Mental Health Awareness Month of May
Apparently May is Mental Health awareness month. Given that throughout my life, people have said, in the main with affection, "Lis, you're a nutter....you're a mad bastard...you're a loon.." I thought i might explore that a bit more. I have not ever been 'officially diagnosed' with a mental health condition and I'm pleased about that...because I think it simply acknowledges the breadth of states we can all find ourselves in mentally at one time or another. Depression, anxiety, bi polar, mania, hyper vigilance, these are all very human states that probably most people will feel at one time or another and most of us will seek to alleviate or dismiss, depending on our particular contexts.
You see, Mental Health it self has become the THING in recent years hasn't it? We even have a Minister for Suicides. We are told to look after our mental health, to recognise its deterioration in others, to not see it as taboo. To not be afraid to talk. Yet I'm not sure this goes far enough into exploring why we are so mentally unhealthy as a nation.
We go to GPs about being depressed only to be met by depressed GPs. We take a righteous stance about big pharma anti-depressants and so we self medicate......yet this too can be drink, drugs, food, whatever.......we meditate ewith app after app of six simple steps to your inner yogi, we sign up for courses on mindfulness and read books about being a better YOU! we spend money on impulse purchases that relieve for just a moment and leave the sticky residue of anxiety about how to pay for what we bought but don't need. We listen to friends as they advise us to rest more, have a PMA, stay away from social media. tell me again how that works exactly cos i know I've suggested it to others but....😐
We talk to our children about their 'botherings' . This was the word given from one of the petites the other day....aged six, he had three 'botherings' he wanted to talk to me about.....one included knife crime 😞 and thats what modern life has presented us with hasn't it? Six year olds being aware that there are stabbings on the streets outsides their homes:(( we can try and try but that big bad world is ever closer, ever reaching with its tendrils of spite and pain created in a climate of austerity and fear. It breaks my heart and it spins my mind.....what on earth are today's children having to deal with? How are they processing this stuff? what messages are they getting? What resilience are they building? How on earth do we protect and keep them safe in a world that feels so out of control?
It's a spiral you see, a vortex that can consume and isolate and amplify with very little input and therein do I find my particular experience of mental health within the context of Multiple Sclerosis. I literally have gaps in my nervous system when some things don't get through and others loop and loop.
I have years and years of scars along my nervous system that has meant that over time, i have lost some functions whilst developing others. In a physical sense, this in the main affects my mobility and my capacity to stay upright. The possibility of needing a wheelchair at some point fills me with dread and yet there's all the gratitude stuff that seeks to provide some metaphorical balance.That's a kind of straightforward loop.
Less straightforward are the scars and lesions on the brain and spinal cord that over time, make things deteriorate and thus reduce capacity to deal with unfamiliar or overwhelming, noisy environments. Perhaps because I've also always had a degree of swagger, I have often managed to mask the stagger but somedays i fall. Right over. Not a stumble but a full on front fall. Quite simply, there are no longer the neural pathways to cope with such things so the slightest thing can leave me face down on a pavement.....I don't share it often but in the interests of honesty and truth, here it is......increasingly, i can often not feel my feet, it is getting harder to walk even though I am doing amazingly etc . Falling in the street has happened many times and whilst less than ideal... ( i will always have my swagger aspirations) it is not what has affected my state of mind this week.
Rather, it was the response of the young woman who was literally walking towards me as i tripped and fell on a road somewhere in Whitechapel. She didn't move. There was no instinct to put a hand to stop someone falling. Nothing. Instead, she waited with a bored impatience for me to get up, pick up my walking stick and make way for her to get on about her very important business........not a word...just a dead eyed look of impatience that someone had dared to be vulnerable in front of her.......and THAT dear friends is what upsets me and I expect most of us most of all.........the absence of kindness where our own sense of self interest makes us indifferent to others. Tragic.
We've gotten used to slagging everyone off, having opinions about all the things we have no direct experience of, being used to being tired, buying into the myth that being busy is paying the bills and if we could just look better, eat better, pray better, have more likes, know better, life would be better. It won't. Generosity and a supportive society. Having a safe place to sleep and enough to eat. Living a life of purpose and contribution. That's what matters.
