It’s World Mental Health Day apparently (again? feels like there’s one every week to be quite honest). Generally, there’s a lot of posts that are about talking or suggesting nice self-care things which are all very well and good. But. There doesn’t often seem to be a lot of thought about what happens after you’ve done the talking and had some dramatic breakthrough that like, duh, you’re anxious/depressed/insert appropriate diagnosis, leading you to immediately go off to see your GP for some of that therapy you’ve been hearing so much about.
Well, firstly you’ll find that there are actual waiting lists for therapy…
What? So like it’s time to talk, but I have to wait??
Afraid so, pal.
How long?
Could be anything from a couple of months to over a year depending on what you need.
Well, that fucking sucks.
Right. Say, do you find computers comforting?
I mean, I guess I’m on one a lot, why?
Well, while we’re not talking to you about your mental health problem, we do have *drum roll* computer therapy.
O… kay. What’s that like?
Have you ever seen those inspirational posts on Instagram? Sunsets, Gandhi quotes, that sort of thing…
A bit yeah. Wait… oh no…
Oh yes. Please sign up here.
Fine, I guess it can’t hurt.
Great. Now you appear to be getting treatment, according to the NHS anyway. Let me pass you over to your computer therapist.
Thanks, I’m incredibly excited.
“Welcome to computer therapy. Imagine sitting at your computer. You open a page. An Oscar Wilde quote fills your screen while you wait for something to load. Ah, don’t you feel more comforted already?”
…
“The page loads. A video appears. Someone speaks in that low toned quiet floating therapy voice over some trees blowing in the wind. There are twinkly sounds, it’s all so relaxing. Don’t you feel relaxed now?”
Am I supposed to be breathing or relaxed, I stopped listening to the weird voice, sorry.
“You’re supposed to be breathing AND relaxed, through our complete video series. Breathe! Breathe! Breathe! Relax! Relax! Relax!… but in a calm floaty way of course.”
Okay, okay, I’m breathing! Very relaxing, I think.
“That’s not all, read through these case studies of previous Breathe! Breathe! Breathe! Relax! Relax! Relax! participants.
Thanks Computer Therapist! One day, someone spilled my latte and I was like, woah, I feel really sad about that. So I started using Breathe! Breathe! Breathe! Relax! Relax! Relax! and now my life has totally changed. I’m like totally not sad, you know? Through the magical power of breathing and trees and inspirational quotes.
See? It’s completely revolutionary.”
Sorry, when do I get to talk to someone about my problems?
“Problems? You must mean moods. You can fill in this mood diary. And when we say mood diary we mean, choose an emoji! See this one š¦ that means ‘sad’ and this one here :,( that one means ‘crying’.”
Do you have an existential fear emoji?
“No, that does not compute. You must be sad, so I suggest a š¦ for today.”
Whatever. I think I’m still anxious?
“Really? After our revolutionary program? But your anxiety and depressions scores, they dropped by 0.02%, which means you count as successfully treated! Congratulations!
Er, thanks? I think I still need some more support though.
“Sorry, you’ve come to the end of our program. We can refer you to an actual human though.”
Do I get to talk then?
“You may get a phone call in two months. Or not. Don’t forget to rate us as amazing!”
[Two months pass]
“Welcome to computer therapy. Imagine sitting at your computer…
I briefly mentioned this phenomenon in my rant about how people view the terminally panicked, and also talked before about how I feel I present myself doesnāt necessarily fit with what people think of as mental health content per se. But given some of the prominent folk speaking out about their own mental health and theā¦ interesting reactions to that, I figured I could rant some more.
We all seem to be aware that sometimes, weāre not actually as confident as we present. Yet, we look at those around us who are confident, and instead of thinking they may feel just the same as us – somehow they are the truly confident, and weāre the huge fakers. There is something similar when it comes to mental health, and people’s perceptions of what that should be. Iām sure that people feel worried or miserable or whatever sometimes, and yetā¦ donāt show it. But somehow when you mention āmental healthā things change, and people suddenly become experts in something they know nothing about*, and get a whole lot less understanding. Especially when it gets in the way of things that they want you to do.
