It's time to Start Asking questions

I like the thought that I have created something that will be kept in the world of the internet.. forever in its space a little piece of me will be kept.. it may never be read, but maybe someday a little piece of me and who I am will be found. There is something beautiful about that. We have created a world where when there is nothig left of us physically another part of us lives on.

Im certainly hittin the tabooish subjects in the Irish context. Mental illness - check. Sexual orientaion - check. Sex - check. Domestic violence - check. My next subject definatly hits the taboo box and i know this may cause backlash but I think it has to be talked about. So have i got you on the edge of your seat.. probably not but…..drum roll…hmm a drum roll seems inappropriate. The subject is Rape.

Yep RAPE. A very sensitive area I know.

Ok this may be quite the personnal topic for all you bloggers out there but how many of you know someone who has been raped?? and if you do, how many have reported it. I now know 5 different people personally who have been raped. That’s a bloody big number for someone my age.. Not one of them has reported the rape and they never will.

So why. Why wasn’t is reported?  Out of my own statistics 3 were raped by family members. One by a family friend and the final by their partner. 

Ireland has its secrets.

Ive much much more to say on this… thats all for now folks, would greatly appreciate your comments and opinions

What happens when you start to like your no strings attached sex buddy? are you suppose to tell them that you like them more than simply for sex? Is it wrong for me to continue with it even though im hiding my true feelings. Opinions please!

I think I lie to myself about who I am, but Im not even sure what i’m lying about. I dont think d even know till it was done. How do you really know who you are. They say you are what you pretend  to be. I dont know what im pretending to be or what im pretending not to be. im so confused. they also say what you do is what you are. what if ur holding back from what you  think u want to do. 

I think i needto get away from everything ive built up aound me strip it back an figure it out. ‘

god im so confused.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2011/1206/1224308612878.html

This is a great article in the Irish Times and I think the journalist is very brave to publicly talk about it. It was reassuring to me to read that I am no the only one and I feel I’m similar in experiencing the “slow ebb variety” in that I go out with my friends, socialise, don’t spend long periods locked away in my room and I am able to get out of bed everyday.

With the recent coverage over the death of Kate Fitzgerald, a employee of the Irish Independent it brought to my attention the taboo that is associated with suicide, depression and mental illness. This is something everyone knows but to publicaly write about the very truths that surround our society is another. 

A moment in time sticks in my memory where the subject arose with a group of my close friends. The conversations had steered towards hospitals for mental illness. One let it slip that she looked differently at those who would check themselves into mental hospitals, she spoke of the issue as if it were something to look down upon. This honesty shocked me. Not only was I surprised by the lack of understanding of mental illness that I had sat back and listened too but that this was coming from a group of well educated women in their mid twenties. They viewed those suffering from the illness as ‘crazy’ and someone they would not want to be associated with. In the same dissaproval and dissacociation a person would liken to knowing someone who has committed a crime.

They went on to further say they would never talk to a psychiatrist. I asked why. They answered “if I had to go to a psychiatrist!!”, they then crossed their eyes while shrugging their shoulders and went on to the reasoning everyone who went to a pschiatrist was ‘nuts, crazy’. This crazy word they referred to is associated with those who commit crimes. For someone who feels so deeply in pain mentally and to be a perfectly law abiding, everyday person like me.

Like me.

I put define crazy into google and this is what it said: “Mentally deranged, esp. as manifested in a wild or aggressive way”. A person with a mental illness does not need to be destructive or violent, they do not need to go around talking to themselves, they do not need to utter sentences that make no sense to the common person. A person with a mental illness can just be feeling low but on a more prolonged basis. Everyone has felt bad about something or felt a little sad at some point. Well imagine feeling this from the minute you wake up to the minute you eventually go to sleep. As hard as a person tries to ‘cop on’ or ‘cheer the fuck up’ no matter how much they want to they cannot.

They have begun showing advertisements in Ireland for caring for your mental health. I think it is a fantastic move but I believe there is more to taking off the stigma assosciated with depression, suicide and mental health. In my own opinion the stigma lies there because of the lack of education about those suffering from mental illness.

I write this anonymously. What does that say? My best friends, who I sadly admit are narrow minded with respect to mental illness have no idea of my past mental health. They spoke so frankly of how they really feel about it without the realisation that they were sitting in a room with a person who has a long family history of mental illness and I myself was not one hundred percent well at a time. They had caught me on the the odd occasion but with the realisation that they may be on to me I would keep out of their sight and pretend I am on my time of the month. Always a great cover. I feel until they get a better grip of what a mental illness is I will not be disgusing with them a massive part of me and my familys struggles. I will never tell them that I had collected over three months ponstan and any other painkiller that I could get my hands on with the intention of taking my own life because I could not bare going everyday feeling this pain. I would never tell them I had come to the point where I gathered all of these in my hands in the early hours of the morning when they lay sleeping and was on the verge of taking all of them. They do not know my fathers gun was taken from him by the the gardai (police) because he was going to shoot himself. They do not know that other close family members had been in hospital because they were going to take their own life. There is a whole other life I have lived, if you could call it that. I had feared my friends would not understand but untill that conversation my fear became truth. They didn’t understand and their lack of understanding was far greater than I anticipated. 

Another issue also is the availability of those that can help. I will admit I did not want to seek help in the area I live in. The reason being is I feared meeting someone I knew while walking into the doctors. This has kept me at times from getting help when I most need it. When I was a student, my doctor was the one provided by the college because it was free but I did not attend for fear of referral to a different building which deals with mental health. Making my reason for walking in or out of the building that was in the middle of campus obvious. I could not afford a bill of 60 euro and the bill of antidepressents from a private doctor and it was during my time in college I was most vunerable. I feared and still do the conversation that would surround it. Mental illness has affected my relationships, my partner could not cope with living with someone who would think suicidally and it was too much pressure. It began to affect friendships with friends thinking I was angry at them when I distanced myself or was unable to talk to them for fear they would realise I was not well. I could not talk to my family about my own problems with mental health because the issue is lying with them also and they regularly look to me for support and advice. 

In my opinion a service provided by doctors possibly by a skype system just to talk would be highly used. I was able to leave the house and pretended I had no issues. I think for those suffering from a more severe mental illness who find themselves unable to leave this would be valued and a way for doctors to see if they need to call to patients. 

I also look back on a time where I was having panick attacks and my heart had gotten itself stuck with too fast a heartbeat with the G.P on the verge of sending me too A&E if the the medication did not start working. I was prescribed tablets that I later checked in a book the reasons for prescribing them. Not once did the G.P ask did I know what may have being bringing on this anxiety or if I was coping. The related question was are you stressed from exams  and having answered I had mine finished no further questions of that kind were asked. In a country that had 486 suicides Im suprised these questions were not asked on reflection. If it were not for the resourses provided by Pieta and samaritans that number would be far greater.

I admire Kate Fitzgerald for writing to the newspaper she worked for her with the truth of returning to a job after seeking medical help with mental illness. She represented the high achiever, intelligent person that can suffer from a mental illness an has helped raise awareness and educate people on mental ailments.

I would like to hear from readers of what your own personal opinions are surrounding mental illness or the way you have heard other people talk about it. I think it needs to be got out there, made a talking point and get people educated on the fact ANYONE could suffer from it and can still appear perfectly normal.

I got through it. You can do. Theres plenty of resources there. use them, they could save your life