There go my heroes

Unsung heroes is a term that gets bandied around a lot, so I want to use my platform to actually describe some of the people who've made this stressed author's days a bit less awful in recent times. In no particular order, they are:

- the till lady in Iceland MK who chatted with pleasantly me yesterday despite her till being right under an air conditioning vent which she said her bosses refused to turn off. I was only standing there a minute and I was freezing; she said it was like that for her whole shift. Anyone who is warm and comfortable right now, salute this lady for still being nice to people when I would have been a raging grump within five minutes.

- the roller derby skater who turned up to a mental health fundraiser on Sunday, skated her heart out, chatted with me about my book and then had to drive back down the motorway to the care home where she works in order to do 12 bed calls. Probably for an absolutely abysmal wage, if I know anything about how the care industry operates. Could you do that and still be nice to people? I'm not sure I could manage even half of what this woman achieved in one day. 

And yes, I've wiped bums, changed adult nappies and cleaned up faeces and urine for £7 an hour, but I'm now in a financial position where I haven't needed to do care work for several years. So I salute every underpaid, underappreciated, stressed out person working in the healthcare industry right now. The HCAS, support workers and cleaners who get no praise and usually get the blame. You. Are. Heroes.

- Maria from Nationwide in Bletchley, who last week saw that I was about to cry with the stress of not being able to get a bank statement from my own bank without them charging me and putting me further in overdraft, and sorting out the situation instantly. I still owe that lady a big cake, but I did tell her I loved her and told her supervisor to give her a raise.

- Jess from Changes Walnut Tree who cut my hair this morning, did exactly what I asked, didn't try to anything I hadn't requested with my insane curly mop, didn't patronise me about being 'lucky' to have curly hair and was lovely to talk to.

- My friend Denise, who has suffered multiple disabilities since she was in her teens (she is now mid-30s), lives in a teeny council bungalow where she is afraid to put the heating on and who had her care budget cut by another 2 hours last month, yet is never anything less than fearless and cheerful. She is unfailingly generous and even made me an early birthday card with a cat on that said BE YOUR OWN KIND OF AWESOME. For someone who suffers such chronic pain to do this with her own hands renders me speechless with gratitude and love.

There go my heroes. Watch them as they go. 

Mental health & mental disability

(These are all direct quotes from people with invisible disabilities)

I always had a sense of being different, but as a child you don't know how to describe or express it. You just try to survive.

Even as a 4 or 5 year-old, I never understood why other people were so slow and eager to conform. I see neurotypicals as bovine, tedious and trivial. Other girls wanted to chatter and play with each other's hair--I couldn't see the point. Why would you waste time when you could be working? I was never a little girl who flirted or looked pretty to get her way. I cared about being complimented on my work, not my looks.

Adults and teachers often seemed stupid to me. I remember a friend in 6th form asking me "How does it feel to be smarter than the teacher?" I laughed and shrugged it off because that's what society teaches you to do. However, I've always felt like I had to really simplify things all the time just so other people could grasp it. I suppose others might feel like that with me and say, Maths or Physics, although I'm getting better at those as I get older. I always preferred English. My mind works in words, not pictures or numbers. However, if you think about it--words are pictures, and numbers can function as words!

I've always seen days of the week, numbers, letters and months in colour. People say "Oh yes, I do that too" but what they really mean is they associate colours with moods. Monday is NOT blue in my mind, however lousy people feel about Mondays. Monday is dark red in my mind. I don't know why, it just is. Wednesday is a good day for me not because it's 'hump day' or any of that neurotypical nonsense; it's a good day for me because Wednesday is baby pink and I love pink, purple and all strong colours.

I wish there was a purple number but there isn't. I love 8s though, because 8 is magenta in my mind. I met an autistic young girl and the first thing she noticed was that the room felt blue because of how the shades were pulled down and how they were catching the light. I felt like I understood her at that moment.

I think a lot of girls are on the autistic spectrum but because boys are noisy, violent and domineering, they get noticed first. I think there are probably just as many Aspie girls as there are boys, but because of male scientists refusing to recognise their own bias, girls don't get diagnosed until they are adults.

