This morning half asleep I took the kids to school, I dropped the first off and then the second, when I was walking back to the car I heard a women talking to her friend and she said that.....
Mental illness is a fad.
I am not one for being nosey but this conversation caught my attention and I soon woke up.
I have struggled with my mental illness for all my life, I don't complain and I get on with what I have to do, I have had my ups and many, many downs.
I have been sectioned twice and I have tried to kill myself more than 14 times, these were not cries for help I really wanted to die, it was only because I was caught or things didn't go as planned that I am still here.
The conversation was kind of crazy, she was telling her friend that she can't stand people who are depressed as they don't help themselves.
Don't help themselves? Wtf was I listening too?
I have been in the depths of depression and helping myself was not something that I could do, I couldn't even get out of bed, I couldn't leave the house, and I even couldn't wash myself.
So where is this women coming from?
She carried on with saying that she had been depressed and she got up and sorted herself out, she refused to let her mental state get in the way of her life.
Mental state.
To me it sounds like she wasn't depressed but more sad about something as if you are depressed you can't even function right, I know I have been there done that.
She even talked about her friend been diagnosed with PTSD, she went on to say that doctors are too quick to make this diagnosis and they needed their heads looking at.
I was shocked to hear what she was saying, I even made it my mission to keep walking past my car to listen to more of what she was saying.
One of the things that I was diagnosed with was PTSD, I have flashes, like nightmares during the day, all it takes is a smell or something that reminds me of a bad time in my life and I am a mess.
nightmares at night to wake up in cold sweats and panic attacks.
She made the comment that panic attacks are just something that the weak have, by this point my blood was boiling because everything she was saying was pure
bollocks.
Her friend was even adding little comments in that fueled this women with even more and by this point I had to go to my car and calm down.
So is mental illness a fad?
The question should be, if you think mental illness is a fad you should be seen by a doctor as mental illness is with 1 in 3 of us.
I should know, I spent 3 months sectioned in a mental hospital, yep I a speaking out loud about me, I met some interesting people in there, from people who saw aliens at night, a guy who talked to a pay phone and believed it was god, others with depression anxiety ptsd and even adicts who went to get themselves clean.
When I went to go and pick my kids up I made sure that I could hear the two women talking to each other to hear what they were talking about and they were still talking about mental illness and how people abuse the system.
I stopped them in their conversation and said to them that I was a person just like them and I could hear them talking, they told me to mind my own business, my reply back to them was - if your going to talk so loud that everybody can hear then you are including them in their conversation.
They didn't like this but I had something to say.
I opened my mouth and told them that I have a mental condition, not from drugs, drink or my life style but from BIRTH and my head was crushed which damaged my brain while my mum was in labour.
I have been in and out of hospital since a young age, I have met people with depression anxiety and PTSD, I have met people who talk to people who are not there.
I have seen people cut their wrists and walk down corridors in hospital while screaming for help, I have walked in on a body hanging from a rope.
I went on to tell them that mental health is not a fad, there is more people that have problems because more people are encouraged to open up and talk about it now.
If mental illness wasn't real then why have I met people from all walks of life who have suffered, I met a lawyer who was clinically depressed who was having electric shock treatment.
I have met a guy who was in the army who had his head hit when the lid to the tank hit him on the head and nearly killed him.
I have met a guy who was a chemist and was caught making crack, he spent time in jail before breaking and was sectioned as he thought he could talk to god
If it was really a myth, fiction or a fad why is there doctors who treat these people?
The women in the yard looked at me like a crazy person, and then something happened that I didn't thing would, the lady who said all this turned to me and said, I am sorry, I really didn't know that these things really happened.
Don't judge on something that you don't know nothing about.
Sorry about the rant, this sit close to my heart.