Mental Health. A Brutally, Honest Disambiguation.
Tuesday, 16 May 2017
I am about a week late for Mental Health Awareness Week, but I hope we all can still speak openly and candidly about it. I see a lot of headlines out there that it's good to talk about mental health and people saying it's good to talk about it, but you never see people actually doing it and so very many people suffer in silence, so here we go, “Mister Worf, lower the shields”. I know I am going to regret this.
Now for the Brutal Honesty. Hard to write this, but it's part of the therapy.
Listening to music helps.
They aren’t always external, and they most certainly aren’t always a recognisable thing, reasons. Often times you can see through the fog and point directly at a thing and say “THAT!”, that is what has thrown me off balance and is causing me all sorts of shit right now; shit being thoughts that you had convinced yourself defeated years ago, feelings alien and frightening, incomprehensible physical reactions that make you feel everything but right, or fine. Often times, though, you can point at everything and it will someway be having an affect, and other times, you can point all you want and you are shooting craps hoping you’ll win. Sometimes throwing the dice is all you can do because anything else is just beyond your current mental, physical and spiritual fortitude for the causes are within. You are simply incapable of anything more than a token gesture towards normality and wellness. Sometimes, even, wearing that mask you wear that makes people think you’re OK becomes more of a weight than telling the truth, which itself creates all sorts of awkward, never mind the shame; people look at you differently, that hurts.
Rumination, dwelling and the mental circuit of trying to discover exactly what is going on just adds to the pressure and muddles the good effort to solve that which you strive to solve. People ask, “well, what exactly is it that has you in this state?”. This just adds to the heat that threatens to boil over the pot because, THAT is exactly the dæmon that eludes every mental effort and process. The knowledge that you don’t know is frightening. You question everything. Its maddening and infuriating that your own mind is the causation of everything that isn’t right at this time. You are cognisant of the fact that something is wrong. You know your shit ain’t right. You understand that normal is not a word to dwell upon at this point in time. When simply committing to a daily routine as basic as hygiene, sustenance and practicality is like walking through the most wicked of snow storms, draining, exhausting with complete lack of vision and warmth, life gets pretty fucking tough, and concentrating on anything other than what is weighing you down or even directly in front of your face is damn near impossible, and actually having the ability to rationalise nearly anything at the time might as well be myth or dreams of wealth. It’s like everything is on mute and you’re trying to see life through a scrambled TV screen. The tertiary effects that stems from this madness are myriad and just add their own weight upon those already drowning you in self-disgust and fear. Your state affects the state of other things, like friendships, family relations and, in today’s climate, most threateningly, your employment. (I have the most understanding and tolerant supervisors in the world, Thank God for them).
The most difficult and torturous question you dread is when someone asks you, “How are you?”
When you awaken and rise, struggle through the daily hell of spending an hour convincing yourself that you’re fine, that you’re not having a heart attack or stroke, (Yes, I know it sounds stupid, silly and ridiculous, but the struggle is real), then chipping away at the physical results of
what-ever-the-fuck-your-mind-is-doing-to-you-today like wildly shaking hands, chest pains, migraines, feeling as if it is 55° in your flat, that feeling you are going to either pass out, throw-up or both, then trying your best to groom yourself for human presentation, trying to adjust your perception so that living isn’t in third person, or through a lens like you’re watching a movie, and actually walking through that fog ridden gelatin-like wall that is your ever present nemesis that dampens every single effort at anything you make, you walk out your door and fight your way to work surprised you didn’t die on the way because you don’t remember a second of the drive. Sometimes you can’t even make yourself get that far...and you hate yourself even more. You only imagine what your co-workers think of you. If you win that battle and succeed in getting to work you’re exhausted by the time you arrive, you encounter dozens of people, workplace politics, a job you never wanted and were forced into (You constantly wonder “am I grieving for what I have lost?” Gods Chedoke I miss you), sick and dying children, viruses and sickness’ surrounding you, your fear that the state you’re in will cause you to err or make mistakes that can very well kill a child (I never signed up for this), and your ever-present feeling of utter pure disappointment in self and existence…. you might begin to understand the total war people wage against themselves when their mental health is broken. The brain does fucked up things YO!! And when you can’t get to the bottom of it, you disappoint yourself knowing you have overcome this monster time and time again through life and yet, here it is again, larger and more fierce than ever raging with ugliness and vicious ability to completely erase all your past efforts, tearing away any semblance of balance you have achieved, and stood upon you an incomprehensible weight you’re powerless to thwart or move; you surrender. This beast sustains the whirlpool which encompasses your world sucking the everything from your everything ever getting deeper and deeper, faster and faster, and every single effort and thing of goodness gets ripped away and taken from you. You are destitute, trying to cope knocking back Gravol®, Benadryl® and lorazepam when needed to calm those physical reactions you abhor, it gives you a minimum semblance of functionality...most of the time, good sedative, nice sedative.
