What is your experience of mental health?

[Xela]

@leemond2008  - I thought you had applied for a new job recently and had been successful?

I know it is easy to say but you need to try and leave your work there when you come home. You can only do so much. What is the worst that could happen? They can't discipline you for being overworked an they? 

[Rugeley Villa]

My wife has not been good lately. Suicidal if I'm being honest, and it's came out of nowhere, although she's suffered with depression for years. She asked me if I'd take her tablets off her, because she doesn't trust herself with them. She's going to be reassessed this week, and the doctors have already upped her tablets. 

[Xela]

Sorry to hear that Ruge, hope everything works out for you and your missus. 

You mentioned in another thread that you had 2 bottles of wine between you last night - that won't be helping with her state of mind. 

[Rugeley Villa]

8 minutes ago, Xela said:

Sorry to hear that Ruge, hope everything works out for you and your missus. 

You mentioned in another thread that you had 2 bottles of wine between you last night - that won't be helping with her state of mind. 

She had two bottles. Yeah, I've told her this, and I am trying to help her. She doesn't drink excessively usually. 4 bottles of wine a week on average. The crisis team have been in touch, and have rang her again tonight. She's got 3 beautiful kids at home which will see her right, and I've already told her I'd never be able to cope without her. She's not the most stable person anyway, then with all my shit, and one or two other things, it can grind you down. Life is not a bed of roses, it's a struggle at times, but she will be ok. 

[StefanAVFC]

29 minutes ago, Rugeley Villa said:

he doesn't drink excessively usually. 4 bottles of wine a week on average

That's fairly excessive IMO.

[Rugeley Villa]

5 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

That's fairly excessive IMO.

I suppose it is to some. 

[Rodders]

2 hours ago, Rugeley Villa said:

I suppose it is to some. 

Simply from an alcohol content point of view, even if it feels mild by comparison to bingier  weeks it is still a lot of drug going in having chemical reactions with the brain.

Sorry to hear about it though Ruge. Hope you can help her get some proper help.

[Ikantcpell]

3 hours ago, Rugeley Villa said:

She had two bottles. Yeah, I've told her this, and I am trying to help her. She doesn't drink excessively usually. 4 bottles of wine a week on average. The crisis team have been in touch, and have rang her again tonight. She's got 3 beautiful kids at home which will see her right, and I've already told her I'd never be able to cope without her. She's not the most stable person anyway, then with all my shit, and one or two other things, it can grind you down. Life is not a bed of roses, it's a struggle at times, but she will be ok. 

If she is suicidal she needs to stay away from the alcohol, it will only make things alot worse.

[lapal_fan]

I hope you're doing "your bit" at home too, with the kids etc, even though you work, offering help to do mundane things like ironing, washing up etc will take a lot of burden off her.

Little things go a long way to help other halves out.  

[Xela]

5 hours ago, lapal_fan said:

I hope you're doing "your bit" at home too, with the kids etc, even though you work, offering help to do mundane things like ironing, washing up etc will take a lot of burden off her.

Little things go a long way to help other halves out.  

He let his missus shove a carrot up his arse so I'm sure he is doing his bit 

[Rugeley Villa]

8 hours ago, lapal_fan said:

I hope you're doing "your bit" at home too, with the kids etc, even though you work, offering help to do mundane things like ironing, washing up etc will take a lot of burden off her.

Little things go a long way to help other halves out.  

I do my fair share. She's not been great today at all. Infact it's been a very depressing day all round. Had a couple of depressing phone calls, which added on top of a few other things has made me think, what's the bloody point. Anyway....

[snowychap]

This piece is worth a read:

Quote

'It's nothing like a broken leg': why I'm done with the mental health conversation

It’s never been easier to open up – but hashtag healthcare doesn’t help people like me

I am bleeding from the wrists in a toilet cubicle of the building I have therapy in, with my junior doctor psychiatrist peering over the top of the door, her lanyards clanking against the lock. Her shift finished half an hour earlier.

