Vivat Libertas

Content note: talking about depression, suicide and other such fun things - no gruesome details but if it upsets you then don't read this I don't know how to talk about this, but I feel like I have to talk about it: mentally ill people are caught in a shitty situation. The most immediately identifiable problem is the environment. Despite many, many shiny campaigns over the years, mental illness is still stigmatised; the people actually reached by the campaigns aren't necessarily the people who enforce that stigma. Families, who should be supportive, often...well, aren't. This is compounded by lack of access to information. I'm not sure what it's like in other countries, but when I was growing up in the UK very little information about mental illness was provided to young people. It took me three years and two suicide attempts to realise that I might have to go to a doctor about this. (Yes. Really.) The combination of stigma and not being provided with i...

Obvious triggers for suicide and depression are obvious. People get really, really angry when it comes to making jokes about depression, suicide and mental illness. You could make a case that they're right to do so; after all, mental illness is rarely presented honestly. It's usually romanticised or stigmatised. Why would trivialising it be any better? My honest answer is that trivialising it doesn't help. But my honest answer has a second part to it: I'm fed up of well-meaning but annoying people yelling "you're trivialising mental illness!" every time I fail to get out my handkerchief and cry over the great tragedy . Look, it's no big secret that I'm a suicidally depressed mental patient. I don't hide it online, because I have no reason to. If anything, I have several good reasons to talk about mental health openly and honestly. And it's no big secret that learning to manage your illness involves coping mechanisms. As a long-time fa...

If discussions of depression and suicide trigger you, I suggest you don't read this post. If you find flippant quips about depression and suicide offensive, I also suggest you don't read this post. Hey, internet people! Instead of looking at cute cat video #364736463 or addressing the gnawing insecurity about how you think you've fucked up your life and are stuck doing something you hate, why not read something inspirational about how a really, really bad thing actually turned out to be a secret gift? Yeah, why not? Well, for a start, you've come to the wrong place. I'm not very good at doing this inspirational thing at the best of times. This is just about the best of all possible times and I'm still being a grumpy little dipshit, which tells you something. I'm not going to tell you the story of six years of depression and five attempts at killing myself (I should really stop, I'm rubbish at this suicide lark), or of being in and out of ther...

I don't know if anyone else feels the same way, but personally I find depression boring as shit. Right, now that I've probably got people all riled up and telling me to be more sensitive about mental health issues instead of being a judgemental twat, let me explain. I don't find depression as a mental health issue boring, because I don't find mental health issues boring. This is mainly because I'm sick and tired of having them swept under the proverbial carpet, but let me move swiftly on...I don't find people talking about depression boring as shit either. Again, I don't like having those issues swept under the carpet - and I've found it useful to be able to share experiences with others and not feel guilty or ashamed. No, what I find boring about depression is the utter monotony of it all. You wouldn't think it, but being miserable is actually very repetitive...Wanting to die gets old. Being vulnerable and shaking and crying gets old. Hurting an...

So this all started with an absolutely terrible event. I've lost my mind like I haven't done in a long time, so this post isn't going to be at all coherent. Have fun deciphering my mental scrabblings, guys. Long story short, everyone's alive. Everyone now wants to move on - except me. But why? you might ask. Moving on is desirable, the end goal after trauma. Not moving on is for weaklings, attention seekers and other such - to put it impolitely - absolute fuckheads that no sane human being wants to associate with. The trouble with me is that I think too much. It's certainly better than doing the opposite, but I don't think in straight and clear lines or elegant curves: I think in circles, tangles, swerving in sharply as I spin towards the centre of the proverbial downwards spiral. It's not good for me. Sometimes I think a lobotomy would help. It's especially odd, as in depression most activity of just about anything in the body is reduced - that...

Life in general is a neverending stream of mild annoyances - well, it's a neverending stream of much more than that, good and bad, but I'm known for being pessimistic, negative and a lover of complaining. Between you (because let's face it, there aren't that many of you) and me, I like it that way; it means I have a way to vent about the bad things in life instead of repressing them behind faked smile upon faked smile. So why complain so much about how depressives are treated by the people around them? After all, there are a million and one things to complain about, from the exploitative nature of capitalism to how I hate having to put the bins out early. What makes this more worth complaining about than anything else? There are many things worthy of complaining about, I admit - but this is one of them. You see (and if you're sane, this will very probably offend you) people who have never been depressed seem to think that they have some unique insight into t...

People might be wondering why I'm so damn happy for a depressive. The answer, apart from my being an anomaly in the universe and just generally bad at being a human being, is going through recovery. And then people might wonder why I try to recover, where I find the strength to not just give up and die already. Despite months of therapy, I'm still not sure I could give anyone a straight answer to that. Sleep, decent diet, and having less pressure on me (although my term's just started, so hello stress) all help, but they're not the main things. Actually, at times I've not been quite sure how the hell I made it through the last few months; I think my partner and family were basically dragging me by the hair through each day. Perhaps the one thing I could say is that at the time, I was very desperate; feeling like a dead, rusted machine and being ripped apart by psychogenic pain does tend to pull you out of your comfort zone a little, and it also tends to make you...