About Me

I am a twenty-something female living in the UK, who spends far too much time thinking, although I'd argue it is just the right amount of time. I enjoy doing various creative things, and hope I can eventually find a way to scrape a living out of them. Politically and socially, I'm somewhere with the hippies from the sixties, and I have a partially-sated desire to travel despite my affection for the place I call 'home'.

This blog is necessarily influenced by these things, but is mainly to do with another aspect of my life that I'd rather didn't exist. I have a depression-like mental health problem that seems to have begun in my early teens and varied from periods of severe depression to times of apparent normality. In more recent years, 'apparent normality' has included genuine contentment and happiness, as I developed self-esteem and learnt not to take crap from people, whilst making a home around others with similar interests, ambitions and values.

As this blog begins, I am in one of the 'low' times. However, this is not connected to any stressful situations happening in my life, as used to be the case. This baffled me, having spent so many years getting to a place where I was truly happy – to suddenly be stressed, anxious, tearful and exhausted for no apparent reason was a first for me. My theory (which I have been assured is plausible, at least) is that my brain sort of said “Excellent, you're happy now! Time to deal with all the things that overwhelmed you when they were actually happening!” and dumped a large file marked “Arghh!”, possibly written in blood, on the metaphorical desk top of my consciousness.

This 'low' has gone on far longer than anything before, and feels different – so I'm hoping this is the final, big push to sanity, or thereabouts.

I first went to seek help via the GP when I was 17, rather reluctantly. I returned a few years later, willingly, later still, sceptically but desperately, and once again more recently with a sort of naïve amnesia of the previous attempts. Unfortunately most of the 'help' I have received has been of the “pull yourself together” variety, though there are some notable exceptions. Needless to say, this blog will contain much more of the former because:

a) This is one of my only outlets for the huge amounts of exasperation and despair I often feel, and

b) I'm British and we have a pathological need to moan about everything, though I do feel we apply satire and sarcasm quite nicely so it's a fun pastime. After all, we can't talk about the weather 24/7.

Anyway, due to the fact that I have been involved with mental health services several times, I seem to be viewed as someone who is 'treatment resistant', aka not worth bothering about. Perhaps that's because anyone who willingly subjects themselves to the mental health system more than once is clearly incurably insane, but I doubt it. It's probably more to do with the inappropriate and frankly unfair labels (more on this later) some unknown and evil mental health worker slapped on me years ago.

For now, it looks at though it'll be a blog of reflections and rants, punctuated by my story of what it's like to try to recover without professional help.

Myrtle

***I feel compelled, at this point, to declare my undying allegiance to the founding principles of the National Health Service, which the buffoons at the top seem intent on destroying. However, mental health care has always been somewhat overlooked and is definitely in need of improvement. ***