Why it's important to fight stigma

Below are a few extracts from a, then private, email to my now fiancée I sent over 7 years ago. I was 22 we were dating long distance and things should have been really good, but I'd started on a college course I was really struggling with and I knew things weren't going to get any better. In some ways writing this email saved me, it started me on a journey that I'm not sure will ever end... Because the honesty I expressed to the recipient of this letter has been solidified and strengthened.  Now I am in a place where I think it would be useful to talk about the practicalities of needing and seeking help, without stigma. I know this is something that needs to change in our view of mental health. I'm sharing this because it is obvious reading it back now how frightened I was of the possible repercussions in my future of being honest about my struggles.

The course I was on at the time was a PGCE a postgraduate certificate in education. I had already dragged myself through an undergraduate degree in a cloud of disarray and confusion. I truly believed that anyone with a history of depression would be considered unsuitable to work with children so my actions,  or rather inaction was affected by this position.

The email...

"I am so sorry I haven't been able to be happy and smiley.... it's called depression and I've been here before and if I get diagnosed with something like this I may never be able to get a job and that's before I've even finished this course. This wouldn't be the first time you see... it's on my medical records as mild depression.... just a low and fuzzy feeling... it's not you that makes me unhappy"

"I need you to understand that I get depressed... proper can't feel much past desperate but won't admit there is anything wrong or maybe I just can't get out of bed... I need to know that it's part of me and that you'll still love me and try and understand and that if I push you away it's not because I want to but it's because I'm scared... I'm scared of hurting you with my words and actions so much that I'll want to  not speak to you one minute just so I can feel the happiness of making up because I can't find the feeling otherwise. I am going to talk to the doctor about these things, but I need you to understand I'm not making it up. I have stood on train platforms holding back tears with a thread of reasonability and common sense telling me that  too many people would not get to work if.... well you see.

I have a tendency to put things out of proportion.... hence the 10 phone calls in 3 minutes.... I panic.... like anxiety kind of panic where I can't breath and can't think about anything else."

I didn't go to the GP...  As far as I remember I was too frightened of loosing my place on the course, of admitting failure. My hand was forced eventually, when I was in serious jepody of failing my placement and I was completely lost. I got a little help, but I refused medication when it was briefly mentioned in a dismissive and unhelpful manner by the locum GP that I saw just once. I thought that this would make it more obvious that something was wrong with me .
My college tried to help and I had a couple of conversions with a useless college counsellor who handed me some photocopied sheets about self esteem and recommended some herbal remedies. And I was allowed to defer my college work until the next term when I could try again.

That was the sum total of my treatment until late last year when a friend persuaded me that suffering was not really preferable to getting help and I had fallen so low that I was past the stage of caring what any one else thought of my decisions.

If when it had first gone on my records aged 20 that I should be followed up and I had been offered some talk therapy maybe things would have been very different. I am not asking to change the past I am wanting to change the future of treatment of mental health conditions in young people.

The stigma is embedded in our society, those closest to me unfortunately encouraged me to not talk about it,  to keep it quiet and to "be okay" rather than be honest.  They were trying to help because the stigma is as real as the illness, but everything has still had to be dealt with eventually.

Mental illness is already a hidden ailment, with most people who are suffering simply going about their daily lives and making adjustments where they can, but we must begin to talk about support and help for those who need it when they need it.

Just lately I have been very lucky to have come across the right people at the right time and the internet has been an invaluable source of support, but assessment by mental health professionals much earlier could have saved my time and strength.

The literal cost of stigma is written in the pattern of our society like letters through a stick of rock. Those who need flexible working,  those who can't work, those who have been hounded out of jobs with no understanding or support. This has both a financial cost and a human cost which is quite frankly too high and things should be very different.

Speaking out now is something I can and must do.

It's time to change.

Day Thirteen- Being Ready

BEING READY

A gentle trigger warning.