I know I'm on the spectrum but I'm NT enough to know that. I can translate between severly Aspie or Autie people, as I call them, and the rest of the world. Words are my gift, my chosen medium. I would always rather read than talk to strangers, I would always rather write than go to a big party. I love small gatherings with treasured family or friends. I can talk to a whole room of people, I can make small talk if I have to. However, I'm an introvert and these things drain me.

We all contain multitudes; I am Aspie, BPD, introverted, but I'm also loving, caring, have a fantastic memory and a huge sense of humour. I love to arse around, just like a kid. I may be 33 but I think I'm getting less serious with age, and I think that's what I need. I was so serious as a child. I had thoughts at age 4 that no child should have. At age 9 I cried so much once that I blocked the toilet! Now I'm two decades older, I can see that those were signs of, respectively, Aspergers tendencies, and Borderline Personality Disorder. I think a lot of mental health problems are caused by trying to live in the normal world.

Girls are presumed to have eating disorders if they're too skinny or too fat, but it could just as easily be Aspergers, ADHD or any number of mental health issues. The squeakiest wheel gets the grease in this world, so girls fly under the radar. Girls are taught at an early age that you either fit in, or you pay a huge, painful price. As a feminist, I strongly believe that autistic women melt down because they buckle under the pressure of trying to act "like other girls." When I was 13, I wanted to go to discos and kiss boys not because I cared about any of that, but because it seemed to be how you fitted in. At 15, I could see that getting drunk and smoking was a fool's game, so I did neither. When I got to uni at 18 and found that people could be genuinely nice, not just fake nice, I drank a lot and had a lot of fun, but I was also notorious for being volatile.

I'm lucky my old friends still speak to me. I was a messy, frightening person. My BFF said once "You are easy to love, but easy to fear." That really pulled me up sharp.

"There are actions that neurotypical people’s brains are doing in a very automatic and deep-seated manner; Aspie brains are doing the same actions but in a conscious, artificial way. 

For example: your digestion just works and you don’t have to think about it and it doesn’t tire you. But for us we’re doing it in a way that’s conscious and laborious. 

This is the problem in the research. I’m very self conscious about my learning disorder, my ability to read and take in things, and it makes me not want to contribute even though as an Aspie I want to read everything and take in everything on the subject." - Anon, woman with ASD

S*** People Say to People with Disabilities

These are all actual words said by actual people to either me or to people I know well. In brackets is the individual who uttered them. I think we can all learn a lot from this list.

"You don't seem like you have Borderline Personality Disorder; you're not manipulative." (Friend)

"You can't have an eating disorder, you're a normal weight." (Dietitian)

"How can you have X disability? You're black!" (Take your pick, h/t to J Applebee for that!)

"I don't do drama." (Usually massive apologists for awful people)

"You can't have BPD, you're not a twat. People with BPD act like twats." (Friend)

"We wouldn't be self-diagnosing there a bit, would we?" (Stranger)

"You don't need care hours for housework any more." (Local authority, MK)

"I don't think it's chemical. I think you just need to go for more CBT." (Social worker, Milton Keynes)

"You have to pay 20GBP more this month for care. No, we can't explain why." (MULTIPLE local authorities, UK)

"You make eye contact; you can't have Aspergers'." (Media, doctors, therapists, friends)

"You hug people; you can't be ASD." (See previous)

"You're not socially awkward enough to have ASD." (See previous)

"You claim you care about people with disabilities, yet you parked near a dropped kerb for 4 minutes. Yeah, we don't care that you paid for your ticket and weren't obstructing traffic." - (Local council that shall remain nameless for now)

"You're not like her. She's mental." (Cheating married man)

"You're just butthurt that X PREDATOR picked me!" (Defenders of cheating married people, throughout history)

"If I had an invisible disability, I'd never tell anyone I was ASD! You're lucky." (Stranger)

"You're too broken for me to help you." (Therapist)

"We can't bring your psychiatrist appointment forward any further. No, we know you just tried to kill yourself, but five days from now is the best we can do." (NHS)

"I think you're just very intelligent, I don't think you need a meds review or to see a psychiatrist." (Social worker, NHS)

"We gave you physio once and it didn't work, so I'm afraid you can't have it again." (NHS)

"Yes, we have to cut your care hours again. We either don't know or don't care that you're getting ill from living in a filthy house." (Local council)

"A new catheter fitting operation is going to be an 8 month wait. We're aware that you get so many UTIs that leaving the house is hard." (NHS)

"Boys don't get eating disorders." (Media, older generation, take your pick)

"Only intelligent people get eating disorders." (GP)

"Can't you just toughen up?" (Take your pick)

"You can't sexually assault a man." (Media, older generation, women, so-called friends....)