An hour later she calls the police, because I have refused to go to A&E or to let her look at me. Four policemen arrive. They are all ridiculously handsome. One of them is called Austin. Austin doesn’t have a Taser like all the others and when I question this, Austin says he hasn’t done his Taser training and all the others laugh. I feel bad for Austin.

I want to go home but I am not allowed. I am crying. The police ask me to tip out the contents of my jacket. Tampons fall out, with four sad coffee loyalty cards, each with a single stamp. Then I make a break for it because, seriously now, I just want to go home. The four officers surround me at the building entrance. One officer who has done his Taser training threatens to section me if I do not stop struggling.

As if you can just section me, I say. You can’t just say someone is sectioned and then they are sectioned. That is not how it works.

It turns out this is exactly how it works.

I am put in handcuffs. Three other police turn up in a van – seven now. A woman searches me, running gloved hands along my calves. It is cold. It is dark. I am scared. I ask to call someone. A police officer says, now is not a good time. I say: I feel like this is totally a good time. I am bundled into the van. As if in a TV drama, my psychiatrist reappears in the gap between the doors before they clang shut.

The hospital is 10 minutes away but I end up in the van for 40 minutes, backed up behind ambulances. I’m offered water when I arrive, but they don’t want the cuffs taken off, so the lead officer holds a cup up to my lips. All of my possessions are taken away from me. I am kept in a small room in A&E for 22 hours, before being found a bed in an inpatient unit.

***

I have experienced mental illness since the age of 13, and have been in the psychiatric system for a decade. In year 8, I spent so much time absent from school that a social worker was called. At 16, I dropped out of A-levels with incapacitating depression and barely left the house for nine months – the empty days stretching out while friends clubbed and kissed. I was put on antidepressants and at 18 decided to move to Russia, alone, in a manic whirlwind, and had the time of my life. At 20, I moved to Oxford and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I was told I would have it for life. I moved again at 23, and there is now no hospital in north London I have not been treated in.

In the last few years I have observed a transformation in the way we talk about mental health, watched as depression and anxiety went from unspoken things to ubiquitous hashtags. It seems as though every week is now some kind of Mental Health Awareness Week, in which we should wear a specific colour (although this year no one could agree on which: half wore green, half yellow).

In the last few years I have lost count of the times mental illness has been compared to a broken leg. Mental illness is nothing like a broken leg.

In fairness, I have never broken my leg. Maybe having a broken leg does cause you to lash out at friends, undergo a sudden, terrifying shift in politics and personality, or lead to time slipping away like a Dali clock. Maybe a broken leg makes you doubt what you see in the mirror, or makes you high enough to mistake car bonnets for stepping stones (difficult, with a broken leg) and a thousand other things.

Oh, I know how it’s meant. The lack of stigma should be the same as telling people why your limb is in a cast. But you can’t just put someone with a broken leg and an insane person side by side and expect people not to be able to tell the difference, like the Winklevoss twins or, can we be truly honest, Joanna Newsom songs.

In recent years the discussion around mental health has hit the mainstream. I call it the Conversation. The Conversation is dominated by positivity and the memeification of a battle won. It isn’t a bad thing that we are all talking more about mental health; it would be silly to argue otherwise. But this does not mean it is not infuriating to come home from a secure hospital, suicidal, to a bunch of celebrity awareness-raising selfies and thousands of people saying that all you need to do is ask for help – when you’ve been asking for help and not getting it. There is a poster in my local pharmacy that exclaims, “Mental health can be complex – getting help doesn’t have to be!” Each time I see it, I want to scream.

The Conversation tends to focus on depression and anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder. It is less comfortable with the mental illnesses deemed more unpalatable – people who act erratically, hallucinate, have violent episodes or interpersonal instability. I don’t want to pretend that this stigma is merely a hurdle to be overcome. Stigma exists from a place of real fear, and a lack of understanding of the behavioural changes that can accompany mental illness. Episodes of illness can be frightening, frustrating, tiring and annoying for both the unwell individual and those around them.

