The Realities of Mental Health

It’s been a while since I’ve posted in here. I usually leave these pages vacant when things are going well; when life goes on swimmingly and without tremor. Recently however, it’s been the opposite. With the anxieties of a new job to do, my head has been a minefield of scenarios and situations, some of which I’ve left to fester in the back of my mind and build into an earthquake.

If I was being harsh on myself, which I tend to be, I was utterly complacent about the whole thing. My secondment position in Safeguarding was supposed to be a break from the extremities of the inpatient environment, but in reality, it left me exposed to the pressures of learning a completely new position. After a tough couple of months, that included attempts to become med-free, it wasn’t a very good idea to add to the trouble.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

The reality of mental health and its place in society means that I often feel a sense of shame reading these words back. The recent blog on my Australian nightmare is a prime example. Who takes the trip of a lifetime and becomes too anxious to remain inside a week? However, I have to keep reminding myself; despite internet trolls who claim going for a walk will cure it, that what I experience is very real. Despite scoffs and eye-rolls, some from people close to me, I have to keep telling myself that I can do it. Thinking back through eight years of troubles, I’ve certainly lost a lot of what I could potentially do because of this.

That hurts.

Right now, I’m back on Keats Ward, in familiar surroundings and in a job where I know what I’m doing and when I’m supposed to do it. Working in mental health, there is an element of understanding from colleagues when I say, “Oh, the new surroundings made me anxious”, but it doesn’t make disclosing it any easier. I still feel this pang of guilt whenever I bring it up, as if I grow anxious over petty things. I have a roof over my head and I should be thankful for it, regardless of what else happens.

Last Friday, I was at an event for IBM, as I was on a panel discussing links between mental health & LGBT people. A connection was made between “coming out” as gay and “coming out” with mental health issues and I nodded along profusely at the thought. It is exactly the same. Whether I feel more comfortable discussing my LGBT identity or my mental health issues, I don’t know. Just this afternoon, I found myself lying about going to the local LGBT bar tonight; just because I felt it was easier not to mention it. Constantly, you have to assess situations in a nanosecond and decide whether it’s safe to disclose it. Most of time I go for the safe option.

You’ve gotta love stigma.

Yet here I am, battling on day by day, usually in cycles of positivity and a glut of optimism before being replaced by crippling anxieties and sadness. Today, in the middle of an optimistic stage, as its Friday and I’m looking forward to tonight, I volunteered to speak at the NHS Trust’s inaugural LGBT Conference in London. If that conference was to happen right now, I’d ace it. As its three weeks away however, I might be a complete mess by then.

For that is the reality of mental health. You don’t experience the bad all the time, (who could?) but it’s impossible to plan too far ahead in case things go awry in the meantime. It’s a cliché, but taking things day by day when you suffer from any sort of ill mental health really is the best way forward. It’s frustrating, as I’d love to plan ahead but… I can’t.

It’s similar in the LGBT world; it’s always in the back of your mind that things could go wrong. We live in a country where 99% of the population accept LGBT people, but whilst you’re holding your same sex partner’s hand, there is always the possibility of coming across the 1%.

So if you’re reading this and you’re having a bad day, just remember this:

You’re bad day will pass and a good day will come along. Just the like the storm that I walked to work in this morning, it has been replaced by sunshine. Mental illness is the very same. Depression will tell you otherwise, but the true reality of mental health is that it lies.

Mental illness lies.