As someone who held her dying wife's hand as cancer finally took her way before she was ready.... as someone whose mental and physical health is affected by the slightest chemical imbalances with foods, or changes in environment and who therefore has to manage her daily movement in every moment with concentration and consciousness, let me share a little something.
Only kindness and collective living in this cruel world is going to bring any kind of relief to the painful, painful daily situations that we are all witnessing and experiencing right now. That and awareness that our lives are finite. Personally, I didn't really understand the value of life until death proved it exists. It does and it is how we live every moment within ourselves that defines the quality of that life.
The political divides fuelling the rise of hate, the policy of austerity that is shredding communities and leaving children going to school hungry......this is not ok. We all know that but we don't know what to do because it's all so much and there is so much and everyone is tired and battling with their own bit. How to handle your own shit with dignity and discipline and to be responsible rather than reactionary? It is not easy in a world where we are easily baited and our frustrations make us furious. Every day is that challenge. Every day, the media giants challenge us to seek truth for ourselves because their stuff is just lies. Blatant, bullying lies.
Eat crap feel crap, eat well, feel well. Be kind, people smile, it feels warm and strengthening. Be a cruel selfish bastard and the next person passes it on...road rage or political policy....all fuels the fury and discontent....it's not rocket science is it but we do in fact feed ourselves and our kids utter crap ...both literally and metaphorically and then have to deal with the aftermath. Auto-immune conditions and cancers on the rise, in line with shit foods and high stress levels. But that's the capitalist pathway isn't it? more, more, more, fear, fear, fear, hate, hate, hate, blah, blah, blah. To then be told that if you’re not coping under the weight, YOU are the failure. It’s just not true.
We have wasted so much time, all of us, on rubbish that won't matter on our death beds. We have lost so many people because of the cruelty of systems, the abuses, the acceptance that this is it. Violence has become a cultural norm and our minds are being defiled and deregulated.
Imagine if people stopped having opinions about things they have no clue or experience of and instead shared real experiences in a meaningful, generous way....imagine if everyone did allow their kindness out more.....if we joined up all the bits we like and told each other more often that we matter and it'll be ok, and how can I improve your day instead of all the, "oh my god I can't believe you believe in that, agree with that, support that...that makes you a terrible human being. oh my god and you still use plastic bags, oh my god why haven't you been twitter shamed yet?’ Stupidity that is presented as ‘opinion’ 🙄Imagined if we heard instead of hated.
It’s so easy to hate.
I've tried hate over the years....always come down to fear in some form or another....kindness does take bravery and a degree of discipline...you have to mind that you're not just going around 'being nice' to mask your own 'not niceness' 🙂 and somethings are genuinely hateful.....and some people really are just horrible....but not most.
It takes truth ....and a bit of humility and yes, perhaps even a bit of genuine, straightforward madness.....but who'd want to be any other way? I'm ok with kindness and communication. I think we are born with it and meant to be it. I'd like less waviness on the MS front but there it is.......we do what we do with what we've got.
For me, being 50 in 12 days, I think I might just amplify that kindness bit and say hahalala to the haters because if the world is ending, we'll be having a nicer time on the way to Armageddon with a hahalalamindset.
If everyone would just stfu for a while and go out and do something nice for a stranger.........can you imagine? reminds me of the tv programme in the 70s..Why don't You?
I hope the young woman in Whitechapel grows out of her indifference. As they say, youth is wasted on the young and one day she may feel the way I did looking up at her from the pavement, reaching for my stick and my hat and my dignity. We don't imagine our bodies or our minds failing us when we are well but it can change in a moment. It's important to remember that.
I hope her lessons are easier learned than mine but I suspect not......she looked to have a lot to learn about the importance of connection. Most of us do eh?
#mentalhealthawareness....its good to write 🙂 #hahalalamindset #kindnesscures #crueltykills #bravenewworld #believeinthedream
😘#growyourownhahalala💖💫
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