Mental Health Awareness Week: "We never saw it coming..."
For Those Carrying the Labour of Anguish and Those Who Say They Care… You Might Not
It’s those few chunks of days a year where mental health gets the limelight… and where we see a lot of people claiming love for those who struggle. And whilst I’m all for love and light, I want to be honest to anyone reading this that thinks their own mental ill health and the idea of loving support never quite seem to overlap.
I’ve had my fair share of people in my life promising they get me, they understand it all and that they’ll always be there… only to take what I had left to give and sod off anyway.
So, I thought it important to speak to those amazing people out there, who despite struggling with their own shit, still manage to support, love and care for others too.
I see you.
This rant is for us. 🙏🏻
⚠️ This is part of the That Sacred Decay Diaries and may be triggering. Talk of suicide, self-harm and loneliness.
Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK is this week and the theme is about taking action. Like anything else actually fucking matters.
Mental health awareness without action is performance… and I want to talk about what it means to “care”.
This may actually trigger you for non-mental health reasons, but I encourage you to examine and delve deeper into why, as opposed to straight-up blocking me. 🫠
Let’s get into it.
As someone who works in mental health, healing and the charity sectors, I welcome any light that can be shone onto this subject, if it does indeed help some people to be seen and other people to step up.
I’m going to be honest, I have quite a controversial opinion on mental health; I believe that most diagnoses are a reaction to the shitty systems we’re oppressed by and the limitations we’re bred to believe, rather than our brains and bodies simply disintegrating or misfiring… instead, our minds are constantly trying to protect us… it just doesn’t always work out right.
And whilst this can create diseases, conditions and diagnoses that can be incurable, I feel that the society we give permission to every day can be the biggest part of our suffering.
Did you hear about that experiment with fleas, where they put baby ones into a jar and pop the lid on? When they take them out, the fleas can only jump as high as the jar and not a single bit higher, ultimately limiting themselves forever.
That sort of thing. That’s what I mean.
We’re stifled. And our brains and bodies cannot cope.
So the most afflicted with mental ill health can only jump so high…
…and it’s up to those more able to provide the trampolines.
🜁 Let’s Be Honest
The other controversial opinion I have is that mental health is rarely co-managed within society. We each try to do “our bit”, but as I take my on experiences, as well as the hundreds of kids and adults I’ve worked with, I rarely hear stories of true support, unless the person is a literal Carer or someone with mental health training themselves.
I’m sorry, but that’s just my experience.
It’s harsh, but it’s simply there in the data I collect. Every day.
People don’t have the skillset.
It’s not about fault here, it’s about allowing truths to coexist. Otherwise, those who suffer, just suffer more… under the weight of pretending that the support they are provided with is enough, because it has to be.
People care
People don’t learn enough to care well
Personally, I’ve had people judge me, try to diagnose me, misunderstand me and take from me, all whilst knowing I was traumatised, broken, neglected and suicidal - and all with the lens of them thinking that what they were doing was caring and supportive.
I’ve had people turn the conversations to themselves over and over, compare my problems with theirs and even require eighteen months of my support, only to leave once they realise they don’t have the willingness to return even a percent of it.
I’ve left the most vulnerable voice messages with a person declaring themselves as my best friend, explaining my utter pain, despair and terror, for them to never have told me they were planning on not being my friend anymore, despite the time and energy I had spent, supporting them, with very little in return - and yet still acting like a “nice person”.
I said just now that “people don’t have the skillset” and whilst that is true, I want to catch myself there and also say something even more true:
Some people simply don’t care enough, they just like how their own version of care feels. You know, the one where they are blind to half the picture.
It sucks. But it’s true.
So let’s be honest here… because Mental Health Awareness Week is pointless unless we are.
🜁 The Deadliest Gap
People, often, do try their best and at the end of the day, have their own lives, issues and problems.
That’s reality.
But a truth that exists alongside this is that we will continue to lose people to suicide.
I speak to those who come to me complaining about how much time someone is taking up in their lives, who are mentally struggling, stuck in loops and needing a lot of their care.
And quite often I say this to them, “if what someone needs from you is more than what you can give, don’t offer incorrect capacity to feel like a good person and instead, let someone else take up that space… because the gap you’re unable to fill and avoiding to admit, is where real risk lives”.
And I’m talking about the people that would be the first to re-share this campaign on their Insta stories, the ones who say “call me if you need me for anything” but not actually mean it or think that simply asking how someone is in the last two minutes of an hour-long video call suffices.
HINT: It doesn’t.
This gap that is created in care, compounds in someone’s brain over time, often adding to the idea of them being broken or the problem. And we need to acknowledge this. We need to understand that whilst the digital age has had a big influence on loneliness, we must also still take responsibility for how our lifestyles can collect people but neglect them too, even when we think we’re doing enough. You might be doing enough for you, but often, not for them. So admit the gap… you could save a life.