So as someone anxious, should I be visibly shaking? Wide eyed? Running down the road screaming in fear? And if Iām depressed, should I be lying on the floor, or walking around looking really miserable? It feels as though there has to be a āperformanceā of some kind – people expect to see something, you have to give them something they believe for them to go, oh yeah, sheās anxious. You canāt smile. You canāt be confident. You canāt wear nice clothes, or do well at things. You canāt tell people to fuck right off and own it. You have to be visibly broken and perform it for everyone too**.
And it has to be consistent. Maybe I smile when Iām out, but cry indoors, who knows? I have visibly shook before, but since every single person in the world hasnāt seen those few times I was shaking a bit, therefore itās fake. Once youāve got a mental health problem, then everyone has to see it, all symptoms, all at once, at all times. Are you outside, thinking of doing something like having fun? Stop that right now, because you have anxiety, remember? No good days for you anymore, bitch, you better start shaking at those passers by.
Johnnybunchofnumbers on Twitter doesnāt think that anxious people smile, so therefore we have to throw out everything we know on mental health, because only he knows what it can look like. Heās got magical insight into brains and thoughts and internal organs and everything else. It doesnāt matter what we feel and say and know about ourselves. It doesnāt even matter what our doctors say. Our therapists. Or the countless other medical professionals weāve no doubt seen over the years. What matters to others is what they can see, and if they donāt āseeā mental health, well then, we must all be faking.
*or sometimes they do but it doesn’t fit with their own experience. therefore, yours is wrong **but not too much. If you have visible scars, for eg, then there are some who think they should be hidden, lest they cause too many questions…
An interesting side effect of this pandemic has been a much greater focusonmental health. At first glance, this seems like a positive thing. A lot of people have been affected this year, not just in terms of anxious feelings about the pandemic, but dealing with grief, with job losses and with poorer health. And yetā¦ weāre increasingly seeing mental health getting hauled out now any time someone wants to argue against steps taken to mitigate against covid, like lockdowns or masks or whatever. āWhat about mental health??ā is the new Helen Lovejoy pearl clutching about the children, and Iāve gotta be honest, Iām absolutely fucking sick of it.
How many of these people, now suddenly caring about mental health, are those who couldnāt give a shit before? Who happily voted for parties that have done fuck all about mental health over the years. Iām pretty used to people pretending to give a shit, doing little facebook posts, bekind hashtags, but generally being the same sacks of shit they always are, so itās no surprise to me. They are the All Lives Matter types when the subject is black lives, but those white lives they profess to care about end as soon as it gets in the way of them going to the pub.
Well, Iām not your shield. As it goes, my mental health in some respects improved this year (and Iām not the only one). So donāt you dare speak for me. You think itās acceptable for people to die unnecessarily of covid? Have the fucking balls to own your shitty opinion.
And letās be fucking real here. Mental health is shit, but itās much shitter being dead. So Iāll take my chances with my anxiety, ta.
A couple of incidents recently have got me thinking about the notion of valid identities, and who is permitted to āspeakā for a community, or even belong in one. Iāve talked before on this blog about not feeling part of the āmental healthā community, such as it is, because I donāt write about it in the tried and tested formats. I donāt use it to promote products. I donāt weave it into all of my content. I donāt like being in spaces that are just for mental health. And thatās not to criticise folk who do – like, if thatās your thing, go for it. But it increasingly feels like there is only one way to do this. And if youāre not out there shouting the loudest, showing that youāre the most hurt or the most deserving, then people are very quick to make assumptions. āOnly hurt people talking about their hurt can be hurtā, which is bullshit, innit.
I donāt want to talk in detail about my anxiety all the time because Iāve said before – itās tedious. I get bored of it, I get tired of the mundanity of my life. I want to just joke around and have a laugh. Enjoy the moments when Iām not āanxietyā. A fairly tall order given my situation. But I manage it. I post funny shit my husband comes out with. I take pictures of outfits. I eat a lot of junk food. I do silly makeup. I take the piss out of politicians. I freelance. I study. I do everything I can manage, within the tiny sphere of my home, to widen my world and make it lighter. To fill my life with laughter* and fun and chase out whatever shitty feelings Iām having. And most people who start chatting to me online wouldnāt know unless I mention it. The things that come to mind are crisps, or skulls, or goatse memes, or any of the other varied interests I have. I love having that freedom.