"Other people have it much worse, you know." (EVERYONE, EVER!!)

For Chester. Gone Too Soon.

#TimeToTalk. #TimeToChange. #NoMoreStigma.

I see these well-meaning hashtags and sayings posted on people's statuses with regularity, and I know they come from a good place.

But as someone who has lived with mental health problems for all of my adult life (and far too much of my teens and childhood too), they often make me want to smack someone.

They don't, and can't, help when people need it the most. They can't. They're just words. Mental health meltdowns don't work like that, you see.

Someone pasting the Samaritans' phone number on their timeline undoubtedly is meant with kindness, is meant to try and save someone, just like the way they put the Samaritans' number on bridges that are suicide hotspots, near train platforms, or 1800-HOPE if you're in the US.

BUT WORDS AND NUMBERS CAN'T DO SHIT IF SOMEONE REALLY, REALLY WANTS TO TAKE THEIR OWN LIFE.

TAKE IT FROM SOMEONE WHO KNOWS.

The terrible, ugly, fucking hideous truth about suicide is NOTHING can save someone who really wants to go to that place.
As Alice Sebold put it so eloquently, writing as she did about being a survivor of a horrific and brutal rape when she was a college student, "You either save yourself or you remain unsaved."

No phone number, no well meaning words, no status updates could have saved me when I wanted nothing more than to slash my wrists, take an overdose, sit in my car and do myself away with the fumes, drive on to railway tracks and speed my car into the headlights of an oncoming train, go to an overpass and chuck myself off.

I HAD TO SAVE MYSELF.

That's not a guilt trip, not a pop at anyone in my life who has loved and supported me through the terrors of Borderline Personality Disorder, who has helped me to get on the right meds, find the right therapy, and start to live a full, fulfilled life full of love and friends and lovers and cats and books and doing work that is right for me (because the wrong work will have you back up on that overpass before you can say "Boredom and depression are a lethal mix," take it from me).
It's just a fact.

I had to be the one to send that text, make that call, send that message in that bottle, wave frantically before I started drowning. No one could do it for me.

And thank fuck someone answered. I am so lucky for that. That might be the difference between me and those lost souls who fell down the awful ravine that they never came back from. And I am blessed. I thank my stars every day for it. But my point is this.

Saving is an ACTIVE thing. Not passive. You can't sit and wait for your friends with mental health issues to come to you. BECAUSE THEY WON'T. They often CAN'T. When I get bad, I can barely type a text on my phone, let alone fucking speak to someone. I get mute with misery. These are the dangerous times.

And also, for all the lip service paid to "there's no stigma any more," you're damn wrong if you think people don't still keep quiet about mental health conditions. Hell, I'm aware I'm taking a risk just by writing this blog post. Of putting off future employers, potential lovers, or just scaring the friends that I do already have by saying I suffer with this ugly, unpredictable condition and may be on meds for the rest of my life because of it. But this is one talented entertainer too many who I've seen give in to their demons. I have to finally put my head above the parapet and say my own truth.

So, please - check in with the friends you love. The ones who you know struggle. The ones you worry about. The ones you never worry about, because they might be closest to collapse from appearing fine all the time. And keep checking in. Don't stop. That's it. Again. Again. Again.

Don't just say "I'm here if you need me." Don't just pay lip service. Show up. Again.
And again.
And again.
And never stop.
Please.
We love you for never stopping.
We're alive because you never stopped.

Rest In Power, Chester Bennington. You gave the teenage me so much. The adult me grieves that you could no longer give any more.