This post is not intended to shock. It is meant to frame something that needs to be said. There may, for some people, be triggers within the following text. No harm is intended and I hope you scroll down and read on.

I have wanted to write about this for a very long time, but I knew if I did, the writing had to be clear and constructive. An angry tirade in this case would serve no one well. Especially myself since as a dear friend said... There is no putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

This story is about FORGIVENESS, why it is so important, and worth pursuing.

On Day Eleven of this Thirty Day #WeBecomeWhatWeDo cultivation project I was up in the wee small hours of the morning having not yet made it to sleep from Day Ten. I was wondering about things, mainly my career choices and options for different avenues I could explore. Was I truly ready to explore them or just looking for reasons to complain about work?! As I lay in bed thinking it was about time to put those thoughts away and sleep I spotted a friend was up online on Facebook, and since I know she is ill at the moment I sent her some hugs. It turned out she was having a bad night, had woken up in terrible pain and was quite distressed. As we talked, she relaxed a little, and the pain and panic subsided slightly, she realised then she was probably awake for the next few hours until her next dose of medication. I suggested distraction was probably the way to go to fill the intervening time and, since she is unable to do much physically at the moment, some reading may be the best option. This friend is very encouraging, and we fell to talking about this very blog. I said she was welcome to read back through the archives as a distraction, but provided a gentle warning about the content of my post from late last year about sexual harassment. Being the encouraging soul she is she was compassionate about how that my have affected me a I found myself typing my disclosure of another incident... I didn't write angrily... just in a clear and concise way explained the situation...

"I was abused... In a specific scenario. I do not mind people knowing. But the current news has triggered some stuff. The blog is about how dismissive we are of inappropriate touch in teenagers."

The exchange continued and I expressed some feelings of guilt and regret.

You see the scenario I speak of happened over 20 years ago. It was a "one off" event, but that made it no less powerful in terms of changing the way I viewed my own body and that someone had definitely without my consent put their hands where they did not belong. This happened to me in such a strange circumstance that it did, for many years, make it easier to bury the experience entirely and to find ways of getting around it and the associated thoughts and feelings. However I did carry them with me into adolescence and young adulthood where with hindsight and realisation they became deeper ingrained and heavier to carry. I have been on a roller coaster with my mental health since around about the time of this incident, and although there are many other factors in my story overall, this one has insidiously glued itself to my sense of self worth and esteem and messed with my right to define my barriers and acceptable parameters in relation to what is tolerable behaviour from others. And so it was that from my friend I was reminded of a truth I have heard many times before...

"If you have suffered abuse in any form you should not feel guilty about it. However slight or however bad it is not your fault. The abuser is the guilty one and you must never let go of that."

Maybe her use of the words 'let go' were what triggered my response, but a penny dropped and I gave the most honest response to this advice I have ever given.

"He was just a young man himself. He is entirely forgiven."

And just at that moment as I said goodnight to my dear friend I was done burying my pain away, and letting it continue to be a burden. Because I considered for the first time how holding onto a hurt was serving me. Yes, the abuser was guilty in the sense that he was the one responsible for his own actions, but I am responsible for my reactions. His was the fault... But the burden of blame was hurting me and not him... If I had a time machine I would have done anything to prevent that event ever occurring. But it did happen and today's reactions are no time machine. I didn't have to let go of the truth of matter, I was never at any fault for the situation I was in, but I could let go of something else.... My anger... With no way of changing the past why should my reaction today be about regret and blame?

That whole process in my head took seconds to occur... And what I had typed and read before me was almost entirely new information even for me.

"He was just a young man himself. He is entirely forgiven."

You see what I had always said to myself was... 

"He was just a young man himself. It was not his fault."

I was trying to be kind... I was trying to let him off... I was attempting compassion. I thought, mistakenly, that forgiveness meant finding a way to erase the incident. But it can't be, we can not change the past, just our response to it in the present moment. In trying to not find fault in what he did I was denying that it had indeed hurt me immeasurably. In accepting that he was at fault, but it was in my power to forgive him anyway I was not lying to myself anymore and there was peace in that.