But it comes with a cost. I donāt behave like Iām fragile, so people tend to think they can say what they like. Which is mostly fine, Iām not afraid to tell people to fuck right off. But that also means I get hurt and my health suffers. This obviously sucks, but Iām just not up for offering up the scraps of my life in exchange for pity, in the hopes of having people treat me like a human being. āAww, we best be nice to her because sheās mentalā ugh, get lost.
*steady on now, live laugh lovers, Iām not there yet
Recently*, a discussion on twitter about internal monologues (or lack thereof) prompted everyone to start thinking about how they think. Pictures? Words? Sounds? Nothing at all**? And if that wasnāt enough of a mindfuck, to ask each other and then exclaim ālook, your mind is utterly baffling, I canāt imagine hearing words/not hearing anything/seeing imagesā¦ how the fuck do you do X?ā Luckily for me, since nothing is new, not even on Twitter, a quick google brought up some articles I could read while my internal monologue said āfucking what?ā to some of them. So here are Dazed, and the BBC, and The Atlantic, if you want to read the professional journalist views. Meanwhile, a question that came up frequently when I was discussing it with friends was āwonder if anxious people have more inner speech than non-anxious people?ā. And since I canāt spend this entire blog ranting about mental health stuff that pisses me off, the least I could do is give it a slightly more dedicated google.
The question itself raises a number of interesting assumptions. Firstly, thereās an idea that inner speech is universal, such as this Psychology Today article Listening to Your Inner Voice which begins: āDuring every waking moment, we carry on an inner dialogueā and ends: āSo learn to cultivate that inner voice, it’s an essential part of being humanā. I can understand why someone might think so. If your entire life is punctuated with some running bullshit commentary in your head, itās impossible to understand what life might be like without it (and there are some very fascinating case studies about the experiences of people who lost their inner monologue for a time after a stroke). Part of this could be the difficulty in defining something that exists only in your own head. Even the above Psychology Today article talks about inner speech and a ācondensed inner speech which is closer to “thinking in pure meaning.āā So itās possible that some of us are talking about different things, or the same things but defined differently.
A lot of people also talk about it being wrapped up with identity, with planning, with reading, with memory, with arguing with your mother endlessly (maybe just me, eh), so I looked for a paper to try and give me a background on what the fuck is going on in there. I came across this review article by Alderson Day and Fernyhough (2015), which appears to be a good overview. They helpfully provide a number of terms that we can use to describe inner speech: āverbal thinking, inner speaking, covert self-talk, internal monologue, internal dialogueā, and they separate those out from other types of internal experiences like images, hearing sounds, and thinking that doesnāt have any particular qualities. They also talk about the process in which inner speech might develop. That commentary that runs alongside play and activities as children (private speech), is thought to become part of an internal process that we use to support cognitive functions like reminding ourselves we have to get some loo roll, or planning out a task. Sometimes we might use private speech as adults when trying to understand something difficult, like I did at several points when reading this review.
However, as fascinating as all this is, Iām skipping along to the bit on āadult psychopathologyā. There we get a bit closer to the question that prompted this blog – yes, research has found links between depression and inner speech, in particular, ruminating and āhearingā an inner critic. And there are even stronger links for anxiety, where worrying is thought to most often be a verbal experience. Which sucks a little bit, Iām not gonna lie. This is further supported by the findings from Ren, Wang and Jarrold (2016), who tested a group of Chinese students to investigate the relationship between self-talk and traits like anxiety and impulsivity. They found that: āhigher levels of anxiety were associated with higher frequency of self-critical but with lower frequency of self-reinforcing inner speechā (self-critical = inner speech that blames oneself for bad experiences; self-reinforcing = inner speech that talks about good things that have happened). So essentially, according to this research, a lot of anxious inner speech has a tendency towards blaming, and much less focus on positive aspects of the person or their day. Well, colour me surprised.