The key isn’t to deny this, but to educate. Instagram slogans do not make it clear what depersonalisation is, for instance, and that it won’t be solved by a picture of someone walking on a beach. It’s good that Lynx deodorant teamed up with the male mental health Campaign Against Living Miserably, but is “Find Your Magic” not the most patronising slogan of all time?

***

much more on link

 

[A'Villan]

I currently work at one of the three major mental health facilities in Melbourne.

I have had struggled with quite intense and acute issues myself at various points in my life. Thankfully there is no trauma in my life at this present time and I am able to live with sound mind.

I also work with the homeless through the Salvation Army and with at risk youth through a local organisation. I am a youth mentor and also walk the streets between 11pm and 5am on a weekend looking for the vulnerable (no, not in a predatory way you cheeky bugger) in order to give them aid. That might involve our van collecting them (swear we're not predatory) and giving them a free ride home, hanging with them until they sober up a little, taking them to our building where there's free food available and where they can lay down and rest if they choose.

So I am exposed to it in many ways. I've seen all sorts of mental conditions from the textbook diagnosis', conservatives, psychopathic, free spirited, you name it. My view is that mental health is an issue for everyone, whether they know it or not, you don't have to be seeing a doctor. Although one may never experience depression, anxiety, be catatonic, PTSD, MPD, psychosis, schizophrenia etc. Maybe you aren't a hardwired psychopath either. Whatever the condition may be. If shit goes downhill for you, it can happen to anyone. Research is showing increasingly that it is environmental circumstance rather than genetic makeup that causes depression, for example. Trauma can cause a whole host of illness. So it's as much about the upkeep of healthy individuals as it is the treatment of the unwell.

Did you know, that in a survey done by the Salvation Army, over 70% of Melbourne's homeless reported being sexually abused as children. That's sickening, whether the information is accurate or not. That insight really hit home for me. The stigma is often that these people isolate themselves due to substance abuse issues and are responsible for their own demise.

I'm getting tired of it. The stigma. I think the people passing judgement and condemnation are as sick as those they point the finger at, only the illness is ignorance.

We need some leadership that isn't so focused on military posturing and WOMD, their political career and further dividing the  gap between rich and poor. We need people who understand the most fundamental part of leadership, looking after the people you are in charge of and looking out for thy neighbour.

Corporate media: The rich telling the middle class to blame the poor.

For every level, there's another devil.

My father once said to me, "There might be shit on the side of the footpath, but you don't bend over and smell it"

This was in relation to my discovery of the Northwood Documents and MK-Ultra.

I only wish I had the presence of mind to reply, "No, you pick it up and you take care of it accordingly, like you would your mood when you are low, or your child when they need it"

Looking after one another and the environment that we live in.

 

[maqroll]

8 hours ago, A'Villan said:

the people passing judgement and condemnation are as sick as those they point the finger at, only the illness is ignorance.

 

I think it's in human DNA to unconsciously (and sometimes purposefully) reject and outcast people they perceive as weak or unpredictable or somehow a threat to wider group cohesion. It's primal.

[A'Villan]

8 minutes ago, maqroll said:

I think it's in human DNA to unconsciously (and sometimes purposefully) reject and outcast people they perceive as weak or unpredictable or somehow a threat to wider group cohesion. It's primal.

Much like guilt, shame and even humiliation can serve a purpose. To dissuade someone from repeating a similar course of behaviour. I agree.

I don't know how I feel about what constitutes weak, even on a 'primal' or innate level. A male silverback gorilla will aggressively protect and even adopt an abandoned infant from another troop (family/group) if it has been abandoned. Chimpanzee that had been put through hell by human experimenting that was rescued and obviously traumatised, upon meeting another chimp, they just held hands for comfort, while the traumatised one shook/convulsed due to what it had happened to it. There was a lion that was found about to die and rescued by a woman who nursed it back to health and made arrangements with a zoo to give it a new home. Some time later the woman revisits the lion and you should see the affection this lion has toward her, a lion ffs. Google it if you don't believe me, there's video. So I am not of the philosophy that primal is innately harsh by nature.

