I’m not sure how I’m going to top my last blog post? Not that I should be trying to do that. After all, you’re only as good as your last post! To date, it’s the one I’m most proud of…well for the moment anyway! I always knew I wanted to write something of that nature but I didn’t want to rush it. I didn’t want the words to come from a place that reflected what my state of mind was at the time of writing, so it was worth taking the time to write, read, and rewrite until I was satisfied that it was ready to publish.
No such emotion or thought provoking prose this time around; more a ‘matter of fact’ piece getting back to the nitty gritty of the main subject of my website: Mental Health.
I know I have already written about a few elements of mental health in my previous blog posts, that is….. Generalised Anxiety Disorder, Panic Attacks and Health Anxiety but it’s worth covering off a few more of the other issues that I experience that come under the banner of mental health, and I have to admit that it has surprised even me now that I can see them all written down!
Social Anxiety.
This is a big one for me, probably bigger than I dare to admit. In the past it would get to a point where my anxiety was so bad that I wouldn’t leave the house. I would make arrangements to go out with friends or work colleagues only to cancel at the last minute with some lame excuse! Because, and if I was finally able to attend any social or public gathering, there would be this anxiety and fear that I was being watched or judged by other people and wondering if I would somehow manage to embarrass or humiliate myself.
In the work environment am I always quite in meetings, always with the fear and dread that I might be called upon to answer a question, give an opinion or worse, to stand up in front of people and give a presentation. Even taking the dog for a walk; I would time it so that if there were other people walking their dogs then I would walk in the opposite direction that they were going in order to avoid the ‘awkward’ meet. On the odd occasion where it couldn’t be helped, then there is this bizarre meeting ritual where you never introduce yourselves to each other as the dog owners, only the dog’s names are ever exchanged! I’ve never understood it and it can make for some weird conversations!
Over the years, my coping mechanism for dealing with the anxiety, fear and life in general has always been humour. I don’t think I’m funny at all yet somehow I appear to be able to make people laugh. This helps to calm me and lessens the anxiety. Laughter can be a potent medicine for releasing the tension, whether it is the tension of the environment or the tension within yourself.
“For a few moments, under the spell of laughter, the whole man is completely and gloriously alive: body, mind and soul vibrate in unison… the mind flings open its doors and windows… its foul and secret places are ventilated and sweetened.”
– Theorist Martin Armstrong.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
The term OCD has, for a long time, been banded around like some cool trendy adjective to explain someone’s ‘quirky’ behaviour. It does wind me up…just a bit!
“You really are tidy; everything is lined up so perfectly”….”Oh that’s just my OCD”. However, you never hear anyone say “It’s okay, I’m being a bit schizo today!” or “Never mind me I’m just a psycho!” because deep down people know not to use these phrases as they are what they are…..very offensive! But is OCD any different? And yet the misuse of OCD has become popular, leading to misunderstandings but done so to the detriment of those people who actually suffer with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
What Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is about is unreasonable, unwanted thoughts, fears or impulses that repeat over and over in your mind. Compulsions are where you try to rid yourself of these obsessions; compulsions done in such a manner in order to try and protect yourself from the anxiety than can be brought on, not that you’d want to intentionally bring on the compulsion in the first place! Feeling like you have no control over your own thoughts and so the vicious cycle begins. Obsessions and compulsions that can be both time and energy consuming to the point of taking over a person’s life and keeping them from functioning in society properly.
As with all mental illnesses there needs to be a step change as using phrases like OCD in general conversation only serves to trivialise what people are experiencing on a daily basis. This only serves to create more stigma and even prevents people from getting the medical assistance they so desperately require.
D Anxiety.
Look at that, I can’t even bring myself to write the full word. And I’ve left it right until the end too! I covered this in my most recent blog post even though I didn’t reference the phrase directly. It’s the one subject that has given me the most fear and anxiety over the years. To be honest I don’t think it is an age thing either even though I’m only 47 (which of course is no age at all) as I was conscious of it as a teenager. I know there is nothing I can do about it, after all it is inevitable, there’s no running from it……death and taxes as they say!
But what actually is it that causes me so much fear and anxiety? I mean, when it happens I won’t be aware of it…..I won’t even know that I did once exist!
I think that it’s all of the things to come in the future that I won’t be here to witness. I wonder about it a lot because it really fascinates me; a hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, what will life be like? How will people be living their lives? Will we go back to the moon in my lifetime? What about Mars or even other planets? Will we finally answer the question as to whether there is other life out there or are we truly alone in this ever expanding Universe? Will we finally have cures for some of the most debilitating and life threatening diseases?
When you look at our timeline as a species, it’s fair to say that we have evolved seemingly quicker over the last hundred years or so more than any other point in history; mainly because of the cumulative effects of centuries of development and communication…faster worldwide communication that has allowed us to share more knowledge and the continual building of new ideas that have been the spark that set off an explosion, so to speak, of innovation that has led to rapid advancements in medicine which has aided technological progress, agriculture that allowed the growth in population meaning that there is more brain power to make these new discoveries. Discoveries and knowledge that we are still accumulating, knowledge that people had a hundred years ago that was beyond the imagination of people a hundred years before them. And knowledge in a hundred years from now that is beyond our imagination today.
Wow, apologies……that was waaaay deep even for me – I’ve just re-read those last couple of paragraphs and even I can see how much I digressed away from the last topic, but I think you get the idea?
Thanks for reading…..I’ll catch you all next time.
This weeks music offering is another favourite band of mine – Kodaline. Enjoy!
Mental Health Musings | A Brummies Perspective 