The only problem here, as I referred to above, is that there does seem to be an assumption, possibly linked to the āuniversal inner speechā thing, that peopleās thoughts must be verbal. Moritz et al. (2013) looked at āsensory experiencesā of depression, and found that other types of phenomena accompanied thoughts – most often a bodily sensation, but also mental imagery and auditory sensations. This piece in The Psychologist talks further about mental imagery, and also argues: āseeing mental pictures of what has been and what could be is a fundamental human experienceā, which almost mirrors the inner voice is an essential part of being human, from above. It goes on to talk about the ways that this mental imagery affects people with a variety of disorders. I absolutely have visual images accompanying panic, like specific and highly imaginative deaths from whatever disorder Iāve googled that day, and they are much more rapid than thoughts, and completely unsurprisingly, significantly more emotional.Ā
Additionally, some researchers like Hurlbert, Heavey and Kelsey (2013)*** believe that people have to be trained to properly identify what type of inner phenomena they are experiencing. They discuss something they call unsymbolized thinking which is āthe experience of an explicit, differentiated thinking that does not include words, images, or any other symbols.ā They give the example of Abigail:
Abigail is wondering whether Julio (her friend who will be giving her a ride that afternoon) will be driving his car or his pickup truck. This wondering is an explicit, unambiguous, āāthoughtyāā phenomenon: it is a thought, not a feeling or an intimation; it is about Julio, and not any other person; and it intends the distinction between Julioās car and truck, not his van or motorcycle, and not any other distinction. But there are no words that carry any of these featuresāno word āāJulioāā, no āācarāā, no āātruckāā, no āādriving.āā Further, there are no images (visual or otherwise) experienced along with this thoughtāno image of Julio, or of his car, or of his truck. In fact, there are no experienced symbols whatsoeverāAbigail simply apprehends herself to be wondering this and can provide no further description of how this wondering takes place.
They also speculate as to whether the people reporting experiences of inner speaking are actually more often experiencing unsymbolized thinking, and that when people are trained to identify their thoughts more accurately, they are better able to tell the differences between the two.
So the answer to the original question is sort of yes and no. Yes, increased inner speech does seem to be a feature of some mental health disorders. But because inner speech can be defined in a number of ways, itās not necessarily that people with anxiety and depression experience more inner speech overall, itās just that they might have more of the types identified above (like self-blame). Itās also clear some people experience several types of phenomena at once, and that these can be quite tricky to unpick. While, in some respects, thatās part of therapeutic methods like CBT, in my experience, they have some assumptions about the types of thoughts people get, and how theyāll present. A number of sheets and exercises I was given tended to work on the basis that you were challenging a verbal thought, unless I was like āand then, I totally saw my leg fall offā. Iām unsure how youād adequately challenge an unsymbolized thought, with a parrot that shouts at you, for eg.
In conclusion then, brains are pretty fucking complicated, no wonder they fuck up so often. God only knows what goes on in there.
*or a long while ago… dunno if you noticed, but like, the world went to shit in the intervening time, so I kinda forgot about this draftā¦ **hahaha, every time **their paper is genuinely pretty fascinating if you want a more detailed idea of what they consider to be inner speech
Iāve had this blog title in my drafts for a while, which I think was supposed to be a joke article (hahaha, writing about how you canāt write you fucking idiot), and yet, Iāve finally reached the stage of needing to write about it. Or attempt to anyway.
I honestly do not feel I have the words for all the emotions I am feeling, or the thoughts I am thinking at this current moment. I feel overwhelmed but also like there is a block there at the moment. I try to think of words, really quite simple ones to express my thoughts, and itās like they have all disappeared.
I donāt even have any pithy jokes for this. Just a complete failure in my mind to be able to communicate exactly how I am right now.
Iām aware of vague general feelings. Rage that swims up every so often and feels it might engulf me. Utter hopelessness at everything that is going on. And the constant need to write something, anything, but just not knowing where to start, or what to focus on.
I have many drafts that Iām working on. Some just a few sentences that floated in my mind one day. Others much longer with articles and links. But I just cannot work them into anything. They stay largely unstructured, or unfinished. I read over what I have, and try to find the flow, the thread that I was following, but the words just bubble pointlessly around in my mind without really coalescing into anything. Then I stop to think āis coalescing the right word, or was I looking for something else?ā. I have that constant feeling that the right words are just out of my grasp, and if I keep reading over things, that I might find them.