No matter what effort you put forth your mind and body rebel. Your thoughts betray you depression encompasses you, the sun is gone and nothing but bitter disappointment and self loathing remain as you want nothing more than...not to be. You thank your divinity that your logic, ethics and beliefs hold your emotions in check and your journey into your past selves through your past writing help to mitigate those dangerous thoughts, the Seirēn of mental health, presenting themselves to you. Your small victory is motivation, however so small it is, though you still feel that you are nothing but a disappointment, a burden to everyone, yourself inclusive; you try your best to not see their face as they look at you…you feel even more shitty when they tell you you’re not…(you withdraw even further; your dark corner is never deep enough to hide you). You have many masks though, and sometimes even convince yourself, for a time, that they are you.
You know that as long as you realise and understand that you have tools to work with to help yourself, that you are not totally far-gone. There is a light in the East, a small speck of something that helps you help yourself, if not stand upright, to at least be able to say to yourself, “I need help”. This is OK, it will cause tears and all sorts of misfuction within your pride, your sense of independence and your ability to rationalise your own defensive methods, but you know what you need, and that is defense in itself. Once you say those words to yourself, even though it is still dark, dreary and that omnipresent wall that holds you fast from everything you try to do is still there, at least you know the road will be less rocky and you will trip less, even though you can’t see where you’re going except ever onward towards that small speck of light you see. You hope whilst you stumble forward that your reality will stay sturdy beneath you long enough for you to exorcise these dæmons again. You will emerge, embarrassed, shamed and afraid because it will be a new reality, but it WILL be reality and you will have succeeded where so many have failed. You just hope to God that those around you don’t treat you like glass, because that makes you look inwards again…are you still broken? ....a vicious circle. You still see those dæmons and monsters beyond your defenses, but you recognise them and their lours and you proactively drive yourself to be steadfast and abide in your newfound light. You hope the journey was worth it, because illogically the aforementioned ‘not being’ you so sorely avoided, for 3.14 seconds, you secretly yearned for. But, at the end of it all, if you can concentrate long enough to write a editorial like this, things are perhaps brighter than one perceives; that is one of the tricks your mind plays, it convinces you things are worse than they really are.
“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
- Marcus Aurelius
Sometimes writing with brutal honesty helps provide that light.
There you have it, disambiguation.
I need a tea, and a nap, and will try hard as hell to resist the compulsion to delete this.
Mental health, talk about people, it's the only way we can break that stigma.
There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask “What if I fall?”
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?
Author: Eric Hanson
I am about a week late for Mental Health Awareness Week, but I hope we all can still speak openly and candidly about it. I see a lot of headlines out there that it's good to talk about mental health and people saying it's good to talk about it, but you never see people actually doing it and so very many people suffer in silence, so here we go, “Mister Worf, lower the shields”. I know I am going to regret this.
Now for the Brutal Honesty. Hard to write this, but it's part of the therapy.
Listening to music helps.
They aren’t always external, and they most certainly aren’t always a recognisable thing, reasons. Often times you can see through the fog and point directly at a thing and say “THAT!”, that is what has thrown me off balance and is causing me all sorts of shit right now; shit being thoughts that you had convinced yourself defeated years ago, feelings alien and frightening, incomprehensible physical reactions that make you feel everything but right, or fine. Often times, though, you can point at everything and it will someway be having an affect, and other times, you can point all you want and you are shooting craps hoping you’ll win. Sometimes throwing the dice is all you can do because anything else is just beyond your current mental, physical and spiritual fortitude for the causes are within. You are simply incapable of anything more than a token gesture towards normality and wellness. Sometimes, even, wearing that mask you wear that makes people think you’re OK becomes more of a weight than telling the truth, which itself creates all sorts of awkward, never mind the shame; people look at you differently, that hurts.
Rumination, dwelling and the mental circuit of trying to discover exactly what is going on just adds to the pressure and muddles the good effort to solve that which you strive to solve. People ask, “well, what exactly is it that has you in this state?”. This just adds to the heat that threatens to boil over the pot because, THAT is exactly the dæmon that eludes every mental effort and process. The knowledge that you don’t know is frightening. You question everything. Its maddening and infuriating that your own mind is the causation of everything that isn’t right at this time. You are cognisant of the fact that something is wrong. You know your shit ain’t right. You understand that normal is not a word to dwell upon at this point in time. When simply committing to a daily routine as basic as hygiene, sustenance and practicality is like walking through the most wicked of snow storms, draining, exhausting with complete lack of vision and warmth, life gets pretty fucking tough, and concentrating on anything other than what is weighing you down or even directly in front of your face is damn near impossible, and actually having the ability to rationalise nearly anything at the time might as well be myth or dreams of wealth. It’s like everything is on mute and you’re trying to see life through a scrambled TV screen. The tertiary effects that stems from this madness are myriad and just add their own weight upon those already drowning you in self-disgust and fear. Your state affects the state of other things, like friendships, family relations and, in today’s climate, most threateningly, your employment. (I have the most understanding and tolerant supervisors in the world, Thank God for them).
