On being down ...

18 February

Whenever the telly goes on these days there’s an item on mental health showing. I’ve seen a good few of them on Facebook this morning too. For me mental illness has been a condition that I haven’t understood properly and I supposed I got it mixed up with a mental disability, or learning difficulty, a term I really do hate. However, since May 2009 when I was first put on anti-depressants, I have become much more aware of the huge number of conditions that the term mental illness covers.

There have been times when I have thought that mental illness was used by some people as an excuse for behaving badly. In some cases, people have done things which most people wouldn’t do, but they stop just before the point of crossing a line where action could be taken against them. That to me showed that they were not as ill as they made out. A couple of years ago there was case here when a woman went around the rear area of our flats, stealing plants and other bits and bobs and trashing other parts. She got away with it by claiming mental illness, thereby confirming my ideas for years ago.

So then, in May 2009 I went to see my GP for help after five months of worry and stress after my brother Dave died. Trying to sort out his affairs was a really hard grind and top of that we had my mother to look after as well as trying to run two houses on one pension income. At that point, in walks social services again, who had become involved with mother when Dave was still alive. If you haven’t tried to deal with the SS when they are at their most obstroclous (my own word for it), you haven’t lived! By May I was really bouncing off the walls and Jan suggested that I go see some a doctor.

How has it manifested itself in my case? Usually by being very tired, listless, a ‘can’t be arsed’ mood when I first get up. At other times I can feel it coming on, like a black cloud moving over me and covering me. What can bring it on? Anything at all, maybe a disagreement with someone in town, or someone making such an outlandish statement that was plainly wrong, or at least to was to me. An example of bad driving by other people could bring it on, aggression could too. I couldn’t list all of the triggers because I can’t remember them all. However, I suppose that most times I have been affected, it has passed off after an hour or two. That means that I may have lucky with it.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been wondering just how long I’ve had depression though. As a diabetic I’m aware that depression can be a side issue. Diabetes was diagnosed after I came back from Mallorca in 2000, with a blood pressure of 220/175 (at least that is what they told me it was). Anyway; I had to go to the Walsgrave to the eye clinic who did some test and a few months later I was called in to the Hussy for follow-up. It was at that first clinic that I was told I was diabetic, ‘And by the looks of your eyes you have been so for around eight years,’ he said.

That made sense to me really cos I had been asking a different GP about for that length of time and he wouldn’t listen. Now I knew I was right to ask. But does that mean I have had depression since then. Thinking back, I may well have, indeed, thinking back I may have been even while I was in the army. My bolshie, hearty, good-fellow, have a laff act may well have been just that, an act.

I don’t know, but I don’t think that I shall be following through and going over it day after day. That wouldn’t do anyone any good, least of all me. The idea of writing about it here is to get it down and out into the public, then I won’t be hiding from it all the time. At least, that is what I am hoping for.

Today’s photo then …

Just look at that lot; what a mess they are, no wonder I say this town is full of dorks! I got this one in town in August 2014 and I remember feeling ashamed at the state of those three!

A man went into a bar after work and ordered a beer. As he started drinking his beer, he heard a female voice saying seductively, 'You've got nice hair'. The man looked all around him but couldn't see where the voice came from. A minute later he heard the same voice saying, 'You are a handsome man.' The man was really puzzled by this so he asked the barman what was going on.
The barman replied, 'It's the peanuts - they're complimentary.'