are you really, truthfully ill???

My mum went to see Bohemian Rhapsody. She went to the local cinema with my dad, can you believe that? It might seem like a normal thing, an easy task, something no one would write home about, but this is HUGE!

I will shamefully put my hands up & say I was one of those people that thought anxiety was just something you could snap out of  if you really wanted to, mind over matter kind of thing. I knew Mental Illness was very real but I thought it could be controlled if only they knew how. I’m talking about years ago when this all started, 11 years to be precise, obviously I came to learn it is very real & controlling it can be impossible.  Up until recently I had never had anxiety in my life, I got nervous on occasions but nerves & anxiety are two very different feelings. The guilt I feel for not understanding the full affect anxiety has is awful, it’s a wasted emotion because guilt solves nothing but I feel it nevertheless. It’s a very real illness & my mum has been extremely ill for a very long time. Her actual diagnoses was Bilolar & Pyhscotic depression, But what about those who aren’t really ill?

There is still such a huge stigma around MH but there is so many people suffering with some form of Mental Illness nowadays it seems to be number one on the list of illnesses BUT do you know what really, really gets my goat? People who claim they have an illness, people who ‘play’ the system. I’ve seen it, I’ve seen them having one big laugh at the NHS’s cost & using the services because they are too fecking lazy to go & work. This is a real problem & it makes it even more difficult for those who really are suffering.

I was in one of the psychiatric wards waiting for my mum to finish her meds review. A woman in her late 20’s came & sat next to me & asked me if I had a cigarette. I told her I didn’t smoke & she went on to tell me that she that she ‘loved a fag’ & that was the only shit thing about being in the ward because she had to go outside for a cigarette. This woman proceeded to tell me that she had 4 kids, who’s dad’s weren’t about anymore & her mum was looking after them & that when it all gets too much she just goes off on a ‘bender & acts a bit mental’ then get put in this ward where she doesn’t have to do a thing. She told me it was like a little holiday for her & she actually liked going there. Why do these people keep having children?? That’s another bugbear I have. Now don’t get me wrong, you could say that this in itself was a sign of MH, but this woman was playing the system, she was one of those that don’t want to work, feels she shouldn’t have to work, pops out kids like she’s shucking peas & feels it’s perfectly acceptable to use the ward as a weekend retreat.

Over the past 11 years I have seen so many people, mainly young people, be admitted to a phychactric ward because they took a ‘bad pill’ & had a bit of a bad trip or snorted too many lines of coke & were having the worst come down. The system is being abused left, right & centre just like the benefits system is. I know a local man who rides around on a bike, so tanned his skin actually does resemble leather where he has spent his whole life sunning himself when the rest of us are working, he drinks coffee everyday in the local costa (which isn’t cheap) & he’s never worked a honest day in his life. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this man but somehow he has managed to play the system, he gets benefits for things he hasn’t even got (I know this for a fact as he actually told me) He is one of the millions of people playing on issues they simply do not have. I know people who have spent their lives pretending they are ‘nuts’ for attention. I’m not saying there isn’t MH issues there with a lot of these people. After all, if you are craving that much attention, needing to be noticed so badly, it’s very likely they do have some kind of issue but where do you draw the line? How can you separate those people from the real sufferers? The ones that really are going to try & kill themselves because they are literally being driven mad by their own thoughts.

Its one of my real bugbears. People who think the world owes them something, they aren’t willing to put into the world they just want to take take take! It so easy nowadays to just say  ‘I’m anxious, I’m hearing voices, I’m going to kill myself’, how can we tell if that is true? It’s not actually very difficult to trick a shrink & it’s more than he’s jobs worth to dismiss their patients claims so he has no choice but to put them into the system.

We ALL have some kind of issue throughout our lives. I would be absolutely amazed if someone told me they hadn’t. It could be anything from nerves, anxiety, body dismorphia, bulimia, self harm, bad childhood experiences , ocd, phobias etc etc but most of us has suffered with some kind of issue even if it’s not that as severe as some mentioned, it could still be an ‘issue’ in their life, but does it mean they need to be sectioned or admitted a Psychiatric ward? No not necessarily but it’s a fine line because no one wants to be responsible for getting it wrong, for not sectioning someone who then actually does go & try to commit suicide. I don’t know the solution to it all but I know it won’t stop & I know as long as this planet is here we will always have these ‘users of society’ that expect us, the hard working people to pay for them. It makes my blood boil but it’s not going to stop anytime soon…

#mentalhealth #genuinecases