I’ve been thinking about setting up a new blog specifically about dealing with crap stuff but in a straight-talking, humorous at times manner as opposed to the condescending, fluff that appears to be everywhere. I figured I’ve been through a fair bit of not-so-amazing stuff that a LOT of other people experience every day. At the time, when these things happened, I wish I’d read something that suggested I wasn’t alone with dealing with this sort of crap and was written in a way that addressed me like a normal person rather than one with a lobotomy/two heads.
It’s weird, though – I guess cos the stuff concerned isn’t exactly fun-times, it’s hard to write about it in an irreverent, breezy fashion. Amongst the things I wanted to write about was the subject of mental health but from the opinion that it really doesn’t have to be treated with the hysteria and the fear that it so frequently is. It’s not all badly acted Hollyoaks plot-lines; mental illness is like any other illness – with a certain set of circumstances it’s in full reach of any of us. You just have to look at the fuzzy lines that already exist as far as categorising the subject – eating disorders are so commonplace they’re practically on the GCSE syllabus these days, post-natal depression or the baby blues – accepted as a probability, senile dementure – inevitable – these are all strands of mental illness but no one thinks of them as that, they think of them as part of life. That’s what mental illness is – it’s life with the volume turned up to 11 and it could happen to any of you.
In my teens in particular – I had a rough time, I went through the system and amazingly came out the other end ‘functioning’ which, astoundingly, every time I come into contact with a health professional, I am congratulated on. For real. This is utterly ridiculous and why I want to write about stuff that is crap but without the self-congratulatory or self-pitying tone. I Googled ‘mental health blogs’ and was shocked at the majority I came across being solely focussed on their illness and found this really quite bizarre and deeply saddening. I have fought since my teens against any diagnosis or illness defining my life and struggle understanding why someone would carve their identity from such a thing when there is so much more to a person than what label they’ve been stamped with by their doctor. Being patronised by the ignorant has been a source of irritation for over a decade for me so I thought I’d write about crap stuff from the point of view of acknowledging it, dealing with it and moving forward from someone that actually has experienced this stuff. And not sound patronising or earnest or whatever. Hopefully it’ll be a refreshing, enlightening experience for all concerned, including me, will keep you posted.