Samaritans (UK) - 116 123
Suicide Prevention (USA) - 1-800 273 8255

The crazy cat man: single men suffer too

Crazy cat lady. Spinster. Old maid.

Player. Bachelor. Ladies' man.

The difference in the way single men and single women are described is pretty well-established. Although some of the more archaic terms seem to be thankfully dying out, the thinking behind them still seems to be going strong. Single women generally don't clutch their chests and say "Oh God, please don't let me end up an old maid!", but you'll still find plenty of them making self-deprecating jokes about ending up a crazy cat lady, because the idea of an old unmarried woman can never be synonymous with dignity or sanity. We'll save the debate about whether a life spent doing what you want while subject to the adoration of numerous felines is actually infinitely preferable to an existence spent catering to a partner or children for another time, but the point is, female singledom is pitied. Male singledom is not.

 

And yet, as Zoe Heller wrote in her scathingly well-observed novel Notes on a Scandal, "It is bizarre, really, that spinsterhood is considered the uniquely pathetic destiny, when bachelors are the ones so fatally ill-equipped for a spouseless life." Yes, it's a massive generalisation to say that men are actually the ones who suffer more from being single, but it's something of a necessary observation to make if only to address the deep imbalance at work here: because there is no male equivalent of the crazy cat lady, no dotty dog man, no guy supposedly weeping into his Stella, gorging on Doritos and watching Die Hard every night to make himself feel better about singledom. A few Nick Hornby books and films aside, there is not an entire industry devoted to telling men that what they need is a wife, a baby and some nice shoes to make them complete. There is no implied threat in every beauty product aggressively sold to men that if they don't buy it and keep themselves appealing to the opposite sex, they will die lonely and cold in a garrett room in Skegness, smelling of wee.

 

And yet, this is probably the narrative that is actually more likely to become a reality. Men's rights activists love to bitch at feminists about all of the problems that men are more likely to suffer from than women, as if a) feminists caused these and b) we are not already engaged in a passionate fight against the patriarchy that is responsible for these problems. But yes, OK, MRAs, let's look at the things men are more likely to do: Spend time in prison. Have an alcohol abuse problem. End up homeless. Serve in the armed forces (and therefore be at increased risk of subsequent mental health problems, substance abuse and homelessness). Commit suicide.

 

Writing profiles for a charity that helps men who've lost jobs, homes and livelihoods, it occurred to me how many times the kind of problems described above happened after a relationship break-up (for the purposes of this piece, I'm talking about heterosexual relationships). Sometimes the cause and effect wasn't clearcut or linear (an existing substance abuse problem may well become worse after a breakup), but the outcome was the same - the loss of a steadying influence in the form of a partner always saw the individual go further down a path of self-destruction. The charities' beneficiaries were all male, but I didn't find that horrifically sexist - given limited resources and the fact that men were by far the majority of those who fall through the net in these ways, it made sense. But it made me think - why are single women pitied so relentlessly when single men are far more at the risk of such serious problems?

 

I do think cultural narratives have a lot to do with it. As I mentioned in my previous post on the lack of credibility afforded to women (like myself) who aren't interested in long term relationships, the dominant myth persists - that of commitment-hungry, baby-crazy women who, at the age of 30, start aggressively trying to lock down any creature with testicles, combined with the perma-adolescent, commitment-phobic, perpetual lad trying to avoid such a woman while still trying to get laid. Men who like being in long-term relationships and want to get married are erased from this picture. So are women who prefer casual relationships, or no relationships, or same-sex relationships, or who don't want kids. Women are portrayed as the needy, grabby, grasping ones. Men are portrayed as the ones who eventually "give in" to this tyrannical female demand for commitment. Yet, as Time magazine reported, despite the stereotype that "men are dragged to the altar, fingernails clawing the floor of the church aisle into splinters until the very last step", a survey of men showed them to actually be more pro-marriage (even divorced ones!) and more romantic than their female counterparts. Why might this be? Well, at least one study has found that: "In addition to being happier and healthier than bachelors, married men earn more money and live longer. And men can reap such benefits even from mediocre marriages, while for women, the benefits of marriage are more strongly linked to marital quality." 

