Tag: mental illness

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salon:

A quarter of the 462 people who were shot and killed by police so far this year were in the middle of an emotional or mental health crisis, according to the Washington Post. Most of these 124 people were armed at the time of the shootings, though the cops who shot them weren’t responding to a crime. Most of the time, relatives were calling 911 for help dealing with a loved one who was behaving erratically. At least 50 of the people shot were suicidal.

Training will help reduce the number of police killings – but accountability is crucial too

Think for a second

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nearconstantsadness:

Imagine with me.

You’re an athlete. You’re gearing up to run the next 5k in your town.

You get there, and your number’s on your chest just like everyone else. You’re at the starting line, just like everyone else.

Bam, off goes the start signal.

Suddenly, you feel a little funny. Everyone else around you is gaining a lead they shouldn’t otherwise gain. Even the little old lady who does this for fun is now almost 50 feet in front of you.

But you keep pushing, right? You’re bound to catch back up, you’re an ATHLETE.

You pump as much of your strength as you can into your legs. You’re using what feels like every ounce of effort you have in you to just get your legs moving. All the while, that lead that everyone has on you is getting bigger and bigger…

People are suddenly farther and farther away…

You keep going You have no choice. You’ve GOT to finish. And you do.

But that’s when you collapse from exhaustion. Everyone around you is looking at you now, very concerned, wondering what could possibly have gone wrong, you were fine yesterday. You looked fine even the whole time you were running! What could POSSIBLY have happened?!

You can fill in the blanks with any invisible malady you like: heart problems, asthma, fibromyalgia, sciatica, what have you. But it’s SOMETHING that nobody can see. It’s something even YOU didn’t see.

Welcome to mental illness.

EVERY DAY is that 5k. Waking up in the morning is the start signal going off, and no matter how much energy we could put into something as simple as making breakfast, suddenly everyone else around us has their day’s tasks half way done and we’re still standing in the kitchen choosing eggs or bacon as though our lives depended on it. And sometimes, it does.

Eating is a chore. Standing up is basically like asking us to climb a mountain. Taking care of ourselves is tiring. Let alone taking care of someone else, if we need to.

That collapse at the finish line of the day could be a panic attack, it could be a fit of tears, it could be the mounting and exploding feeling that you’re a failure, you’re worthless, why do you even bother. It could even be an angry and persistent suggestion that you should just kill yourself so you’re not wasting space.

And let’s not forget, we didn’t do this to ourselves. We couldn’t have predicted this, we aren’t just sitting there asking for people to pamper us, in fact sometimes that makes us feel WORSE.

And at the end of the day, quite possibly the best thing you could do is hold us, tell us it’ll be okay, and just listen.

Most often, there’s no rhyme or reason to our thoughts. I was a straight A student for a long time and if I got less than 80% on ONE test, I flipped out and resigned myself to failure. But anyone else would’ve been like ‘Sweet, I passed!’ People tell me I’m doing well at work, and I’ll just focus on that one mistake I made two weeks ago and oh well, I’ll get fired tomorrow.

We DO NOT DO THIS ON PURPOSE. And it’s not as easy as saying ‘Oh just stop being so hard on yourself.’ That’d be like asking your athlete self to just grow some new lungs/muscles/heart valves and you’ll be fine.

We know you want to help. ❤ And most of us appreciate it SO MUCH, OMG THANK YOU. But sometimes, cuddles, blanket forts and movie binges are enough to keep us going. We don’t need to talk or reason things out all the time.

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sonneillonv:

partiendolapana:

sansastark:

a weird thing about having developed mental illness at such a young age is i honestly don’t know sometimes how much of me is a symptom and how much is down to personality, like i honestly do not know my core self and it troubles me A Lot

I kinda think that my core self is perpetually terrified and miserable and there’s no way to change that.

And that’s kinda terrifying and miserable…

I think the idea of a core self is a little bit misleading.  We are all sort of summaries of our experience.  Even the parts of us that don’t work like they should are still parts of us.  Some things can be fluid – as a personal example, the severity of my depression has fluctuated throughout my life.  I have periods of years where it’s mild, periods of years where it’s terrible, sometimes with periods of months or weeks where it slides back and forth on the scale.  But I wasn’t a different ‘me’ when my depression was different.  I was just having different particular difficulties at that time.

I only offer this because you (OP) said it troubles you a lot not knowing your core self.  I don’t actually know if thinking of it this way is helpful – that all of you is you, including the fucked up parts.  Even if your mental illness was not so severe, even if you suffered the same symptoms for an external reason, those experiences would still be part of who you are and you still would have adapted to respond to them.  Maybe you’re ALWAYS you, and the only thing that changes is how difficult it is to be you right now.

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psycholar:

giraffepoliceforce:

museicetc:

Although Reid makes it personal, there’s still an important message here that shows Dr. Reid knows what’s up re: schizophrenia and violence

Fun fact: schizophrenics are literally less likely to commit an act of violence than someone who doesn’t experience mental illness.