I was not at fault.

He was.

Forgive him anyway.

If you are reading this and you are in a place of hurt and despair yourself you may be thinking... 'That's all very well for you to say, but it's not that easy'

I grew up in Christianity.

I was steeped in the idea that ALL I needed to do was forgive, and I tried so hard.

The moment I realised I was ready to forgive forever came after a lot of hard work and heartache, it was definitely not easy. But what had made it possible was the compassion of others, each time someone else held their own light close to me in my darkness a small part of my pain melted away until eventually after many, many years when I had carried my pain so long I thought it was too late and it would be with me forever, it became time.

Keep going, tell your story, share your truth with others and maybe even sometimes, tell them how much you are hurting.

Because even though there is no way someone else can entirely lift your burdens , carrying them alone is hard and letting go of them can happen slowly, but surely.

Day Eight- Why it takes so long...

So I sort of rushed into my plans, even AFTER I wrote so much about why I start and fail to continue on Day One. I am still thrilled with the direction I'm headed in and the plans are definitely still amazing, but I should always learn to cut myself some slack! I have been continuing with my pledge to worry less.. and I have had a few nights of brilliant sleep and many moments carefree joy spent with friends and family. But the gremlins are sneaky and they crept up on me a few times and a couple of times have succeeded in derailing the best of my plans over the last seven days. I am also definitely achieving and making sure I celebrate each step no matter how small or insignificant they look to others, it took thousands of years for the Niagara Falls to eat into the rock bit by little bit and look at them now!


Even with the derailments though, the fable says slow and steady wins the race and so if I have to think tortoise and be tortoise, that is how it will have to be.

When I first found out that New Unity were planning a month of cultivation I was a little confused… It sounded like a fabulous idea but I pondered a little about whether such an idea was really all that helpful. Surely if we needed to change stuff we’d- just do it, on our own, with no prompting. (I am laughing so hard at the ridiculousness of that last sentence I may need medical attention!) Of course it isn’t that easy… There are many HUNDREDS of stories where persistence pays off, it’s OLD wisdom, really, really old… and in todays fast paced life (apparently that’s old too… modernity of every era always feels faster than before ;) ) we say it a lot, but we rarely take heed. I often have no idea what the journey is that I have started upon until I am way along the road and even though I have along with many others set aside these 30 days to explore my practice… well this is just a chapter on a journey I started a while ago and a road I am still travelling and because it may help others I’m going to tell a little of the story here for you.

A little part of our home...

In spring/summer 2010 when the government changed and austerity began to creep into the public services and the grip tightened on the purse strings I was let go from my amazing, but basically temporary job. It had been a great job, my boss had been kind, I had been very reasonably paid considering my experience and it had allowed me to get back on my feet after a really difficult time personally and career wise. At some point that summer my parents suggested that maybe my brother would move in as my lodger and we could share the responsibility for housework and bills. He was HORRIFIED… He’s a minimalist… throws pretty much everything away and I am a chronic hoarder… my home at some times has been a few weeks of illness away from appearing on one of those dreadful Channel 4 shows! Well this prompted me searching the internet for anything that would help two twenty-somethings mutually keep house without injury and/or arrest being used on either/both parties. And so searching the internet, like one does, I came across a website that has literally changed my life forever… www.flylady.net…I even blogged about it in that previous blog I sometimes mention… and I read with interest and I acted upon what I read slow and steady. (Edd never moved into my house though :) )

Going back a moment, to the planning for the focus on cultivation, there was a request around the time of planning for this project for people to share things they thought useful and I shared the testimonial Marla Ciley (aka The FLYlady) herself shares about her own cultivation project, what prompted it, how it progressed and how it ultimately led her to be doing work every day that she loves.

