(I wasn't sure if this should be one post, two, or more. I've decided it will be more than one)
She hadn't been seen since last Thursday, and her blog was stripped of content leaving behind only the headings with a link to an Instagram account showing a few dated pictures. In previous weeks some blog entries alluded to “having bad days” and a measure of depression, despite the bright cheery tone of the text. I wonder what happened. I have colleagues who are friends (or is it friends who are colleagues?). I have family and a social circle. I know people I've never met. Their lives all tell a truth about life. Two have spouses with breast cancer. One hates his job, while another's wife is deeply ill and possibly dying. One faces losing her job by the end of this year, and one had a miscarriage last week. There's one who has to live on a cocktail of medication. Three had children who were anorexic and suicidal. Some are living with the pain and loneliness of divorce and fractured families. A few have children who cause them deep pain due to poor life choices. Some are fighting with each other, and some carry a burden of personal illness. There are those in deeply fractured relationships that separate families and more. There has even been a murder. And then there's the parent who beat his children into bruises, yet hides behind protestations of innocence. Nevertheless, when we cross paths at meetings, workshops, reunions, dinners, wherever - the social norms take over. We present polite faces that are, if not cheerful, at least cordial. And in bantering exchanges we “carry on”. What, at any given moment, is it really like in anyone's mind? We all have mental health issues. All of us are mentally ill. Some are brave enough to live it out in the open, others hide behind façades of cold intellect, or retreat into seclusion, or seek protection in positions of power. Others find an inner strength to suppress ever showing their deviancy - yet self regulation is sometimes too effective, and stifles the soul. Still other's simply blind themselves. We are all broken; mental health is our pandemic. Many of us share similar problems, in fact so many of us share the same shortcomings that we've called it “being normal”. As a result, those with more unusual struggles are labled as deviant, ill, or abnormal. They become sidelined because they bring discomfort to other's "normality", and their isolation is increased unless they find more courage than the rest of us “normal” folk. Perhaps they are the only ones living in true honesty about who they are? (part 2 here - it's a bit less depressing)
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Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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