The most difficult and torturous question you dread is when someone asks you, “How are you?”
When you awaken and rise, struggle through the daily hell of spending an hour convincing yourself that you’re fine, that you’re not having a heart attack or stroke, (Yes, I know it sounds stupid, silly and ridiculous, but the struggle is real), then chipping away at the physical results of
what-ever-the-fuck-your-mind-is-doing-to-you-today like wildly shaking hands, chest pains, migraines, feeling as if it is 55° in your flat, that feeling you are going to either pass out, throw-up or both, then trying your best to groom yourself for human presentation, trying to adjust your perception so that living isn’t in third person, or through a lens like you’re watching a movie, and actually walking through that fog ridden gelatin-like wall that is your ever present nemesis that dampens every single effort at anything you make, you walk out your door and fight your way to work surprised you didn’t die on the way because you don’t remember a second of the drive. Sometimes you can’t even make yourself get that far...and you hate yourself even more. You only imagine what your co-workers think of you. If you win that battle and succeed in getting to work you’re exhausted by the time you arrive, you encounter dozens of people, workplace politics, a job you never wanted and were forced into (You constantly wonder “am I grieving for what I have lost?” Gods Chedoke I miss you), sick and dying children, viruses and sickness’ surrounding you, your fear that the state you’re in will cause you to err or make mistakes that can very well kill a child (I never signed up for this), and your ever-present feeling of utter pure disappointment in self and existence…. you might begin to understand the total war people wage against themselves when their mental health is broken. The brain does fucked up things YO!! And when you can’t get to the bottom of it, you disappoint yourself knowing you have overcome this monster time and time again through life and yet, here it is again, larger and more fierce than ever raging with ugliness and vicious ability to completely erase all your past efforts, tearing away any semblance of balance you have achieved, and stood upon you an incomprehensible weight you’re powerless to thwart or move; you surrender. This beast sustains the whirlpool which encompasses your world sucking the everything from your everything ever getting deeper and deeper, faster and faster, and every single effort and thing of goodness gets ripped away and taken from you. You are destitute, trying to cope knocking back Gravol®, Benadryl® and lorazepam when needed to calm those physical reactions you abhor, it gives you a minimum semblance of functionality...most of the time, good sedative, nice sedative.
No matter what effort you put forth your mind and body rebel. Your thoughts betray you depression encompasses you, the sun is gone and nothing but bitter disappointment and self loathing remain as you want nothing more than...not to be. You thank your divinity that your logic, ethics and beliefs hold your emotions in check and your journey into your past selves through your past writing help to mitigate those dangerous thoughts, the Seirēn of mental health, presenting themselves to you. Your small victory is motivation, however so small it is, though you still feel that you are nothing but a disappointment, a burden to everyone, yourself inclusive; you try your best to not see their face as they look at you…you feel even more shitty when they tell you you’re not…(you withdraw even further; your dark corner is never deep enough to hide you). You have many masks though, and sometimes even convince yourself, for a time, that they are you.
You know that as long as you realise and understand that you have tools to work with to help yourself, that you are not totally far-gone. There is a light in the East, a small speck of something that helps you help yourself, if not stand upright, to at least be able to say to yourself, “I need help”. This is OK, it will cause tears and all sorts of misfuction within your pride, your sense of independence and your ability to rationalise your own defensive methods, but you know what you need, and that is defense in itself. Once you say those words to yourself, even though it is still dark, dreary and that omnipresent wall that holds you fast from everything you try to do is still there, at least you know the road will be less rocky and you will trip less, even though you can’t see where you’re going except ever onward towards that small speck of light you see. You hope whilst you stumble forward that your reality will stay sturdy beneath you long enough for you to exorcise these dæmons again. You will emerge, embarrassed, shamed and afraid because it will be a new reality, but it WILL be reality and you will have succeeded where so many have failed. You just hope to God that those around you don’t treat you like glass, because that makes you look inwards again…are you still broken? ....a vicious circle. You still see those dæmons and monsters beyond your defenses, but you recognise them and their lours and you proactively drive yourself to be steadfast and abide in your newfound light. You hope the journey was worth it, because illogically the aforementioned ‘not being’ you so sorely avoided, for 3.14 seconds, you secretly yearned for. But, at the end of it all, if you can concentrate long enough to write a editorial like this, things are perhaps brighter than one perceives; that is one of the tricks your mind plays, it convinces you things are worse than they really are.
“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
- Marcus Aurelius
Sometimes writing with brutal honesty helps provide that light.
There you have it, disambiguation.
I need a tea, and a nap, and will try hard as hell to resist the compulsion to delete this.
Mental health, talk about people, it's the only way we can break that stigma.
There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask “What if I fall?”
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?
Author: Eric Hanson