Anyway I will not go through my entire story or even tell you how the FLYlady system works… because she does a fine job of that herself.

But I will tell you a little of how it has changed my life.

1. I now know how to get out of the mess I sometimes find myself in- I just pare everything back to the basics, asking myself... What am I already doing?… What can I piggyback onto those things to make life a little easier?
2. I am much more gentle with myself- I do less screaming and crying when things go wrong these days, I still get frustrated beyond belief, but it isn't quite as intense and it’s much shorter lived.
3. I have a group of amazing friends all over the world that I never expected to find, and they are my constant encouragement and blessing.
4. It’s sometimes okay to think of yourself as a part responsible adult, part little kid who wants to go outside and play…. It’s also very important to be firm with, as well as nice to, the little kid part of yourself!
5. Every day/month/year gets a little better- not all at once… in fact I haven’t even reached the point where I can smoothly navigate every habit I’d like to keep just to be able to get to and from my bed every day! But Christmases are joyful if not perfect and I find so much more time to appreciate things than I used to.
6. I rediscovered my spirit, and my spirituality- maybe a whole other blog for another day!
7. I feel generally much less abnormal about the state of my home… I grew up with the phrase “Everyone else’s *insert room/area/whole house* aren't like this” being repeated, in various insidious and confidence shattering guises, that I’d often feel so overwhelmed by getting started I just wouldn't. Why bother when you can never measure up?! Well NOT ANY MORE! (I still struggle with this, but I smile and keep going)
8. I know it’s okay to be a little obsessive about things… it can be a great motivator, but I must keep it in check and remember to REST!
9. I discovered the joy of writing again, because I discovered the joy of reading again and was really inspired by some of the things I read that I wanted to share my experiences too
10. Finally it’s “Progress not Perfection”... that’s what it’s about, there would be NO life WITHOUT living… the moving along is part of the joy of it… there is no final state or final answer within life…. nothing is perfect because nothing ever stops… I am still working to let perfectionism go…(see point 7) it’s probably going to be my lifetimes work, but I’m absolutely okay with that.

You’ll see that most of what I have noticed has changed is almost nothing to do with housework… (if you skipped going to look at the FLYlady website you'll have read this entire blog and wondered where housework came into it at all!) you see that’s mainly because those parts don’t really matter so much because the thing to really do is Finally Love Yourself.

Cultivating Thoughts... Day Two

So those who visit my house at the open don't get invited in.  Because things are in disarray.  Tonight I dreamed of a space that works for our family...  What do we need how do we connect to the garden...  What is our sitting room even for?

Helpful stuff to download in a brain doodling session,  which I very much enjoyed.

Really surprisingly the sense of satisfaction and closure from writing the next day's date on the subsequent page is nostalgia inducing from my previous career... It's unexpectedly pleasant.

The picture shows the centre of the diagram with the room in question in the background. (It is just stacked full with stuff)

Cultivating thoughts... Day One

Those of you who have been with me from the beginning in what seems like another life and was indeed another blog... May remember that I like actions. I like actions very much... Doing stuff is where it's at as far as I'm concerned.

I've tried many things/hobbies/pursuits over the last 30 years... I play recorder, flute, piano, ukulele, act, (can't dance have tried doesn't prevent me treading the boards anyway), poi spinning, card making, sketching, painting, colouring, pastels (oil and chalk!), cooking, baking, website design, desktop publishing, loom knitting, cross stitch, candle making etc... etc... etc...

I've joined choirs, bands, societies, clubs, churches, teams... I've given up meat and chocolate (never try to start both concurrently) given up the later with the temptation of a lovely chocolate cake and then given up former with trying to live with my carnivorous father's attempts at vegetarian cooking as I became bored with cheese sauce a'la frozen veg and got a little too thin.