 

In a lot of ways, I really wouldn't be surprised that marriage benefits men more than women, especially in terms of earnings and health. A married man is attractive to employers because he's a family man, seen as respectable, kind, trustworthy. A married woman is a flight risk, a woman likely to cost you big bucks when she inevitably decides to have children and go on maternity leave, and will then be an unreliable employee always running off to look after sick kids or leave early to go to school plays. (Think I'm stereotyping? Just look at what happens to men's salaries after they have children, compared to women's, although bear in mind this is white men only). And as for physical and mental health, well - while there are some marriages that I'm sure drive men to drink and despair, I'd like to think that most partnerships mean having someone to look out for you, to kick you up the bum to go to the doctor, to tell you you're working too hard, to give you someone to turn to rather than binge-drinking alone. The plentiful evidence of the paths of self-destruction that newly single and vulnerable men go on certainly imply that a lot of men are safer in relationships.

 

Yet it's not talked about. Why? Why is the myth of female dependence on men still so aggressively pushed, when it's men who may actually benefit more from the safety net of another person to lean on? Would it make those who like to comfort themselves with the stereotype of the playa and the sad spinster feel too vulnerable to admit that he could be only a paycheque away from a park bench himself? MRAs can't have it both ways (not that they'll care, of course, because logic has never been their strong point) - they can't demand that Those Mean Feminists stop focusing on women's problems and start acknowledging male vulnerability, while at the same time pushing the theory that men are superior to us unreliable, hysterical, hormonal bitches. You want us to start thinking about male homelessness, male alcoholism, male mental illness? By all means. But first I'll need you to see me an old maid and raise me a crazy cat lady. I'll need you to admit that men can be lonely, vulnerable, isolated and struggling - and that maybe, whisper it, they're more likely to be so without a female partner. And I'd like to hear that admitted not, amazingly, because I'm trying to institute a matriarchy or claim that women are men's saviours (UGH), but rather that I'd just like to see the social script flipped once in a while.

 

What can I say to you? - for #GeekMentalHelp Week

Last night I listened to several people talk bravely and movingly about their struggles with mental health problems in the tech industry, as part of a series of conversations for #GeekMentalHelp week. Although I don't quite qualify as a geek, I felt I have enough of a connection with both the industry (translation: I have a lot of friends and relatives who can answer the question "So what exactly DOES it mean to get forked in the Github?") and definitely enough of an investment in mental health issues to go along and listen. I also think that more broadly, the term geek can generally apply to anyone creative, intelligent and curious who needs meaningful work in their life, and that I certainly fulfil those, plus a lot of less flattering categories (tendencies towards social anxiety and introversion, love of rituals, order and spreadsheets, a disdain for the superficial, lover of puns etck).

 

The organisers encouraged us to join the conversation, to write, to add our thoughts to the mix. I wanted to but wasn't sure what I could say that would be encouraging. My experiences trying to get my mental health problems sorted via the NHS have been mixed, to say the least. Like some of the speakers said last night, I don't always blame the system, usually rather the lack of resources it has, but that said, I did encounter deeply obstructive individuals (and practices) during in my fight to get help and a proper diagnosis, and I do firmly blame them for doing nothing less than endangering my life. I had to go private to actually get proper help, and to receive an accurate diagnosis. After believing for all of my adult life that I suffered from clinical depression, it took one visit to a private psychiatrist to be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. That was 10 months ago, and I am still pretty angry that it took until the age of 30 for someone to just say those words and provide the answer to why my behaviour and moods don't respond to traditional treatments for depression. I first sought help for my mood swings when I was 21. That's 9 years of living under a misapprehension about what's wrong with you. That's 9 years too fucking long.

 

Private medicine is not an option for many people, so that's one of the reasons I felt it wouldn't be particularly helpful to share my story - although it was family members who actually swooped in and paid for it after I had hid my struggles from them for so long, and after things had got to such a point where there was no hiding any more. Perhaps the takeaway here, then, is that people can be more helpful than you think if they actually know what's going on. I let all the usual things stop me from saying anything - stigma, pride, sheer stubbornness, fear of being misunderstood - as well as the fact that, when my BPD is at its worst, it renders me actually mute.

