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Reminder: World Mental Health Day is on the 10th October
[ 4 minute read ]
Opinion 
Mental Health
All I have left are my own monsters to deal with so I have to be honest to be able to recognise them.
'Ha Haa! Have at ye, you varlets! I shall strike you asunder. Your lies that bind me are my own concoction from the ingredients you offered me. You are discovered and measured. I have control over the eating of the cake you gave me the recipe for, and it shall not touch my lips.'
I sometimes consider mental ill-health to be a hostage-taker and I am the hostage, in that I also have to recognise that I have Stockholm Syndrome; I have a part of me that embraces the effect that PTSD from childhood has on me. It makes me different; it makes me find new routes for dealing with problems; it makes me more comfortable with social-isolation than most other people - I can concentrate in silence; the most wonderful aspect of my early PTSD is: it forces me to question everything.
However, the most wonderful aspects of life often give us the sharpest focus on the converse, the obverse, and the reciprocal. For me, that honed focus from a distant position, often called hyper-vigilance, also means I trust nothing and nobody. That wonderful aspect is, for me, a razor-sharp double-edged sword. Just like most of us, when I buy a new, expensive kitchen knife I often cut myself, so I keep the blunter one. I only use the superior cutting tool when it is necessary.
In terms of mental ill-health, using the blunter kitchen knife might be considered to be partial numbness, when trying to cut a loaf of bread with a spoon is numb. That means that the new super-sharp kitchen knife is carefully washed, dried and stored in a cupboard; never in a drawer or in a chefs knife-block on the work-top where it can be clumsily, and without adequate thought, be reached for when it is the nearest one and time is flying. Knowing it is there rather than using it usually keeps me out of trouble.
To continue the kitchen and cooking metaphor: Let's just say I can cook a delicious meal from meagre ingredients. I am interesting until I tell my guests I sourced, prepared, cooked, and served them their own coccyx; when 'coccyx' means 'emotions'. We all know how much any impacts on our coccyx hurts, males and females alike.
'How dare you?' I hear from them, and I think, 'How dare you not have more control?'
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says, I believe, that 1 in 4 people suffer from mental ill-health and I counter with, 'No, it is 4 people in 4, because your figures are for a single moment on a single day, and my figures are for a week, month, a year, and throughout our lifetimes'.
When we dream, as we sleep, we enter a form of psychosis; there are no real aliens or bears or beautiful flowers. Dreaming is essential, I hear, for making sense of our world because we are sorting and filing aspects of our days; we need to do that.
I am not trying to normalise mental ill-health. But, I believe, neither should any person or other entity normalise mental good-health.
Finally, on International Womens Day I cheekily offered up a question to a woman I know, under the auspices of jokingly suggesting hypocrisy. In other words, I carelessly used a knife with a fine edge.
'Why do women get a day every year to highlight themselves?' I sneakily asked with a smile.
'Because men get the other 364!' She speedily replied, half-smiling into my eyes.
She is naturally sharp. Touché!
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Samaritans offer free and non-judgemental talk
'If you need someone to talk to, we listen. We won't judge or tell you what to do.'
'Call us any time, day or night'
'Whatever you're going through, you can call us any time, from any phone for FREE.'
Call 116 123 (one one six one two three)
Their web page advises that there is a 10 minute delay to chat with them online, but you can if you can wait.