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I've talked enough . Mental Health Awareness Week

Posted: May 10th, 2021, 10:37 am
by AsleepInYorkshire
I have reached a stage in my recovery when I no longer need to talk about what has happened and what is happening with my mental health. And that's good.

It's Mental Health Awareness Week.

There's a reason the good lord gave me two ears and one mouth :lol:

I'm learning to listen more. I am able to listen more.

Although we have a small community there will, regrettably be some who are dealing with their own mental health problems or perhaps would like to talk about how they got through previous struggles.

There's no right or wrong time to talk about mental health. It is Mental Health Awareness Week though.

And you don't have to have or have had mental health issues to talk about it. And of course it can still be mental health awareness week all year ;)

AiY

Re: I've talked enough . Mental Health Awareness Week

Posted: May 10th, 2021, 3:55 pm
by MaraMan
I very much agree. Speaking as someone who has suffered from periods of poor mental health in the past I have found that the voluntary work I know do in this area, which involves a lot of listening, has helped me greatly as well as I hope those I listen to.

MM

Re: I've talked enough . Mental Health Awareness Week

Posted: May 10th, 2021, 4:48 pm
by AsleepInYorkshire
MaraMan wrote:I very much agree. Speaking as someone who has suffered from periods of poor mental health in the past I have found that the voluntary work I know do in this area, which involves a lot of listening, has helped me greatly as well as I hope those I listen to.

MM

That's a very courageous approach and one that demands some huge respect. I'm not sure I will ever be able to get that deep into helping others as, regrettably, my own issues have simply worn down my emotional resolve. Battered ramparts I'm afraid.

In a way you're also helping me - thank you :)

AiY

Re: I've talked enough . Mental Health Awareness Week

Posted: May 11th, 2021, 10:37 pm
by Sunnypad
I can relate to the battered ramparts.
I tend to rush to help people when I can, because I know that time won't last.

Sadly, this morning I had a major sense of deja vu about my first really problematic time, prior to being medicated, in 2008.

Of course some things are funny now. I remember my dad being round and making toast for me and I said, "er, I might have had a breakdown but I'm still perfectly capable of making toast". Poor dad, I think he just didn't know what else to do!

But the deja vu is not good. Perhaps because this time I'm already on medication!

Re: I've talked enough . Mental Health Awareness Week

Posted: May 11th, 2021, 11:01 pm
by AsleepInYorkshire
Sunnypad wrote:I can relate to the battered ramparts.
I tend to rush to help people when I can, because I know that time won't last.

Sadly, this morning I had a major sense of deja vu about my first really problematic time, prior to being medicated, in 2008.

Of course some things are funny now. I remember my dad being round and making toast for me and I said, "er, I might have had a breakdown but I'm still perfectly capable of making toast". Poor dad, I think he just didn't know what else to do!

But the deja vu is not good. Perhaps because this time I'm already on medication!

Recently I have many many more dreams than I ever had in the past. And quite often they involve people from my very distant past. It's not the same as deja vu but it 's weird to say the least. I think it must be my brain working on old memories that never quite got "filed" correctly :lol:

AiY

Re: I've talked enough . Mental Health Awareness Week

Posted: May 12th, 2021, 12:24 pm
by bungeejumper
AsleepInYorkshire wrote:Recently I have many many more dreams than I ever had in the past. And quite often they involve people from my very distant past. It's not the same as deja vu but it 's weird to say the least. I think it must be my brain working on old memories that never quite got "filed" correctly :lol:

I don't think the brain ever stops working on old memories, really. It picks up an old puzzle and shakes it about for a bit, to see whether thirty years of life's experiences have added any new accents or insights that might make sense of things. Only the other day, I was thinking about a university friend who failed to thrive and was eventually kicked out of college, and who (much later) found peace after he came out as gay. And suddenly the connections all made sense. ;)

For my own part, I had a time, more than forty years ago, when life was one long succession of police cars and ambulances - some of the latter coming for me! :shock: I was living with somebody else's severe mental illness, and at that time I was too busy coping with day-to-day survival to be able to look at things in big-picture reasoned detail. But four decades on, the pieces are starting to fall into place and I can see why things got that bad, and why I did the only thing possible by exiting that situation as soon as the medical profession was able to take over the situation. (It did, and with long-term success for that person, who at least has some stability now, although she'll never be well.)

But every three or four years, the memories still return and shake me about for a week or two, and each time I learn a little bit more. I've read a fair bit about delayed onset PTSD recently, and I think I'm probably on the less extreme levels of that phenomenon. Credit, too, to the BBC's remarkable mental health series from 2018. David Harewood's hugely courageous Psychosis and Me (https://vimeo.com/336875652) was like somebody opening the curtains on a room that I'd always supposed would remain dark for ever. I suppose my mind is still slowly adjusting to the light? Might take a while longer, but hey, the brain is still working on it.

But heck, I'm wandering off the subject. Thanks to everyone.

BJ