 

I think introversion is a common personality trait amongst geeky people, and it manifests itself in the rather British attitude of not wanting to make a fuss, not wanting people looking at you, not wanting to be the person who "causes drama". I will physically go and hide rather than be that person, so embarrassing do I find my sudden and inexplicable outbursts of emotion. When I told one person about my BPD diagnosis, she said "You don't seem like it...you're not manipulative.." (manipulative behaviour being one of the markers of the condition). My only response was, I guess I hide it well. Because I don't want to be that person - who is seen as hysterical, unreasonable, demanding or needy. Who would? 

 

Silence is easy.

Confessing is hard.

 

But letting things get so bad that you end up in A&E is not going to protect your pride one bit, I can tell you that much. These days I try to say something before the sudden and violent mood changes that dictate my life close me down. I don't always succeed, but thanks to a decent psychiatrist and getting on the right medication, I also have some things in place to stop the runaway train before it jumps the tracks. For years I told people that my moods could change so suddenly, violently and inexplicably that I sometimes wished someone would just shoot me with a tranquiliser dart. People would nod, smile and empathise, but I don't think anyone realised just how valuable the option of a sudden chemical cosh would be. All the visualisation techniques and deep breathing in the world can't do a thing for me when I'm in the middle of a 2 hour crying jag. I am glad that I now have anti-psychotic tablets that I can take and know that said tranquiliser dart is going to come in and reset my brain. I carry the tablets everywhere I go -  in every one of my handbags, in my purse, my car, my roller derby kit bag. Knowing I had some backup was all I wanted, for so many years. And someone finally gave it to me.

 

This is not a tirade against techniques such as CBT or mindfulness, which many people use and do find helpful, but it's simply to say that these things don't work for all of us, and they have a much more limited chance of working when you haven't even been correctly diagnosed in the first place. I was offered both these things through the NHS, and they helped a little with anxiety, which experience tells me is very likely to affect intelligent, creative people, because they tend to be highly self-critical. However, nothing does the trick quite like just being able to take an anti-psychotic and slow the fuck down.

 

A lot of the talks last night centred around work, and how the pace in the tech industry can lead people to burn out, or immerse themselves in work to such a degree that they cease to face their emotional problems. Personally, I walk a tightrope between needing stimulating and challenging work which regularly involves novelty so I don't get bored, and feeling terrified and trapped and depressed and wanting to run away from anything that constitutes a full-time job. For this reason, I'm freelance and I work from home. That way, I don't run the risk of bursting into tears at my desk and a colleague having to hurriedly hide me in the boardroom (this actually happened). Currently I pride myself on doing great work, and never missing a deadline, and I'd like to think all my freelance clients would back that up. I've just written a book, and I'm immensely proud of myself for that achievement. I have no problem with disciplining myself to get work done. But put me an office, and I'll start to feel like a caged animal. I need that option for escape. I need that wiggle room so that if I can't get out of bed, it affects no one but me. I need that margin for error to be able to walk away from a freelance gig without worrying that I've pissed off an employer and am going to earn a black mark on my CV.

 

Mental health issues may be technically protected as a disability under the Equality Act, but who really feels brave enough telling an employer they need to work from home because they suffer from borderline personality disorder and otherwise run the risk of freaking out and crying in the middle of the office because they've suddenly been hit by a crushing boulder of depression while editing Tuesday's press release? Is any company going to provide 2 hour breaks so an employee can wait for their calming medication to kick in because a colleague made a throwaway comment which left them so angry they can't stop shaking? So, I do that stuff on my own time. The unpredictability of the freelance market is, to me, worth the trade-off of having my schedule and physical working location dictated by an employer. I've tried it, and I can make it work for a while, but when it stops working - it really stops working.

 

So what would I say to someone who feels themselves coming unstuck, given that my experience is so personal and unique? I suppose that despite that, the takeaways are broadly the same. I would say - demand the help you need, however you have to do it, even if you're so embarrassed that you need someone else to speak for you, then do it. Get an advocate. Put it in a letter. But get the truth out there. And then keep pushing. The squeakiest wheel gets the grease. Demand people listen - your employer, your family, your friends, and most of all, the medical profession. Ask for a second opinion. Ask to be seen sooner than in a fortnight. You may tell yourself that the system is already struggling with demand, but that demand is comprised of individuals, of which you are one. Each has an equal right to help.