I wonder about where our culture is at, and where it's headed at times. Science is far from absolute and concrete, or the finished article. Done by virtue I only see it raising more questions than answers. Yet we can forget this at times and over indulge in how much we think we know due to a 'superiority' over other life forms. It pains me to see this kind of thinking and the behaviour that ensues.

Cohesion stems from compassion, altruism and teamwork. Qualities that can go severely lacking in the business. Speaking of DNA, there's some pretty interesting research and study done revealing that conscious thought can and does change your DNA and genetic makeup. I can link you to a talk if you like.

[Rugeley Villa]

I've forced myself the doctors today. Things have been terrible at home, and it's mainly down to my moods, and depression. Im quite an angry person anyway, but lately I've been even worse. The wife and kids have taken the brunt of my anger, which just isn't fair. We've been arguing a lot, and it's effecting the kids, especially my eldest who has really been effected by it. Ive been losing my head over stupid things, constantly shouting, and on at people. Me and my wife are hanging on by a thread, and we had another row this morning which topped a terrible weekend off. I ended up making a rash decision and ended it. She just wants a break, and me to leave the house for X amount of time until my head is better. She's been on at me for ages to go and see someone, because I really ain't right, and can feel myself falling deeper and deeper into my hole. I've suffered on and off with feeling low from when I was 11, maybe before that, and I've always had anger issues. This is got to be the worse bout of depression I've had, and it's lasted a few months now. Feel angry, low, numb, and my head is just so cloudy. I've been having suicidal thoughts for a few months, but with no intention of actually ending it. I don't want to die, but I just keep having these passive thoughts of suicide. I wouldn't say I'm anywhere near that bad to do it, but it's weird. Can't seem to motivate myself, and I'd quite happily sit on the sofa all day. I can be alright the one minute, and be really happy. Then the slightest thing can bring me down like a tonne of bricks, and I find it hard to get out of it. My moods are absolutely vile. I've always self medicated and I'm still struggling with that part of my life. I finally realised today that I need to get out of the house for the sake of everyone. I've been the doctors and he's prescribed be 20mg of citroplam or whatever you call it. Hopefully these work, and it can give me some normality. Neither of us want to break up, but we both agree we both need this break. She keeps saying the house is better when I ain't there, and I agree. This will be the longest break we've ever had, but I'm determined to get my head right, so we can be a normal happy family. It breaks my heart knowing what I've put them through. I just can't help or stop my moods though. How I've been feeling lately has made me feel ill in my head. Anxiety was terrible last night. Woke up at 4 in the morning with chest pains. It's hard being at my mums though, because she also suffers with depression quite bad. Got nowhere else to go though. 

Edited August 28, 2018 by Rugeley Villa

[VILLAMARV]

3 hours ago, Rugeley Villa said:

I've forced myself the doctors today. Things have been terrible at home, and it's mainly down to my moods, and depression. Im quite an angry person anyway, but lately I've been even worse. The wife and kids have taken the brunt of my anger, which just isn't fair. We've been arguing a lot, and it's effecting the kids, especially my eldest who has really been effected by it. Ive been losing my head over stupid things, constantly shouting, and on at people. Me and my wife are hanging on by a thread, and we had another row this morning which topped a terrible weekend off. I ended up making a rash decision and ended it. She just wants a break, and me to leave the house for X amount of time until my head is better. She's been on at me for ages to go and see someone, because I really ain't right, and can feel myself falling deeper and deeper into my hole. I've suffered on and off with feeling low from when I was 11, maybe before that, and I've always had anger issues. This is got to be the worse bout of depression I've had, and it's lasted a few months now. Feel angry, low, numb, and my head is just so cloudy. I've been having suicidal thoughts for a few months, but with no intention of actually ending it. I don't want to die, but I just keep having these passive thoughts of suicide. I wouldn't say I'm anywhere near that bad to do it, but it's weird. Can't seem to motivate myself, and I'd quite happily sit on the sofa all day. I can be alright the one minute, and be really happy. Then the slightest thing can bring me down like a tonne of bricks, and I find it hard to get out of it. My moods are absolutely vile. I've always self medicated and I'm still struggling with that part of my life. I finally realised today that I need to get out of the house for the sake of everyone. I've been the doctors and he's prescribed be 20mg of citroplam or whatever you call it. Hopefully these work, and it can give me some normality. Neither of us want to break up, but we both agree we both need this break. She keeps saying the house is better when I ain't there, and I agree. This will be the longest break we've ever had, but I'm determined to get my head right, so we can be a normal happy family. It breaks my heart knowing what I've put them through. I just can't help or stop my moods though. How I've been feeling lately has made me feel ill in my head. Anxiety was terrible last night. Woke up at 4 in the morning with chest pains. It's hard being at my mums though, because she also suffers with depression quite bad. Got nowhere else to go though. 

