Why?

 

I make no secret of the fact I suffer from depression and mental illness variations, I’m not proud of it but I’m not scared to admit to people what I’m like in a hope that people can understand me when I’m having a bad time. What most non sufferers fail to understand is that I don’t need a reason to feel down, there does not have had to have been an event that has changed my mood, it just happens.

This is where one of my biggest bug bears comes from, when I’m down and you know I am suffering the last thing I want to hear is someone trying to work out what’s wrong with me, I don’t want 40 questions, I don’t want petty amateur psychological post mortems, I don’t want to be asked why I’m down, I just want people to understand and maybe give me a wide berth if I’m acting agitated.

I have no issues with people chatting with me when I’m ok, I am happy to discuss my problems then but when I’m clearly in the grip of an episode I need to be side stepped. Most of my friends realise this and know the ropes but there’s on good friend that believes he can lift the mood or change my emotions by asking loads of questions like “what’s happened to make you like this”, “there’s no point in being unhappy” and so on and so forth.

I then am not rude but blunt and say I have to go as my minds not in the right place but you can tell by the voice that he thinks I’m being both rude and stupid and I should have listened to him.

I wish people would stop and understand that mental illness is just about as horrible as an illness can get in the fact that it eats away at your mind, sometimes constantly, sometimes not but there’s no instant fixes and trying to play the shrink isn’t helpful. I am my own worst shrink as it is, I struggle daily to try and find a feeling, a mood, a mind state that will break me out of this nightmare.

I simply don’t need the extra hassle when I’m down.

The people who suffer understand my ramblings, the people who don’t suffer must try and understand that we when down are not a cheap bit of entertainment for you to try your Acme Shrink degree on, I so wish people would get that, it would make the down times a lot easier to handle.