hardest thing to do because noone suspected a thing as i presented a very much happy stable front when in fact there were days when i broke down in tears in the loo at work because of the depression. They were shocked to say the least but it has made them think twice about alot of things. With education and greater awareness we can help change things for the better.