We are however significantly more likely to be victims of abuse, addiction, poverty, and suicide.

Schizophrenics don’t need the media constantly telling people we’re a time bomb. We need help and patience. And hugs. And maybe some ice cream.

Reblogging because the ‘fun fact’ is both true and important for everyone to know.

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noorannmatties:

Noorann Matties

Mental Illness is isolating in and of itself, but i’ve always felt further detached and embarrassingly “other” in the sense that I seem to experience my illness in far messier, more inconvenient ways than others I know struggling with similar diagnosis. Struggling with mental illness can make you feel disconnected from the general public in the sense that they don’t know what it is to face a large portion of your daily life, but it’s infinitely more disheartening to feel that you can’t relate to other people who are supposed to understand your struggle. My experience is exhausting and inconvenient, it is not a woman wrapped in a sweater staring out her window with a mug of tea in an anti-depressant commercial. My experience is sloppy and cumbersome, it seems too ugly to share with the world and too divergent from the experience of those close to me to share with my friends, so I keep it to myself. It occurs to me that perhaps the reasons I have kept the full extent of my illness so far away from the public eye is the reason I have no representations of illness to relate to, perhaps this is precisely how others around me feel about their struggle. It’s taken me most of adult life to realize that this struggle is not something that I asked for and not something to be ashamed of in the way that I have been. These self-portraits are an attempt to frankly and unashamedly represent the positions that my mental illness puts me in on a daily basis, easy to look at and otherwise.

My daughter, who lost her battle with mental illness, is still the bravest person I know

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My daughter lived more than six years with an incurable disease that filled her head with devils that literally hounded her to death, and she did it while laughing, painting, writing poetry, advocating and bringing joy to the people around her. She was the bravest person I have ever known, and her suicide doesn’t change that…

My daughter, who lost her battle with mental illness, is still the bravest person I know

16 Things I Would Want, If I Got Dementia

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dementia-by-day:

dementia-by-day:

Originally written for Alzheimer’s Reading Room.

When you work in dementia care, people tend to ask you a lot of questions. Probably one of the most common questions that I hear is,

“Are you afraid to get dementia when you’re older?”

Honestly, there are many things that scare me much more than dementia does. Don’t get me wrong: dementia is a terrible group of diseases. I’ve been fortunate, however, to see many of the beautiful moments that people with dementia can experience.

Just in case I do get dementia, I’ve written a list of rules I’d like to live by.

If I get dementia, I’d like my family to hang this wish list up on the wall where I live.

  1. If I get dementia, I want my friends and family to embrace my reality. If I think my spouse is still alive, or if I think we’re visiting my parents for dinner, let me believe those things. I’ll be much happier for it.
  2. If I get dementia, I don’t want to be treated like a child. Talk to me like the adult that I am.
  3. If I get dementia, I still want to enjoy the things that I’ve always enjoyed. Help me find a way to exercise, read, and visit with friends.
  4. If I get dementia, ask me to tell you a story from my past.
  5. If I get dementia, and I become agitated, take the time to figure out what is bothering me.
  6. If I get dementia, treat me the way that you would want to be treated.
  7. If I get dementia, make sure that there are plenty of snacks for me in the house. Even now if I don’t eat I get angry, and if I have dementia, I may have trouble explaining what I need.
  8. If I get dementia, don’t talk about me as if I’m not in the room.
  9. If I get dementia, don’t feel guilty if you cannot care for me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s not your fault, and you’ve done your best. Find someone who can help you, or choose a great new place for me to live.
  10. If I get dementia, and I live in a dementia care community, please visit me often.
  11. If I get dementia, don’t act frustrated if I mix up names, events, or places. Take a deep breath. It’s not my fault.
  12. If I get dementia, make sure I always have my favorite music playing within earshot.
  13. If I get dementia, and I like to pick up items and carry them around, help me return those items to their original places.
  14. If I get dementia, don’t exclude me from parties and family gatherings.
  15. If I get dementia, know that I still like receiving hugs or handshakes.
  16. If I get dementia, remember that I am still the person you know and love.

Pushing this back to the top of my blog! Over 37,000 views on LinkedIn!

Gaelic conversations help Inverness dementia sufferers

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selchieproductions:

Native Gaelic speakers with dementia are being helped to recall memories through conversations in the language with school children.

This makes me so happy, especially because not only does it keep one of the Gaelic community’s most important cultural activities alive, i.e. the cèilidh – in other words meeting people in order to exchange stories, memories and songs – but it’s also helping to keep the language and its different traditional dialects alive through a brilliant example of intergenerational language transmission.

Suas leis ar cànan.

Gaelic conversations help Inverness dementia sufferers

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chronicallyquirky:

toomanyfeelings:

You can be depressed and not feel sad or blue. Depression can also be a haze of sleepiness, distractedness/obsessiveness cycles, and a twinge of irritability that can be hard to recognize because you might already be a “fiery” person. It can feel like a lazy Sunday that keeps imposing itself for weeks or months.

Can we just… I’ll leave this here.