 

I would also say: do the kind of work you know you can stand. I got a lot happier when I quit office work for freelance life, and quit doing unrelated jobs in order to start writing full time. It involved sloughing off a lot of socially ingrained expectations, and dealing with a lot of uncertainty, but ultimately it gave me my sanity back. If you are a geek - i.e. smart, creative, analytical, thirsty for challenge - chances are that the standard construction of work bores the shite out of you. If you're a square peg, don't try to push yourself into the round hole of a job that looks good to others. Only you have to ultimately live with your choices. If you're not happy in your work, change something.  

 

Reach out to the people you love, just like you would want them to reach out to you if they were in pain. 

 

Soothe yourself any way you can. Some people find animals therapeutic. My brother goes for runs to clear his mind. My dad is never happier than when he's power washing paving slabs.

 

Remember the words "Fuck the poets of the past, my friend - there are no beautiful suicides."

 

And remember to keep breathing.

Is it enough? (A post to belatedly mark Mental Health Awareness Week)

"I'm here if you want to talk."

"Call me if you need me."

"Let me know if there's anything I can do."

 

We've probably all said these words. We've probably all heard these words. Hopefully, when we say them, we do mean them. But when we hear them, do we really believe them? And do we ever act on them?

 

I'd say the majority of time, we take these words with a pinch of salt. However distraught we are, we're not going to wake our hard-working friends from their slumbers when we're having a meltdown at 3am. Possibly out of the politeness that's been bred into us, possibly due to not wanting to seem a burden.

 

But also, very possibly, because depression can be so crushing it renders you mute. Incapable of communicating. Spiralling so rapidly into darkness that even uttering 'Hello' down a phone line without breaking into huge, ugly, loud sobs seems like a superhuman task. Caught up so badly in a moment of despair that even forming words into a coherent text message is beyond you because your hands are shaking so badly. So panicked, so blinded by this explosion of blackness that it's all you can do to sit, and cry, and freak out.

 

That's where phrases like the above are worse than useless.

 

Because when depression strikes, when you really do NEED someone, anyone, anything to help you get through this, it takes your ability to ask for that help away. You can't call, ask, shout. Because you're already too far gone.

 

And that's where it's dangerous to always put the onus on the sufferer to seek out those who will support them. Of course no one can be telepathic and magically intuit when their loved one is about to suffer a fit of crippling blackness, but waiting for them to come to you is also no solution. And I know we all do it. We're all busy, preoccupied, staring at 'To-do lists' on which the task 'Call Friend X' sits for aeons and is never actually done. We're all self-centred, self-obsessed, wrapped up in our own trivias and dramas and relationships and careers. We think, well, Friend X will surely get in touch if they need me that badly, won't they?

 

But they won't.

Or at least, I know that when I'm in the position of Friend X, I can't.

Because I'm too busy crying and panicking and thinking the unthinkable.

And by the time you're thinking the unthinkable you're pretty much at a point where you've stopped believing anyone cares about you anyway.

 

That's the trap of 'Call me if you need me'. We throw it out to assuage our consciences, to assure us that we've done our part as friend/lover/relative/carer. We think we've handed over a voucher that our loved one knows they can cash in any time. But we've really just handed them a vague, ambiguous half-promise that floats off into the ether when faced with an actual, concrete crisis. I know I'm guilty of it, and I try to check myself when I feel I'm about to do it, to at least ascertain 'Do I really mean this? Would I really be there for that person at any time, and listen to them?', so that even if what I'm saying is so clichéd and lame, it is actually meant rather than idly flung out. But I know that's hardly enough. There's saying it, there's meaning it, and then there's actually doing something to demonstrate you mean it. Active love, rather than passive waiting.

 

So if you know someone who suffers from depression, don't wait for their call. Call them. And then call them again tomorrow, next week, and keep on calling. Keep checking in. One instance of contact isn't enough - one gesture does not reassure, but a string of them might. Don't be shy, embarrassed, afraid. Don't worry about what to say. None of that even matters. Just hearing your voice may well be enough.