But instead, itās just very dull in there. I feel blunted. The world lacks description.
I see a bunch of LinkedIn āthought leaderā types are out berating people, because isolation means they could be the next Isaac Newton or Dostoevsky or some shit. āAmazing how we all have this gift of time to use productivelyā. And thereās me rolling my eyes, thinking āI just want to survive, and hopefully not go too mad, and seriously dudes, do we really need another fucking mediocre book, please, for the love of god, do not become an authorā¦ā.
On the one hand, itās great that there is a lot of enthusiasm about projects that people could do, and an effort to be positive about a really shitty situation. Some people prefer to throw themselves into activities to fill their time, because that is their way of handling things. And thatās absolutely fine. However, some of the exhortations to ālearn that instrument, write that novel!ā can also feel like pressure to be productive, with seemingly little recognition that this might not be possible for everyone. We will all manage this differently, we will all have different levels of comfort and stress and privilege, that will result in a variety of ways of coping.
I very recently did a blog post of things you could do in times of anxiety. The idea of it was things to try IF you want, IF you get bored and IF you feel super anxious and want a distraction. If, in fact, you actually want to lie under a blanket and cry, while repeatedly watching shit films, with your head going wtf, wtfā¦ then YES, YOU CAN DO THIS (I have done this, many, many times).
After I started seeing some of these other sorts of posts, I started to worry that my post gave a misleading impression of what life with anxiety can be like*. Particularly going to a period of not leaving the house, as I did. It was hard. It took time to adjust. Itās still a work in progress.
So just to be very clear: you do not need to handle this situation well, or make coronavirus your bitch or something. Itās scary and shit and thereās a huge amount of uncertainty. Do not feel that you have to manage lock downs and pandemic time amazingly, because you do not. Do not feel that you have to pretend that youāre having a wonderful isolation experience, because you do not.
The good thing about this is that most of us are doing it, so there are a lot of people out there to understand what youāre going through**. The bad thing about this, is most of us doing it, and so itās likely at some point youāll be scrolling social media thinking āOh, Oliverās mum is handling the apocalypse wellā. Fuck that off too. As ever, social media will distort some of this stuff. If the best thing you did all day was have a shower, do not worry. There will be many more of us who have achieved the same.
*although, I guess the other posts are more on brand **she says, ever so slightly bitterly, from her stance as a self-isolation hipster
Bit of a different post direction today. Life has thrown us a curveball in the form of a global pandemic, which is understandably causing a lot of fear and uncertainty for everyone. Finding actions that you can do, either to keep yourself distracted, or to help others, is a really good way of tackling anxiety. Anxiety thrives in situations where you feel out of control, overwhelmed, and as if there is nothing you can do. Even if the thing that you are doing is keeping yourself calm, and it feels really small, it all still helps.
Since I’ve been anxious for a while, I thought a post of some stuff I do when things get too much might help.
Mute social media
Twitter and Facebook, and other social media sites, are filled with lots of very panicked people tweeting desperately into the abyss. Remember in this post when I talked about finding similar on a mental health group? Itās the same but with people making definite pronouncements on the situation and scaring each other with unevidenced posts. This isn’t to criticise – in a situation with a lot of unknowns, it is easy to start filling in the gaps with every bit of information you can find. However, it can actually end up making you feel more anxious, especially if the information isn’t all there yet.
There are a number of ways that you can manage your time on these sites. You may want to take a break from them completely, and thatās absolutely fine. If, however, you are already isolated and want to keep in touch with your friends on there (or like me, just really want to tweet about a properly loud fart your husband did), there are other ways to keep your sanity.
On Twitter you can mute words, phrases and hashtags – and I recommend adding as many coronavirus related terms as you can. Or you can make a private list for friends or fun accounts that arenāt telling you everyone will die of a plague. The Twitter app lets you pin some of these lists to the top of your timeline, so you can easily switch between them if you start feeling anxious.
We do not need to follow updates live on social media. There are plenty of good sources of information, that will explain clearly what we need to do, and will not present the facts in an alarming way. Some UK sites to try include:
A really good way of lessening the shit youāre going through in your head, is channelling that into helping others. And while eventually we might end up with some restrictions on gatherings, there are still other things we can do.
