A thread for people to learn some more about mental illness

Thanks for your honesty soontobe.I have experience of I in my close family but not personally .It can be very debilitating and further anxiety is caused by how it might affect future career plans.

I once talked to a complementray therapist, a colleague of mine and he said he has regular appointments by a pilot who suffers from stress.
The pilot has sworn him to secrecy as he will lose his job and presumable his lifestyle if his employers were to find out. He had regular massages and various treatment which he claimed to help.

This implys that a mental health problem which can be kept secret will always be a weak point in anyone who has a responsible job, I often wonder if those who work in air traffic control are checked for mental health issues as they could easily cause a mid air collision if they so choose and so on it could happen to anyone.

It is based on ignorance from day s long gone when people used to point the finger at people who were mentally subnormal, it got mixed up with mental illness and even today I hear people say 'oh take no notice shes mental', meaning someone has had treatment for mental illness. It is going to be a hard prejudice to break.

Wouldn't the complimentary therapist have a Code of Conduct including Duty of Care?
I find that very disturbing indeed..........
Many people with depression can cover it up, I speak from experience, but when it overtakes you then even day to day functioning is nigh on impossible.
And yes, I feared for my career and hence left my last job as I realised I was heading back down the slope into a black hole if I stayed.

I have suffered with it (and severe anxiety) on and off for about 25 years. I believe mine to be caused by life events - terrible childhood, losing family members young and not so young, latterly all my hair falling out - I won't go on. It was as though my mind became overloaded and something had to give and it did. I have never taken medication because I didn't want to go down that route, perhaps I should have. It is a horrible condition and I fully understand why people who have never experienced it would say 'oh for goodness sake, pull yourself together'. I would have done the same before I began to experience it. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes is a good expression. My brother suffered with it many years ago and ended up throwing himself off a building at the age of 24 (sorry to be graphic but he did). He was constantly being told to 'get over it'. Unfortunately I was also guilty of saying that to him much to my shame now. I did try to get him to seek help but in those days (the 1970s) there was not much help and a lot of shame attached. The poor lad thought he was going mad, which he clearly wasn't. It's a terrible illness, you feel detached from the rest of the human race, and can see no upside to life. Fortunately I have a good family around me and have been able to pull myself up. Good post soontobe.

That is awful about your brother KatyK
I think everyone still has a lot to learn about it all.

I agree that the work aspect is the biggest stumbling block to it all.

About 10 years after my depression, my husband and I were accepted to become foster carers.
I did wonder if my diagnosis of depression would stop that. I decided to be upfront about it right from the start of the detailed process that it takes to be accepted to become a foster carer.
But all the social workers, and the acceptance panel were quite ok about it. They do look into medical records as well as many other things.

It's not the taboo it once was. That can only be a good thing. There are levels of it I think. Some cases can be very severe and some milder.

Thank you for being so honest about your problems.

I too have had a serious depressive illness from which I am just beginning to emerge; although I do not yet feel secure about it, and stressful events cause me to begin to feel that I am slipping again.

My symptoms were:
- an appalling and indescribable sense of ill-being that would start with a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, and proceed to overwhelming weakness to the point where I could barely lift my arms.
- I truly felt that I was having the life sucked out of me and that I was dying. The suicidal urge is related to that - a desire to just get it over with as the feeling is so deeply unpleasant and intolerable.
- this would be followed by bouts of uncontrollable sobbing.
- it also seems to be related to my migraines which share some of these symptoms.

The diagnosis was interesting, as in some ways I did not have classical depressive symptoms - I did not for instance lose interest in life; I was desperate to get back to normal and be out and about.

So...that is what it felt like for me, and I live in fear of it coming back.

Throughout I have been determined not to cover up what was happening to me and to name it like it is amongst friends and family. On principle I was not prepared to pretend that I was "just under the weather" or whatever, because I think it is important to be up front to try and clear some of the myths and stigma. Absolutely no-one has been anything other than kind and supportive. I hope I will be able to be the same to others now that I understand better what it is all about.

This is why I am trying to understand this poor young pilot as I know that in those terrible sinking moments there is no awareness of life being precious, either yours or anyone else's. You feel so ill that you want no more of it; and a part of you wants no more of it for those you love, as your view on life at those moments is so negative that it is hard to get inside another person desire to live.

It is a truly dreadful illness and the available treatments are hit and miss and controversial, as they have always been.

I firmly believe that the basis is some sort of migraine/seizure type activity in the limbic system in the brain. That is certainly how it feels for me as it drops from nowhere and causes marked physical symptoms.

I'm in the midst of an episode and it's crippling.

So sorry to hear that vq - I know how hard it is. "Crippling" is an apposite word. My DD, who had ante-natal depression described it as "pure torture." I know what she meant.

Vq - have you got all the medical help that might be useful? I can only say what a fellow-sufferer kept saying to me when I was at my worst. She would hold both my hands in hers, look me in the eye and say "You will get better" - I found it hard to believe her, but she was right. Vq - you will get better, and I am holding your hands.

