I am quite sure my legion of loyal readers – sorry, that will be my legion of loyal reader. I was getting ideas above my station, there – have noted that I have not blogged about mental health, specifically my mental health, or rather the lack of it, in recent times. This, I can exclusively reveal, has not been through lack of trying. It is not because I have been too mentally ill to write about mental illness because, frankly, my depression has not stopped me writing about anything else. No. It’s been borne out of guilt.
Guilt has always been part of my illness and it’s been much worse lately. From life as a young teenager and being told by a close relative that I should ‘snap out of it’ and ‘pull (myself) together’ and ‘remind me how lucky I (was)’. I had no reason to be depressed. It was just a silly phase I was going through. And that guilt has been reinforced numerous times over the years by, and I know these are strong words, bullying and abusive teachers and work managers, the latter being work managers at the British Red Cross who got close to wrecking my life. And there’s politicians.
Mel Stride, the former health secretary and – LOOK AWAY NOW IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED – all round cunt, said the following, about a year ago: “I’m grateful we are more open about mental health these days. It means many more people getting the help they need But sometimes everyday anxieties are being labelled as medical problems, and that isn’t right My reforms will change lives for the better.”Britain’s approach to mental health, he added, is in danger of having “gone too far” and “normal anxieties of life” are being labelled as an illness.
And this:“If you go to the GP and say you are feeling a little bit depressed, and you’re signed off, in 94% of occasions, a box is ticked that says you’re not capable of work whatsoever.”
‘Then pint-sized billionaire scumbag, the former prime minister Rishi Sunak, piled in. This from The Guardian:
‘The prime minister said the government would look at whether more medical evidence about conditions should be provided, as some payments were made on the basis of “subjective and unverifiable claims”.
‘He said some people with mental health conditions may be better served by treatment and access to therapies rather than cash payments.’
Sunak also warned about the “the risk of over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life” when it came to paying benefits to people with mental health conditions.
I was, and remain, very angry about this. If I had hackles, they’d be raised right now. How dare a a senior politician suggest that someone is going to a GP saying they are “feeling a little bit depressed” just to get “signed-off“? There speaks a former health secretary with either no understanding of mental illness or no interest in it. Quite possibly both. Because, and my loyal reader has heard me say this on at least a million occasions before, once you get to see a GP about your mental health issues – and getting to see a GP isn’t the easiest thing to do these days: thanks Rishi – you are offered drugs or a limited period of counselling. If you have been some kind of mental since 1969, as I have been, the mindsets of Stride and Sunak are the norm, not the outlier. One unwanted reaction to poor mental health is guilt.
I should not react negatively to the absurd comments from politicians but let’s put it this way, the comments don’t help. My clinical depression, with added ADHD, causes me to overthink everything, to concern myself with things that I can’t change, something people, including my late father, wisely advised me I should not do. And there is guilt when I see and hear about the struggles of others. I have a number of friends who are currently suffering from troubling illnesses and some of them may not end well. I lost my best friend a month ago and I still mourn his passing, as well as feel terrible for his loving family. I think to myself, not that this is a wonderful world, but that all I have is clinical depression. Wouldn’t other people prefer to be depressed than having serious physical diseases? That sounds mad, doesn’t it, but it is, unquestionably, guilt. I am ill, but not as ill as others and I am crushed – yes, crushed – by guilt. I really should give my head a wobble, pull myself together and be grateful for what I have got. Others would dream of being in my position, right?
I don’t expect you, don’t really want you to, answer that question because, as someone said, that’s just the way it is. Some things will never change. And it is one reason why I hate – and yes, I know hate is a strong word – Tory politicians, or anyone else, who seeks to belittle people with genuine mental health issues (I wrote ‘struggles’ at first, but thought it read all pathetic and wrong) because they do what they intend to do. They really do make things worse.
My guilt is, I feel, something to do with the way mental illness is regarded in Britain. It’s a small thing, you see; certainly not an illness. It’s all the things I was told as a kid and pretty well ever since. Because it’s not visible, it’s not like physical illness. Now that is real. And what’s worse is that the overthinking convinces me that no one else believes us mental folk are really mental. Just a bit fed up, we’re unable to cope with “the everyday challenges and worries of life”.
Now excuse me while I return to pool of self-pity, where I can wallow for the rest of my days, still crazy after all these years and guilty with it.