Charities
There are local and global charities that could do with help at this time. Food banks are struggling for supplies, especially with the increase in panic buying. If youāre in isolation, and canāt visit, or are unable to get hold of basic goods yourself, you can always donate some money.
In London, a team have set up a GoFundMe to raise funds to distribute coronavirus packs to rough sleepers in North London.
Community groups
It is important for us to help each other, particularly in areas where there are people who are, or are at risk of being, more vulnerable.
There are Facebook groups running already, for instance Covid-19 Mutual Aid UK. They are a hub collating information on local groups organising to make sure the most vulnerable people are supported.
Online chats
We need to have virtual places people can get together, especially if weāre all indoors for some time. Set up groups for people to chat – there are lots of options for it, from Facebook and WhatsApp groups, to Slack, Discord, etc. You can chat about your day with each other, or even offload if youāre feeling a bit down about the situation. There are also plenty of video apps so you can have some face to face chat too.
There are sadly lots of events being cancelled, so itās a good idea to find some things you can do indoors to keep you occupied. It is easy to start feeling despondent and worried if youāre alone with your own thoughts. I enjoy doing silly makeup designs, playing video games and shitposting to my twitter account. But there are plenty of other things out there amidst the bullshit of the internet. Free course sites (such as Coursera, the Open University and edX) so you can find a new fun thing to learn about. Thereās also language apps like Duolingo and Memrise – Iām learning German, French, Irish, Turkish, Dutch and Arabic, because as I said, Iāve been riding the anxiety dragon for a while.
Self-care
You will at times feel overwhelmed. This is normal, as are feelings of sadness and panic about the future. Try to work out what activities will help you feel better when youāre feeling low or scared. I personally love a good bath, preferably with a metal playlist and a bowl of snacks. Maybe you enjoy getting stuck into a book, or napping, or joking with a pal. Whatever it is that helps you get out of your head a bit, and feel more recharged, the better.
Stress, particularly if itās prolonged, is very tiring, so make sure that you try to keep to a good sleep schedule. Eat right and do what exercise you can indoors if thatās something that helps. I loathe exercise, but even I find doing some yoga (again, there are plenty of free apps and videos for this) helpful to keep my mind a bit chilled.
There are also lots of good books on managing stress, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, or any other mental health issues you might face. There are Books on Prescription, which contain recommended titles that can offer additional support. They have a reading list for mental healthhere.
The WHO have actually released a document of mental health considerations too, which can be found here.
If you feel at any point as though you might need further support, the NHS has a number of self-help leaflets for a variety of mental health issues. They also have some short mental wellbeing audio guides (under 10 minutes long), which cover depression, anxiety, sleep problems, low confidence and unhelpful thinking. If you need to speak to someone, this list of mental health helplines may be useful.
If meditation is your thing, both Headspace and Calm have made some of their content available for free. They also have some useful exercises and guides.
. . .
So those are my suggestions for now. Do let me know of other sites that are offering good quality information, charities that are in need of assistance, or local community groups and I will try to keep this post updated.
Updates
15/03/2020: to add Books on Prescription and my husband spotted this WHO “Mental Health and Psychosocial Considerations During COVID-19 Outbreak” document, which I’ve now added. Also added a link to the London Homeless Welfare Team GoFundMe.
16/03/2020: to add link to article about Discord increasing screen share and video chat numbers. Additional paragraphs containing self-help resources.
17/03/2020: to add link to Harvard University Health Service “Managing Fears and Anxiety around the Coronavirus (COVID-19)” document, spotted via Dr Petra.
25/03/2020: to add links to free content from Headspace and Calm.
There is a greater push to be open about mental health these days. In some respects, this is a good thing, with the idea that hearing from the wide variety of people who have suffered with it, stigma will disappear and things will be great, or something.
However, for every non-judgemental and supportive friend giving a listening ear, you may come across one of these moreā¦ unhelpful people*.
Everyoneās a critic
By talking openly about a mental health condition, and what youāre doing to improve it, some people will conclude that you are therefore a work in progress. As such, they seem to think itās their duty to point out other things to you, like Iāll survey everyone I know before going to a therapist, and say āWell, X has put down ābeing too bluntā**ā. When Iām much more likely to tell X they can chortle my balls.