As many of us are finding ourselves in some sort of mental torment, maybe a diagnosis or two, heading into Mental Health Awareness Week, where the whole country is being asked to consider each other more… what would actually be a good move?
Honestly? Honesty.
Based on your own experience, you can probably list the times where people have been there for you or when they say they will be and, well, haven’t. I know I can.
And I want to speak to you, beautiful person who is struggling right now and give some reasoning; not to make excuses, nor to polish your ego, but to let you in on two little things I’ve seen, professionally and personally, over the years…
🜁 The Sight Suffering Gives Us
The first is that mental ill health has an advantage, whether we want to admit it or not. It is an extra layer of understanding. For those that are never touched by this type of suffering, they’ll never truly get what it is to live a true and full internal life and the impact this makes externally for ourselves.
Because a real internal life requires truth.
And when life isn’t perfect, sunflowers and rainbows, “healthy” people either just avoid it, try to look like they’re thriving or just seek out the repetitive and comfortable… or even use others to stand on.
We, however, don’t get a choice in it.
The struggles find us.
Your suffering rips you open into having empathy for others, like it or not. And whilst it’s so easy to be bitter, it gifts you a sight that others simply are never gifted with.
How you choose to enact that empathy, though, is up to you.
🜁 Here Comes Great Responsibility…
The second is, whilst you may not fully understand the “whys” of your own inner torment and symptoms, you are in fact on an inner journey that supports you levelling up within your own consciousness, creativity and expansion.
It had better be for something, after all.
Look at it this way, if the world’s systems and expectations are crushing you and this causes negative mental symptoms of illness, then just by default, you are exercising an inner world that most others never will.
And whilst I don’t want mental illness for anyone at all, it’s how I’ve chosen to deal with my own - I allowed the crushing of the torment to shape me and the life I want. It’s given me permission to go against the grain, rebel against the systems trying to hurt me, disconnect from dishonest people that are lying to themselves as well as others… I use it as fuel.
On brighter days, it can be a superpower.
A shitty, drowning, horrifying, lonely superpower, but a superpower all the same. 🫠
🜁 99 Solutions, But The Friend Ain’t One
Now, don’t get me wrong, there are mental health conditions and symptoms that are severe and beyond the scope of what I’m talking about. But I’m talking about the ones that are wrapped in reasons and stories that we get to spend a life unfolding for ourselves, deciding their meanings and enacting their fate.
This could be anxiety, depression, dissociation, intrusive thoughts, rumination, compulsion, self-harm, anger mismanagement, panic attacks, addiction, trauma, suicidal ideation… the list goes on.
I’ve probably had most, if not worked with them all… and I’m here to say that most are inflamed with the warped ways of the world.
But there are a couple of key ways to ease them.
Therapy - paying someone as witness to your stories so they can be processed, challenged and validated. One of the biggest breakthroughs I ever had was a psychologist bullet-pointing my Trauma Timeline back at me and highlighting something I thought was mediocre, only to have him validate it as being the single biggest impact on my life. We all need these safe spaces to feel embarrassed, dumb, childish, ugly.
Creativity - illness of any kind is contraction and collapse in some way and the opposite of that is creation. The opposite of overconsumption and over-consumerism is also this. It also has a name adults like to forget: PLAY.
Spirituality - whether we like it or not, how we see ourselves within the universe does dictate our beliefs, responses and characteristics. Being open to who we are, whether religious or not, is important. You can be spiritual within yourself, without ever having to “believe” in a single thing.
Community - this is the one that brought me to writing this. People around us are our mirrors. If we don’t have them, this slowly disintegrates our-selves from our-selves.
Ultimately, we need a society that shows up… and stays.
🜁 So, What’s The Answer, Clever Clogs?
No matter who is reading this, I have one request for you…
If you’re mentally ill of any kind - when you’re having a better period of time in life, seek mental health training for yourself and others.
If you’re mentally well, that’s great - seek mental health training for others, then. If you care, it shouldn’t even be in question.
To the latter, I’m not saying you don’t already understand or you don’t care. At all. I’m saying that when things get tough, people fall away and let’s hope you stick.
Because whether we admit it within society or not, we owe each other and that comes with a side of training and practising the art of caring, not just declaring.
We’re so busy saying “they died by suicide and no one saw it coming” that we need to ask sometimes: is it all down to people not seeing, or not looking?
Perhaps it’s newly trained eyes that could change it for the next person.
🜁 “I don’t want to be a bother”…
Since nearly taking my life over a decade ago, I’ve had plenty of people abandon me when I’ve needed them, despite them believing that they’re a good friend and care for the people that they love.
A lot of people I’ve worked with have had a similar experience and, like me, have had “loved ones” in their life and yet feel like no one would “get it”, that their problems won’t be taken seriously or that other people are too busy.
