So here’s what I don’t understand.

So here’s what I don’t understand. As a society, we’re changing. We’re being encouraged to be open about our mental health, whether it be good or bad. We’re being encouraged to be more kind, and understand, and not to trivialise traits of ill mental health in every day conversation. More and more people want to learn, and want to understand. More and more people say they’re happy to support each other. So why does none of this work?

I’ve never been one to particularly hide my mental health condition, and for a long time this was because I couldn’t. Throughout secondary school I had horrendous panic attacks, daily, and couldn’t cope with even the smallest of challenges. I had no self esteem, and didn’t even realise how much I was over-thinking things. At this point, without a diagnosis, It was all shrugged off as the behaviour of a hysterical teenager. Attention seeking. Unimportant.

I’m not bitter about this. Looking back on it now, I can see why this is what people thought. I didn’t have enough self awareness and insight at this point to even try to explain what was going on in my head, even if I wanted to. It wasn’t until I was first put on antidepressant and anti anxiety drugs, at the age of 15, that my head was even clear enough to start seeing why I was feeling so dreadful.

Now, 7 years later, I certainly do have more insight. This is often commented on by mental health professionals. I can see why I’m feeling a certain why, and I’m beginning to understand how this influences some of my actions. But it’s difficult. And I’m certainly only at the beginning of a long road.

I suppose part of the problem is that even if I can intellectually understand some of these mindsets and behaviours, I can’t necessarily convey this information to the emotional part of my brain, meaning the outcome is often the same. This starts to make certain things feel inevitable and inescapable, and others often can’t understand this.

But I’ve been hurting recently, because sometimes, it feels like no matter how hard I try, nothing matters. It doesn’t matter to people that you’re trying, if the outcome is the same.

I take all of the many pills I’m told to take, and listen to the doctors. I attend my appointments. I look into my diagnosis to try and get a better grasp of which behaviours I need to look out for. Which behaviours are warning signs. And I’ve done pretty fucking well! For the first time ever I spotted an oncoming manic episode, and prevented it from taking control – with a little help from some psychoactive substances, and a lot of help from a few very wonderful people. I’ve started to recognise that, while I didn’t have a problem with drinking, it did make me vulnerable, and then things could very easily go wrong. So I had 2 months completely dry, a week or two of allowing myself a little bit, and now back on the straight and narrow. I realised that repressing emotions for an extended period would eventually lead to an uncontrolled and explosive release, so have learned to accept that it’s ok to have shitty days, and then pick myself up and dust myself off, rather than wait until I was completely out of control.

But try as I might, things still go wrong occasionally. They do. That’s what happens. Especially when you’re only just beginning to really understand the nature of the beast. And I do understand that I have hurt people, and whether it’s really me or not, whether I have any control, it still hurts them. I get that. I really do. And I live in perpetual guilt. But I also have friends who I support. I have friends who struggle with their mental health, and who have said, or done things, which have hurt me. But I look at this rationally and objectively, and understand that it’s not really them. So it’s frustrating that people can’t do this with me.. Maybe you can’t forgive these things until you understand them personally.

But each time someone walks away.. each time someone abandons you as a lost cause… it reinforces the little voice telling you that however hard you try, it will never be worth it. And it really fucking hurts. It really hurts that people think I choose to behave in the ways that hurt them, and that they think I, as a person, and as their friend, am capable of that. It scares me to know how little control I have sometimes, as if I’m not making the decisions, I’m just begin carried through life by them. It terrifies me that I can’t remember what’s happened.. Because I only know I don’t remember when somebody tells me.. so what could have happened when nobody tells me?

I don’t blame these people. I understand that not everyone can cope with it, and that sometimes people do need to walk away for the sake of their own mental health. I respect that. I understand that. But at least be kind. Explain it. Have the decency to tell the person, who once meant so much to you, what’s happening. Don’t just disappear. Some people have done exactly that, and to them I am eternally grateful, not just for that, but everything they’ve ever done for me. It still hurts, but at least I know they still have some respect for me as a human being.

But really, what destroys me that I know, ultimately, it is all my fault. Because it’s my brain creating these emotions, and reactions. It’s my brain making me say and do certain things. It may not be the part I have control over. It may not be a lucid part of me. But it is me, and it’s excruciating to know that I am such a flawed human being. The Shakespearean fatal flaw, which everyone but the protagonist can see, and forewarn. To the audience it seems obvious how to evade the impending doom. But I am aware of my flaws. I just need time, patience, understanding, and kindness, to learn to work around them. And if ever possible, to see them into ancient history. Maybe that way, the inexorable, dramatic, tragic ending, might be less inexorable.