Thereās a big difference between mental health symptoms that are causing you problems, and other aspects of your personality, where the only issue is that some people might find those irritating. Well, tough shit. Iām not using therapeutic methods to make myself a more amenable person to the world, but to treat a mental health condition. Which brings us onto…
All your feelings are belong to mental health
This is the āare you on your period?ā of mental health. Some examples are: āIs this related to the anxiety? Are you sure youāre not being a bit paranoid? I think this might be part of your stress.ā It often sounds well meaning, but has the stale whiff of armchair psychologist. As this WebMD blog puts it, you wouldnāt say āSheās so annoying – I think she has the flu!ā.
So, unless you have one of the fine degrees from Hollywood Upstairs Medical College, you should resist trying to medicalise someone elseās feelings. I might have anxiety, but Iām still allowed to be fucking annoyed at something without it being a sign of illness. Unless youāre sensitive to swear words, in which case I will refer you to the above ball chortling.
Me lose brain? Uh-oh
Like schrodingerās mental health box***, some people carry a concept of me as both anxious and not-anxious, except the state of my mental health depends on what is most convenient to them at the time.
Itās like a sort of forgetfulness that magically comes up, for instance, when someone wants me to do something that I would struggle to do. Or perhaps they want to treat me badly. Then when I mention anxiety, theyāll act all surprised and say things like āwell, you donāt seem very anxiousā. Anxiety, of course, is well known for manifesting as wide-eyed fear, screaming and running down the road waving your arms wildly. To these people, itās impossible to be competent and anxious, so if I am able to do one thing, then itās a trick and Iām making the whole thing up!
So there you go, just some of the wonderful experiences you will have as an open and honest mental health sufferer. Go team!
*i originally had ādickwadsā **eh, that one might be true ***bite me, nerds
This is really a sister blog to this crabby post I made last summer. Itās essentially why I canāt be arsed with online mental health groups. The places where you go to get reassured and not be reassured all in one fell swoop. I joined one, once, and lasted possibly a week or two, because I found that my anxiety increased the longer I was there.
The situation would usually be:
Poster 1: āTHING IāM EXTREMELY ANXIOUS ABOUT (many paragraphs)ā
Poster 2: āI ALSO EXTREMELY WORRY ABOUT THIS THING (many paragraphs)ā
Poster 3: āIāM WORRYING ABOUT THIS THING RIGHT NOW!!! (many paragraphs)ā
Poster 1, again, evidently not reassured: āOMG, I FEEL REALLY PANICKY, CAN ANYONE HELP ME?ā
Poster 4: āTHIS IS MY VERY WORST FEAR!! (endless paragraphs)ā
Poster 1: crying, probably
You see the problem. It was basically a place where you started with maybe a few fears of your own, and came away with a whole bunch of new ones, and a permanently elevated heart rate.
This isnāt to say that itās not good to share stuff with other people. I certainly talk about some of my anxieties with friends, and listen to others, but hereās the thing ā thereās usually other topics of conversation. This group was just an endless stream of posts like āhereās a symptom, IS THIS NORMAL?ā, āfear of Xā, and āI donāt know how to go onā. I found it incredibly hard to look at and didnāt understand how I should be reassured by it. It seemed as though there was no respite, no place to chat about other things, nothing but very panicky people shouting into the void, and hoping that other panicky people might help them feel better.
Itās possible I missed how this was helpful. Maybe other people repeatedly saying how anxious they were to every post was really comforting. But to me, it was just like āwoman finds 20 new anxiety symptoms online, you wonāt believe what happened next!ā. Except you would, cos I was basically like āarse pain, is this a thing?ā for the next week or so.
For me, there has to be a balance between listing every twinge and worry and thought I get, and clamming up like a cunt* at a smear test. Itās important to talk about other things too. We are more than our mental health problems, even if they feel like they are everything**.
*true story. In the words of Liz Lemon āIt’s like Fort Knox down thereā **this feels quasi instagram inspiring quotes, dunnit? I might find a nice sunset image for that one.
Doctor Marvin Monroe's Anxiety Line 