Off Topic Mental Health Discussion Thread

Spot on Filey.
Go get the help you need Brady.

 

Really pleased to see this thread here. Encouraging people, especially blokes, to talk is so important and it is a massive sign of strength to be able to share your worries with others.

My mum and my biological dad separated when I was a toddler. This was a tough time for my mum but she eventually met someone else, technically my step father but the man who I very much class as my dad. I was about 6 or 7 when mum remarried so was fortunate to grow up in a secure and supportive family environment. My biological dad kept in touch but he pretty much lost touch by the time I was about 9. As a child, this left me asking lots of questions but as an adult the reasons for the estranged nature my biological dad had towards my sister and I has become much clearer. Unfortunately, he was a man who had his fair share of personal problems and he took his own life in the summer of 2003. To this day, nobody knows why, and that is always the hardest thing with suicide.

Although we had lost contact, this was a massive shock as I couldn't comprehend why someone would be in a position where they would take their own life, let alone a parent. I remember been in a strange period of about 9 months after it happened where none of what had happened bothered me too much and I was carrying on pretty much normally. However, I then went through about a 2-3 year period where it really bothered me. I felt like I was constantly upset and this made it hard to maintain and make new friendships. I was lucky to have a good group of friends who understood the gravity of what had happened but the jibes from some kids of 'you did not know him really, get over it' made it worse as I felt I was in this hole over nothing and people did not care. This really affected my teenage years and I did attend counselling meetings for a time.

Despite these demons, I worked hard and got the grades I needed to get to university. I had a few wobbles still around my 18th Birthday as its those type of occasions where people in your family, estranged or not, feel prominent if they are not there. Uni started well but I then fell back into a state of sadness I'd had a few years earlier. I didn't want to be on the end of the phone crying to a family member or a friend from home and I didn't feel comfortable talking to people I had just met about it. One night, I was in my room at uni and found myself sobbing uncontrollably. I felt at the time like I would never be happy again and that this would be something which would hang over me forever. However, it was at the lowest ebb that I plucked up the courage to open Facebook chat and confide in a good friend about the troubles I was having. She was fantastic and supportive all the way through. The following day, I met up with her and talked to her face to face. This act of talking started to make me feel more at ease and I steadily felt more able to make peace with what had happened. I only ever told a handful of close friends at uni, but I gradually felt like I could move forward and stop looking back.

I left uni with the degree I needed for my teaching career. I graduated in 2012, and to be honest that is the time I see as my watershed moment over the grief and sadness I had over my dad's suicide. As an adult, it's something I have made peace with and rarely find myself getting truly upset over anymore. Of course, the anniversary is always hard but the grief does no feel as raw anymore. Looking back, I can understand why I found what had happened so hard to deal with. Being a teenager is always tricky as you try to find your feet in the world but what had happened had made me anxious and sad and that exacerbated all the other worries you can have as a teen. Although these worries are now firmly in the past, I felt it important to share my experiences with the hope it could help someone in a similar position to take the chance to talk about things. Life can put you in dark places, but reaching out for help can be the light to lead you out of the tunnel.

 

Bloody hell someone's peeling onions in here.
Respect for posting.

 

That is tough mate. It really is heart warming that so many are opening up. When I was a lad there was no counseling or anything. I say this because I have since been told that part of my problems started when I was15 actually on the night of my leaving disco from secondary school. My father had bronchitis and needed an oxygen mask at home. I actually sas him struggling for breath and eventually die infront of me. What I'm trying to say is I had to cope more or less on my own although I had a big family,I got hugs but that was it. I dealt with it in my own way, by being the best son that I could be to my mum. I worked hard all my life. In some ways to make them proud. I don't know what the trigger was that caused the depression I just knew I wasn't me, my thoughts got so dark and the thoughts of that day came flooding back, why I ain't got a clue.

All I do know is talking about it really helps.

This thread is a real God send. Thanks for starting it. I don't know what to say to others. I would do anything to help anyone always have done.

We all have our problems I know many people have worse to deal with than me. Ignoring it is a MASSIVE mistake though.

Sorry for waffling on a bit.

Hope my grammar is ok.

Cheers and best wishes to all of you.

 

You don't have to apologise for waffling on at all! It says a lot about us as a group that so many people are feeling comfortable enough to share things like this. Best wishes to you too pal

 

****. That's tough. I think you have just described the trigger perfectly but you had to mask it for many years,? You don't say anything about how long your depression has lasted, what help you have had?

 

Right been wanting to comment on this thread for a few days.

I'm on the way home way he from a night out. So it may bit be incoherent.

First of all anyone who suffers from any sort of mental health issue is immensely strong.

My own personal experience is in 2014 I had about of around 6 weeks depression. I was unemployed and my step dad kicked me out of my childhood home.

I moved to my dad's and he had a lot of money problems. I ended up in a lot of debt. I paid bills for him including his mortgage.

I had a 6 week period we're In couldn't get of bed, didn't want to go out and had no motivation at all and strangely I felt freezing all the time.

I'm not sure how but I battled out of that, but I did.

In April 2015 I got a call centre job. But strangely I was decent at it. I got bonuses virtually every month. I was well respected. But in strange way it influenced a anxiety. At some points I was prying people wouldn't answer the phone.

I was was made redundant in September 2017 and I was petrified of being unemployed. But I did a week in boat yard and got a job processing orders for EE.