Ruge, First of all, big hugs mate.

I can't help but read that and want to praise your honesty. It's hard to have to accept we can be or do counterproductive things which go against our true intentions. It's easy to point fingers at the self-medication and the truth is despite your reputation on here you'll know deep down whether you have an actual handle on things in that regard. It's also easy to dismiss it though to facilitate our own behaviours.

Anger is a tough one. Like all emotions it is natural and very real and this primal response also shuts down the rational part of our brains. Certain thinking suggests it takes around 20 mins for that imbalance to disperse. Don't be too hard on yourself about things which are a chemical reaction. The honesty with yourself is sometimes recognising the things beyond your control. And cutting ourselves a small bit of slack.

"I just cant help or stop my moods" - I read that bit and I wanted to add, no well maybe you can't! and fighting to change things which may prove impossible would drive anyone mad right? You can however start to understand and recognise your patterns of negative behaviour or 'moods' as you put it. You are able to learn to control the way that you react to these moods, which in turn addresses the issue of taking it out on other people around you, however unachievable it may seem at times. Understanding what triggers these feelings and learning ways to cope with them, not necessarily to eradicate or 'beat' them has certainly been a useful path trodden in my life.

I'd wager that the vast majority of VTers will wish you well. Chin up mate. We still loves ya.

[Xann]

If you do end up taking a break @Rugeley Villa?

Don't stay with mates that get you hammered x

[maqroll]

Good luck Ruge. Seeing a doc for my Depression and anxiety a crucial part of getting better for me. I still drink too much and smoke weed too much, but I feel like I can relax and be my strange self again, and my anger is as all but gone.

Find a decent doc to assess you and get you on the right meds. They help.

[Rugeley Villa]

Start my happy pills tonight. It's the second night away from the family home, and already a weight has been lifted from myself, and wife. I've been popping round after work to see kids, and just generally helping out. I bathed the kids tonight, whilst she went for a walk. She's happy that I'm taking steps to sort myself out, and she's excited about me getting better.  She talks like I'm ill, which is weird. Having time to reflect and look at how I've been is giving me some thought. As I said, I already feel a weight lifted, but looking back, I've been a complete psychopath. I did feel myself tonight starting to lose my head , and start getting worked up. We both spoke about it whilst the kids were playing in the garden. I told her that I'd only been in the house an hour, and I could have fell out with her twice. What had she done? Absolutely nothing at all. I also felt myself getting frustrated with the kids, but I kept a lid on it. My wife said she felt a vibe off me that, all weren't too good tonight. Last night was great mind. She said maybe I'd stayed too long tonight, and that some days it might be best to not come round at all, or just nip in for 10 minutes and say a quick hello. We've never had a proper break, and I know this is going to be a proper break, and for once I actually want this break. The kids understand, and are taking it in their stride, I think. The house is definitely a better place without me there at the moment. I've had pills before, but never see them through. I'm determined to see them through now though, and I'm hoping it can lift this negativity that I've been living with for years.