I am so impressed by this thread and by the people opening up on it. I do agree that attitudes to mental illness are better than they were but still have a long way to go - we only have to look at the tabloid headlines today and some of the other media and social media coverage of the Germanwings crash ( and sadly some of the posts on GN). There must be huge variations in whether people feel they can 'come out' to employers/family/ friends and yet if you feel you cannot, then not getting the help and support you need can only make things worse. I have dealt with people with mental health problems( in terms of whether they are fit to go back to work and if so under what circumstances) who are being very well supported by their employers and professional associations. its very heartening when they are able to function safely but what has often been the case is that they hid it to start with for fear of losing their jobs - and of course, their jobs were sometimes the root cause of the problem or, at least, aggravated a predisposition. What I think I know about mental illness is that it is very very complex, covers a huge range of conditions and that a myriad of factors impinge on and contribute to it. In the case of the young pilot, we can feel sorrow for all the victims and him as well - it's not mutually exclusive and there is no cap on our compassion. We shouldn't be baying for blood - and we should be aware of coming up with simplistic tough solutions. As is said 'hard cases make bad laws'

Thank you for starting this thread!

I have no personal experience of mental illness but have had a couple of close family members who have suffered and I now feel that I did not cope well with them!

Hopefully this thread will help promote a better understanding for those of us trying to help sufferers.

(((Hugs))) VQ. I do hope you surface soon.

I have been in a mental hospital twice . Untill 1966 I was a happy, healthy person. October 1966 I was at the Aberfan disaster, it was my infant and junior school, I had lived in that street, played in some of the houses which were demolished, I witnessed little bodies being dug out , I handed mugs of tea to fathers , grandfathers , uncles who were not only digging for bodies but had spent their working life digging out of the pit the same muck that buried their children. Something snapped for me, the safest place in the world for children was the most dangerous for children . Four years later I had severe post natal depression, no one could convince me my babies were not in constant danger , even when asleep in their cribs . Their food would poison them, the health visitor would drop them, the doctor would inject them with poison , I was admitted to a physciatric ward . There was a young mother there, she had thrown her baby against the wall, thank God he fell onto a sofa, she knew but no one would listen, she had given birth to Rosemary's Baby, she is now a loving mother and grandmother . 1974 and 1975 I lost two babies , 1976 my husband was killed in a car crash whilst on a drugs raid, that night we had a disagreement and I was in a strop , I didn't say take care, I always did this. it kicked off again , the babies died because I hadn't protected them, my husband died because I didn't say take care . To me all this was logical, everyone else was wrong , I stopped eating because it was wrong to eat when my husband couldn't eat , into a physciatric unit 1977. I still have a phobia of snow, terrifies me, snow covers just as that sludge covered my school. I am prone to Agoraphobia, it my way of feeling safe, logical ? The only way I can describe mental illness is - it's the dark night of the soul, no one can reach you

Thank you for your post annie - it can only be good to help people understand what it is like to be in the grip of these dreadful illnesses. Knowledge is power and an opportunity for understanding.

I know that, in spite of being a social worker and having contact with many people with mental illnesses, I truly had no idea whatsoever what they were going through until it came my way.

The more we understand the better.

Annie that is so sad.

You have been through so much. Aberfan. Losing your babies and your DH. No wonder it all became too much

I have suffered from depression in the past and found counselling very helpful. But I have to say my depression was nothing compared to some of your illnesses! I wish anyone suffering my very best heartfelt wishes. Bless you. ��

Thank you Mishap, Anya. I went into detail in an attempt to explain that thoughts of a person with a mental illness are to them logical, to the well they are totally illogical . If I posted here and said my husband died because I didn't say take care I know many would be kind and reassuring, tell me I was not responsible, I know I was not responsible but at that time I truly thought I was. This is what a mental illness can do, make the totally illogical so logical . There is such a fine line between sanity and insanity and anything can push us over that line

Vampirequeen, please reach out to people , you will come through this episode , x

Anniebach I, and most likely all of us on here, remember Aberfan only too well. It was an obscene disaster. What it must have been like to have witnessed it, I cannot begin to imagine.

Annie and hugs. I don't know what to say .

Thank you to everyone who is opening up on here.
I echo what Babs said.

A person with a mental illness can think that they are acting very logically.
In my case, it took me a few weeks to recognise that I should only make the simplest of decisions until I was well again.
Even things like school letters, I ended up handing straight to my husband to deal with.

The pilot on the plane may well have thought that it was the doctor who had got things wrong, and that he was safe to fly.

Anniebach. Your situation was truly awful.
I do hope that I have not upset yourself and others by this thread.

It's good to start a thread like this, for people like Mishap and Annie, who are still suffering (sorry if I've missed anyone), for those who are feeling better, and for friends and relatives. It spreads awareness and gives support.
I've experienced living with mentally/ emotionally ill people (ex husband and son) and the most difficult thing about it is that it seems like a life sentence . It's part of the given personality.
My job involved working with disturbed people too.
The thing that opened my eyes was reading The Divided Self by RD Laing -
www.amazon.com/The-Divided-Self-Existential-Psychology/dp/0140135375
explaining the the thought processes of schizophrenics to make sense.
Modern drugs help, but aren't the sole answer - people need to talk and write about it more.