I think that the state of one’s mental health will only become justifiable and more importantly the recipient of compassion from SELF and OTHER when it becomes Measurable.
It is absurd to me at the moment, right now, in my own life, as I recover from surgery.
I am in a sling I am in mild pain and only relatively incapacitated yet I am receiving financial assistance, I am able to read, rest, recover and easily seek therapeutic options and the support of others both physically and emotionally.
What is absurd is that the pain that I am experiencing physically is a fraction of what I am experiencing mentally!!
The lack of understanding and compassion comes equally from my internal and external environments.
I think that is partly why I am both angry and confused and most angry with myself.
Imagine a world where I could get a simple diagnosis that my blah blah Hormones or my blah blah DNA was out of whack or my blah blah brain processing system was somehow faulty.
At that point, with diagnosis in hand for all to read and see it would be simple because the “collective we” would be able to measure, quantify, assimilate and grasp that something is wrong.
Instead I am left with guilt, shame excuses and disconnection, especially with those who are closest to me - myself at the very top of that list.
What becomes even more confusing for both me and others are the fluctuations. How can you be okay one minute and then totally shut down, quiet, dark overwhelmed, broken, in fear disconnected, spaced out angry, sad, and lost the next?
For other people and to a lesser extent myself it is hard to understand. Wasn't it just two days ago that James said you have the “pep back in your step” and now just a mere 48 hours later you are totally on the brink again?
A constant incapacitating darkness is something that everyone can get their head around. It is visceral and it is consistent but I would hasten to say that that is not the experience of the silent majority of people who suffer mental health issues.
It is like physical injuries, a quadruple amputation, a heart transplant a broken neck, a stroke are physical conditions that completely incapacitate the patient.
But what about severely broken legs and smashed collar bones? They are still very significant injuries that require rest, pain relief and rehabilitation and that is where I think mental health meets it's conundrum.
Imagine trying to run around on a broken leg. Or imagine trying to pick up a child with a broken collar bone.
“Are you daft” people would say.
“Stop” they would say.
“Rest, take it easy recover. What were you thinking not laying down. Do you know you could make yourself so much worse”.
BUT we do not have that liberty with mental health because we have no idea how to easily recognise, categorise or treat the injury.
We don't know how to treat those serious mental injuries that don’t look so serious because the individual still seems to function - at least most of the time.
I wish I had an answer.
I don't as yet but I am using myself as my own experiment and right now I have very little clarity as to how to communicate my mental challenges.
Six days ago my wife Could see how broken I was physically and mentally.
Is her expectation - hers, mine, the world’s - for me to bounce back, pull myself together find that inner Joie de vis and zest for life or can I reveal without judgement Just how mentally paralysed I am?
I don't have an answer I just know that there is so much ignorance and so little freedom to talk openly about what is going on and to give it a framework, a context or a justification.
I think that is often what, when left unchecked, becomes the overwhelming sense of exhaustion and futility that will lead men to seek away out through addiction (of many types) or suicide.
The mental and existential exhaustion becomes to much.
The sense of being broken to much to bare.
And so they / we / I grow silent, insular and quiet because we no longer know what to do.
I am going to be mindful of not recording what I think the answer may be. For now I am going to sit with the questions and be with the journey because that is the uncomfortable but necessary place to sit right now.