World Mental Health Awareness Week

Noticing today that there’s a lot going on in my head, not sure 100% what is going on but feeling drained and not sure where to go next.

I’ve started using this app that asks me how I’m feeling at regular intervals — it also gave me a prompt to look after myself when I recorded a low mood repeatedly. This makes me think about when I go see my psychologist and how I have a really positive mood a lot of the time, maybe this is because I subconsciously want to convince her that I am fine and doing really well. When I can convince her that I’m fine, then I’ll believe it. Problem with this is that I avoid actually fixing my issues and perpetuate them, not a great space to be in and really just prolonging it all…

Think I really need some more time to consider what is going on for me. What I care about. What and where I want to be. I need to look after myself better. I need to do a lot of things, however it’s a mission to find the will, impetus, or motivation to do any of it.

How do we balance getting help with being a productive member of society?

Something that I have really struggled with is trying to keep things going and humming along when I know I’m struggling to get out of bed in the morning. There’s nothing more difficult right now than just going to work. I have employment, I have the ability to go and do work, to win work, and then just fall over when it starts. But even then I doubt my own ability to win any work, I think deep down I secretly want my world to burn down so I have an excuse to not do anything, to just escape.

It’s been really good having some time and space to process my own thoughts and figure out what it means to be self-sufficient. When life throws you in the deep end, it really is sink or swim. I’m somewhat torn between the idea that everyone should be self-sufficient and be able to look after themselves, and then the idea of leaning on other people.

At what point does it bad enough for you to lean on those around you? Do you need to justify it?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like to bleat on and be negative Nancy. I’m all for being positive, loving life, seeing the beautiful things in the everyday and benign. Something that I’ve both learned and been told is that we need to share the negativity around and make sure that those magical people in our lives only bear a small portion of our sorrows.

But fuck this, and fuck that. I’m also really over not being able to be authentic, to say to someone when they ask me

“how are you?”,

“Fucking aye, I hate the world right now and I’m finding it really hard to just find value anywhere!”.

That sucks, this is a rant, and I know that, I know it in my bones, I can feel the emotion pouring from my hurting soul as I type these words into my computer. I’m sitting in a bar right now, people around me celebrating all sorts of things — from new babies to recent holidays. I don’t dislike them for their happiness, if anything it slightly helps me acknowledge there are still good things in the world. But at the same time I honestly find it hard to reconcile my current emotional perspective on the world with what I see in others. Let me go into that for a bit. I’m struggling to fundamentally feel that there are good things in the world, even when I can see them around me, when I’m stuck in such a mood. That sounds really negative. That’s a bit shit aye. But what do you do with that?

That little outburst left me somewhat lost for words. I’m kinda just typing things that make no sense. Let’s get back on track. It’s World Mental Health Awareness Week, and I’m trying to gather the courage (is it really courage?) to start talking more publicly about what I’m feeling and how to get through it all. Something that is really amazing is the People’s review of the New Zealand mental health system went live earlier this week. It’s a collection of the most astonishing tales from those who have both directly and indirectly experienced the New Zealand mental health system in any of its facets. Those stories illustrate something that we’re not addressing in New Zealand. That (IMHO) is that we have a crisis on our hands, a crisis that has been building for many years. We have the highest rate of youth suicide in the OECD which is yet to be truly addressed, and this really is something we need to take a look at quite critically. How can we as a society function when we are not addressing such horrendous calamities?

For one the answer lies in our laws around reporting on suicides…

Did you you know that New Zealand is one of the few countries that has laws around what the media can report when it comes to suicides? Originally that was to stop people (media/journalists) glorifying suicides. That’s an issue, but is it bigger than reporting the fact that there’s a ridiculous number of young people in Aotearoa who’re dying by their own hands? It’s fucked. Sorry, but it is.

Just thought about all of the strong language, ah well, fuck it, life is tough and this won’t be the worse thing you ever hear or read

Anyway, back to the fact that it’s all doom and gloom in our fair land… What can you do about it? Fuck knows. You tell me, what are you prepared to do about the mental health of the nations we live in? What will you do for a more well society? Does it matter to you at all? I’d love hear more from you. Tweet me @jarvisimon — I’ll reply. I’m keen to have this discussion.

Whatever this discussion needs to be as well, for each of us the words, and tone, and meaning are different. Overall mental health is something that we can all orientate ourselves around thought, something that we all feel and can relate to. Mainly because we have a brain, emotions (for the most part), so yeah mental wellbeing is quite important.

Tone Change, it’s really important (yeah I know, totally sounding hypocritical/contradictory right now) to make sure you do little things for yourself each day.

And back to it

It’s quite amazing sometimes when you hear people around you that remind you of yourself and those you personally interact with. It can be quite a wakeup call to what you sound like, or perhaps how you’re perceived to those around you.