All in all I am a great starter... And if pushed (or I enjoy it) I'll stick at something. But the dead blogs of the past are, unfortunately, testament to why I find giving up easier than sustaining something long term. I did teach myself to ride my bike without stabilisers in a concerted effort one afternoon aged 10 and aged 19 I read an entire book about writing HTML cover to cover, even the dedication, but most of the websites I designed never made it past the file structure of my C drive and I haven’t ridden a bike in years.

However, with a little persuasion, I've been encouraged to take up a challenge this month to coincide with the month of Ramadan by the team at New Unity in London. Rather than the idea of denial and self sacrifice I have often associated with Lenten rituals, I've been reminded how important it is to CULTIVATE FOR GROWTH... Read about the idea here and Andy Pakula's message here.

Aside- Saturday I ate a really rather sour and tiny strawberry from a three year old plant... It was dreadful... It was a lucky strawberry to exist at all, but I haven't tended that pot in ages and the compost therein is certainly spent.

And so I thought upon what I would like to cultivate in myself. And if #WeBecomeWhatWeDo all in all I decided like to be less bothered by stuff.

I'd like to worry less and achieve more.

This seems simple enough and if I were of a stronger, more tough and decisive persuasion that statement alone would be enough and I could get on with my life... Although if that were the case I'd most likely not worry so much in the first place and there is the rub.

So I realised I needed to work out a practice, which is going to support my new found position. And looking back over the past history of abandoned projects this one had to be easy enough to do, not take up too much time, and it needed to give me the sense of satisfaction of a job well done that means I'll stick with it for the duration and not fade out part way through.

What I have realised is that I actually achieve loads, but I am really terrible at recognising and celebrating stuff I do make things happen and I am also chronically inclined to defer doing something, either until the very last opportunity, or just abandon an idea completely and in the process letting people down or carrying a large amount of guilt around afterwards for no discernable good reason. That sort of pattern doesn't leave much time for celebration or satisfaction.

I decided early on in considering this cultivation that I like writing… I’ve been enjoying putting this blog together for the last few hours and I’m still enjoying it, but I'm excited by the idea just now and I realise I couldn't possibly do this every day! There are also many projects like #100happydays or the post three positive things to your Facebook page for a week... which I have been nominated to do and ignored... I only got half way through the lovely Gretchen Rubin's book The Happiness Project before I had become overwhelmed by all the ideas I'd thought of to try out!

So inspiration struck me that when I'm stuck at something I draw a diagram. I have a love affair with A3 paper and felt tipped pens... and I treat these diagrams with the utmost respect.

• Bimonthly at work I draw out a new one to highlight any up coming projects or important dates to my colleagues and pin it up on the wall by my desk.
• If I am listening to a lecture or trying to learn a new set of instructions to work a particular computer system in my job I doodle my way to understanding with page after page of colourful hand written notes and pictures which I use as a visual reference later on and eventually fix in my mind so I no longer have to read them and can navigate my way clear when I revisit a topic.

A very famous gentleman has the copyright on one form of creating these diagrams, but honestly I think I knew about creating them long before I ever read a book about the process... I'm naturally inclined to connect stuff in that way.

So I stayed at my desk a little while longer after work today and started writing/drawing until I became distracted and couldn't think of another thing to put down without having to work too hard to draw it out of my brain... and I felt better for having "downloaded" my thoughts.

So this project book was picked up after work today... I cracked out my new tin of pens!

I drew it a nice cover!

and I took some time to make a quick copy of the earlier prototype thought web from the afternoon.

A blurry Day One!

The plan is to draw a different one each day... the first one is stuff that was floating around in my head come a Monday afternoon in one of the busiest periods of my life so far! But there are other things I'd like to explore that allow me step that bit closer to cultivating the kind attitude which allows me to just get on and do stuff. So the first one is called Aleks' Brain and I didn't mind sharing it but I can't promise that they will all be public access!

I will however make an effort to share an associated photo... but the point of the book is it's real and it's offline... it's physically sitting in my conservatory begging to be played with!

The pens are good too! :)