Catrin
Catrin
Jul 21, 2017 · 3 min read

This is a rushed rant and it’s personal and probably unnecessary but I want to talk about something.

The fact is that people do speak out but we let them down.

A few years ago I landed myself in hospital having overdosed and the first doctor I saw actually asked me “Is there anyway that this is attention seeking?”

As a society, as a community, as friends we spit a lot of bile about people ‘speaking out’ and asking for help but there I was 17 years old scared I’d made a decision I couldn’t come back from and my doctor decided to blame me rather than the illness I was diagnosed with three years prior to that.

I am often still too scared to speak publicly and honestly about my mental health for fear of being received in that same way.

A few years down the line I’m sitting with my personal tutor at university, crying my eyes out about how I can’t remember the last time I felt joy. He said to me ‘but no one sees that, they just see someone who doesn’t care and at the end of they day no one gives a fuck if you fail’. Once again, someone who’s job it is to guide me blamed me for an illness I was diagnosed with 6 years prior to that.

Around the time of that conversation I woke up one morning absolutely decided that on that day I was going to commit suicide. I tidied my room, I put on clothes I felt good in and I sat down at my desk and wrote a letter to my mother. It was a good bye. What I forgot that morning was that I had already organised to see a friend, when I remembered and messaged him to cancel he phoned me because he knew something was off. So I decided to put his mind at ease I would see him. Because he had reached out to me, because he picked up on what no one in the world noticed that day, I am alive. Because he saw the signs and he acted on them, he could have replied ‘OK cool’ when I cancelled but he actually gave a fuck about whether I was okay.

We need to start giving a fuck about whether other people are okay. We need to stop blaming people for being unwell and start acting. Who gives a fuck if you think it’s not your place, if you think someone else closer to them should… People won’t if you don’t. If you’ve noticed, if you’ve heard you need to act. It is so easy to reach out to other people in these times, do it.

When I was an angsty youth who’s parents were splitting up, who was trying to comprehend feelings that latee became an illness, Linkin Park helped me. They spoke honestly about feelings so many of us have and singing their songs (among many others) in the car with my mum and my older sister is one of my favourite memories of my childhood because no matter what was happening in our live in those moments we were all just together, singing.

I sadly believe Chester’s death won’t be the wake up call the world needs but for God’s sake, how many more people need to die before people start giving a shit?

The responsibility to get help can’t be on the mentally ill when the help isn’t out there to go get. We all need to start giving way more to each other.

I’m not really sure how to wrap this up but like basically I just want better, we all deserve better.

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Catrin

Written by

Catrin

i write bad poemz/still trying to figure everything out