 

Enough to catch them before they fall. 

Disablism, mental health, and how to criticise anti-feminists

"I must admit I find myself on the verge of using mental health-related language in an awful lot of situations. But there are always other words to describe what you actually mean."

Laura Woodhouse, writing for The F Word blog

I started thinking about the politics of mental-health related terms of abuse ('Nutter' 'Crazy' 'Loon etc') yesterday, when someone pulled me up on my use of the word 'nutbag' in a blog post. I was using the term to describe right-wing extremists who wish to dictate what women do with their bodies, and it's probably not the first time I've equated anti-feminism with 'lunacy' of some sort. I was surprised to be pulled up on using this piece of 'disablist language', and as most of us tend to do when challenged, started feeling quite defensive. Hang on, I thought. I suffer from mental health problems myself, and have done pretty much all of my adult life (plus some of my teenage life too). Being a huge Alan Partridge fan, I often affectionately refer to myself as a 'mentalist', and laugh uproariously at any episode of 30 Rock which shows character Tracy Jordan's inability to come off his medication without going completely haywire, because it mirrors my own experience. If the term 'nutbag' doesn't offend me, after 8 years on medication, various episodes in therapy, and several humiliating interviews with Occupational Health where I have to assure a new employer that my depression doesn't interfere with my ability to work, why shouldn't I use it?

But when I thought more deeply about it, I realised I was pulling the same trick that racists, homophobes and sexists have been pulling for decades. Saying "I have mental health problems and I don't mind that term" isn't a million miles away from saying "My best friend's black and knows that me calling him [insert racially pejorative term here] is just me being friendly, innit!". Yes, I might not mind it when people use mental-health related language, just as a woman might be happy to reclaim the word 'bitch' when describing herself, or a gay person might reclaim 'fag', but that doesn't mean I have the right to assume that it's not going to hurt others when it's put out there in a public space.

That aside though, I think the more convincing argument for me is that equating deliberate misogyny and sexism, which is freely chosen by its propagator, with mental health problems that the sufferer neither chooses or controls, is not just offensive but downright inaccurate. Describing a senator who votes for women to have 8-inch probes shoved up their vaginas before they're allowed to have an abortion as a 'loon' lets that person off the hook by implying they're not in control of their decision-making process. And the scary fact is, they are. They know exactly what they're doing. To write their actions off as 'crazy' absolves them from responsibility for their deliberate, calculated, anti-woman actions. 

As Laura Woodhouse puts it, "It isn't "mental" that people are demanding justice for [convicted rapist] Ched Evans: it's disgusting, incomprehensible, upsetting. It isn't "crazy" to say that [anti-choice MP] Nadine Dorries cares about women's rights: it's ridiculous, naive, just plain wrong." And yes, to bury either of these acts under the language of mental health does mental health sufferers a great disservice, by putting their struggles which they did not ask for and cannot help, on a par with misogynistic actions which the perpetrator has freely chosen.

Mental health issues are still little understood, and often stigmatised. Even with great campaigns like these, there are still plenty of misconceptions about mental health conditions, and sometimes even scepticism as to whether they are 'real' (unfortunately this seems an attitude particularly aimed at depression sufferers, and in the past I have even experienced it from those closest to me which is especially heartbreaking). Just writing about my personal experience with it in this blog makes me vaguely uneasy - not because I'm in any way ashamed about this part of my life which makes me who I am, but because we all know how those looking to undermine women will immediately target their mental health to write them off as 'unstable', 'hysterical', and all those other lovely pejoratives that are only ever aimed at women. Admitting to mental health issues also makes one worry about future job prospects, and the possibility of judgment and ridicule. But if I really believe in ending the stigma, then I guess change has to start at home. So for me the change is both being open about my own mental health problems here, and thinking much more carefully about my choice of words in future. Because while I'm happy to call myself 'mental' in the privacy of my own home, publicly using that word to describe a woman-hating politician is dragging both me and my fellow sufferers down to their sub-sewer level. 

And we deserve better than that.