Feeling Like a Failure
I can remember looking around at my family and friends and listening to their conversations, feeling oh so far away. They were discussing their upcoming holidays, long term relationships, successful careers and recent purchases, and I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.
I felt embarrassed to be medically retired from my job at the age of 26, forced to move back into my parents’ house. I earned pittance and I was a complete failure. I felt so far from ‘normal’ that I felt sick to my stomach.
I discussed this with my therapist and had to write down all the things I had accomplished and was proud of. In black and white I could see that my life had taken an unforeseen turn but I had achieved so much in a different way; using all my knowledge and skills to help and inspire others with mental health issues.
Mental ill health is very ‘normal’ and very common. We know that one in four of us experience mental ill health at some point in our lives. However, these figures are based on reported cases. How many more of us struggle without asking for help? Maybe the number is actually closer to two or three out of four of us?
If we consider the statistics and how common mental illness is, imagine if we all opened up to each other about how we felt? Most of us could relate, understand and be able to help and support!
Common Doesn’t Make It Easy
Mental ill health should be accepted in society but in my opinion, it will never feel acceptable to those struggling. I have cried endless times for myself and others, feeling heartbroken. I recently spent time in hospital with strong women who have survived bereavement, rape, sexual and domestic abuse and marriage breakups, battling depression, suicide, bipolar, schizophrenia and psychosis — and my heart says this will never be ‘acceptable.’
Life is too hard at times to say, ‘It’s ok,’ and this should be acknowledged in order to aid recovery. We must remember that mental health diagnoses are as a result of an inability to cope with day-to-day life.
What Was Normal to Me?
Seven years ago I knew nothing about mental health and I considered myself to be an open, honest girl who enjoyed learning about people and life. But I look back and realize I had rigid views, categorising people as either ‘strong’ or ‘weak’ minded. I simply hadn’t experienced mental ill health and therefore understood nothing.
Once, I ridiculed a colleague absent from work with depression, and I remember feeling irritated by my increased workload. I had discussions with other colleagues with the attitude that ‘If we can do it, so can she.’ I had absolutely no idea of the severity and depth of her illness and how debilitating it was, affecting her entire life.
Years later in the lead up to my diagnosis of bipolar, every cell in my body was fighting the overwhelming sadness and urge to end everything. I remember at that point piling guilt upon myself — I never dreamt the word ‘depression’ was responsible for this horrific, heart-rending experience that came with no immediate warning sign and robbed you of your daily life. I contacted the same lady on Facebook years later and apologized. I felt truly awful for my lack of understanding and I think an element of that guilt with stay with me forever.
When you sit behind a fence in a psychiatric hospital, in a small concrete garden, you realise that most people on the other side know nothing about what really goes on. The world is protected from the devastating effects of mental illness and our confusion, outbursts, loneliness and desperation.