In January I got a job in a factory. It's the most stress free job I've ever had. I'm not under pressure and I work with some brilliant people. I'm in a industry I want to be in. That was through someone who put there neck on the line and didn't have too. I still owe him a pint or two.

Other things I can add is. My whole life my mum has had issues. She found her dad dead at at 12 after coming home from School. She miscarried 3 kids before me and my sister.

I've seen her do some pretty horrific things. I've seen her set fire to herself with Terps, overdose on tablets, swallow things like batteries, bleach and overdose on tablets.

But I'm hear I've battled myself through. And it's proof anyone can survive.

 

I too am really glad there is this thread, as have put before working as a psychiatric nurse I arrive to dystygmatise mental illness.
A few years ago I posted on another forum my disgust over some posters making fun out of some young girls who had suicided, I was angry with myself for getting so wound up, but other posters gave me support
On a personal front I lost a lot of confidence in myself when my marriage of 28 years ended quite acrimoniously in 2015 ,and even though I got support from friends it was still hard.My sister lived in the UK ,now Qatar, was supportive but far away.I am back to my usual self now.
I applaud Sterling Archer for implementing this thread,and I feel it makes us closer as a group .
As regarding sense of humour that is needed and as we all know following City is never smooth.

 

Sorry strive not arrive!

 

I like how you view that others (Your mum) have had it harder than you. It kinds of put your own problems into perspective a bit, and is probably a good way to see things.

I actually had the same feelings a short while ago, when I discovered how hard a life my Grandmother had. When she was three her dad was killed in the First World War (It was actually this that made me realise how hard her life had been when i was doing some research into our family tree and my brother sent me some material he had, and in the end i actually found a photograph online (using commonwealth War graves website and FindAGrave.com). On his headstone in a war grave cemetery in Calais was written to my loving Daddy from my grandmother when she was 3. In the Second World War she had met a soldier who she got pregnant to with my Mum, only for him to also get killed in action. She got married again and had a son (My uncle) who had a nervous breakdown when he was 16 and spent the rest of his life with Schizophrenia, until he died of an overdose (Not planned just got mixed up is what the coroner said). My Grandmothers marriage didnt last but her ex husband died not long after they divorced. My Grandmother struggled bringing up my uncle with his schizophrenia, and had a stroke some years later and was confined to her home. She then lost her daughter (my mum) to cancer, and finally died in hospital after a fall at home.

I’m not trying to outdo you Casual, it just seems right to share experiences and like you my learning of my Grandmothers struggles again puts my problems into perspective. It seems many peoples experiences that people have shared are very similar just different people, places and times, and helps you realise how you certainly aren’t the only one who has endured problems. In a strange way i do find sharing this quite therapeutic (Not as therapeutic as jetwashing anything that moved earlier today though !!!)

 

I've had mild it compared to most suffers.

Although it's made me feel crappy at times. It's never really stopped me doing anything.

Although life isn't easy. Generations of the past have had it alot worse.

 

This thread is both humbling & inspiring in equal measure x

 

Completely agree.

As I mentioned in a previous thread I have to say I am very oblivious to a lot of this stuff. I just accept all the people I work with are happy on the inside as well as the outside, or the quiet people are quiet because they like that.

This thread really brings it home about how much you really don't know about people and what is going on behind closed doors.

Like I said last time I am really going to try and listen more and shut up a bit more. All my friends will admit I talk a lot, and listen a little. I will do everything I can to change that.

 

Was driving earlier when an advert came on the radio about mental health. It said that if/when you ask a friend how they are, you should ask twice.

How are you feeling?

How are you really feeling?

 

I'm not sure about this, I can remember when people kept asking me how I was it made me feel worse, if they asked me twice I think I would get even more paranoid

 

I was sceptical when I heard it.

Likewise, I’ve just done my youth mental health first aid training and the first question you’ve got to ask is “Are you having suicidal thoughts?” Felt it would just get people’s back up and they wouldn’t want to speak to you.

 

But that would be in situations were someone had self harmed (or was talking about it). It would normally be professionals working with vulnerable clients.
I guess overall, what we can do is check the people we are surrounded by are ok. I can see that asking twice demonstrates that you actually mean it but maybe that is too ambitious. If we can get many people just asking/ checking out and giving people the opportunity to talk.......

 

Yes, I've done a course on conversing with people who may be having suicidal thoughts. I was told exactly that, and if they say yes it's perfectly alright to ask things like 'how would you do it?' and 'what plans have you made to do it', etc. It sounds a bit confrontational but it's the recommended approach.

 

So after waiting 5 months I chased up my autism diagnosis appointment. Coincidentally they'd emailed some pre assessment forms for me to fill out two days before I emailed but they didn't arrive until 2 days after. I think they backdated the letter. The forms arrived. They are forms which I already filled in 'to save time later' when I went to get a referral. My wife has now spoken to them on the phone. They apologised, there had been no indication on my file that I'd already filled them in. She'll see what she can do to rush my appointment through because I'm struggling with work but it might be another 6 months. Apparently there's a 6 month waiting list to fill out forms and another 6 months for an appointment.

I don't know if I can wait another 6 months. I wanted a diagnosis to show my employer and ask for help. Tempted to pay for a private diagnosis but have reservations because of the cost and I'd always be wondering if I only got a diagnosis because that's what I paid for.