They go to the doctors alone, decide on their medication journey by themselves, use AI as their closest confidant, no longer tell people when it’s a rough day and watch anniversaries of harm without anyone to hold them.
It’s so common, it’s tearing me up right now.
I don’t care how much of a great person you are, do better.
Don’t ever presume that people are OK and if you’re waiting to be told otherwise, I’m sorry, but you’re not actively “caring” about anyone. Don’t wait to find out if you’re a person someone would confide in. It’s safer to presume you’re not and aim to be.
Or else, don’t ever say that you never saw it coming.
🜁 “Loving” Is Learning
If we prosper in society in any way, it is our duty to care.
If you’re white, support people who aren’t.
If you’re straight, support people who aren’t.
If you’re cis, support people who aren’t.
If you’re financially safe, support people who aren’t.
And if you’re mentally healthy right now… guess what, SUPPORT SOMEONE WHO ISN’T… and gain the skills to do so.
If you love a dog, you learn canine CPR. If you love a child, you learn early communication. If you love a deaf person, you learn sign language.
Caring is a lived practice, not an identity badge.
If you love… learn.
Mental Health First Aid training
ASIST training
A thousand other fucking training programmes you can Google
Because if we don’t?…
Then we’re a world of selfish People Pleasers showing off our goodness like those bikini women holding up a sign before an MMA fight…
We need to do better.
If that triggers you into defensiveness, ask yourself why. I hope it doesn’t and I hope you stay with me here.
🜁 Are We Being Honest With Ourselves Enough?
Supporting someone with mental ill health isn’t easy and it takes effective boundaries and community to do so.
But if we don’t actively support our loved ones on those other 51 weeks of the year, then we’re truly fucked (and we’re not actually loving them).
Loving is learning. Caring is action.
I knew a person once (friend of a friend) who needed urgent intervention, with only my friend in the right position to step up. It felt uncomfortable for her, despite how much she cared and helping would have taken time and energy. She questioned whether she wanted to.
Upon seeing this, I simply said, “being a good friend doesn’t always look and feel comfortable. It can feel demanding and you can feel out of your depth. But what is the alternative? What would you want them to do for you?”
I’m the first to teach selfishness, I think we need it in order to survive, now more than ever.
But it’s about balancing your selfishness and selflessness… that’s what I’m getting at.
Responding to someone’s mental health is like someone’s physical health. You wouldn’t ignore someone you “cared about” who was home alone with two broken legs in need of coming downstairs to eat in order to survive, so why would we ignore someone who is mentally tormented?
You shouldn’t need to have someone say you’re a shit person, to make you step up into being a good one.
The clue is in what you refuse to admit.
The clue is in the people you subtly fade out.
The clue is in your inaction when someone even hints at feeling low, even if this is the thousandth time.
The clue is in your willingness, or lack thereof, to gain the skills on offer.
The clue is in that feeling of guilt and shame in your stomach, because you’re actually a bit shit.
To refuse where we are failing others, is also refusing how we are failing in ourselves.
Do more.
🜁 The Good, The Bad, The Silently Ugly
We often see depictions of our good sides vs. our bad. The bad is shown as the dark, evil, vindictive, loud, sinister thing… a screeching witch or a haunting devil.
What we don’t understand is that the darker side of us is passivity, inaction, delay and quiet judgement or resentment… even contempt, for our so-called “loved ones”.
That’s the world’s shadow.
It is often that this darkness inside is a silent, sinister killer of connection and our drive to provide a showy love we get to wrap our identity around. We don’t realise that we’re all one. To be shit to the ones we say we love equals being shit to ourselves. We know this deep down. So we live with shame, cover it with blame, rather than admit we need to be something more.
What I’m trying to say is, pay attention to both of these masks we wear and develop your intuition so that you can sense if your choice not to engage, support and care correctly, is truly because you have already contributed enough, or if it is just simply because the care within the connection isn’t designed to work both ways.
That doesn’t make you evil, just dishonest. To yourself and them.
Please know that you are good and bad. We all are. Admit it.
Deciding there’s nothing but good inside, even as a whole society, is what is actually killing others.
Take action, be honest.
For those reading that have experienced this treatment from others, please know that you can hear psychological theories that coexist with this:
Some people don’t have capacity
Some don’t understand it
Some can’t relate to your specific situation
Some think it will rub off on them
Some blame you, even for the things you can’t control
Some don’t want to see you succeed and be well
Some benefit from you being stuck
And I’m sorry for that, I truly am.
All of those things coexist with one huge outcome: that means they’re not able to care.
They sometimes say they do.
But, like loving someone, caring is a verb: a doing, living, breathing thing that acts, provides, serves and nourishes each other.
Their actions are incapable of this.
And, often, it’s the brightest, happiest, funniest people that are the most incapable of care and they mis-promote a willingness to share that light, no matter how much you’ve shared with them.
You deserve to fill the space of their absence with people and things that are worthy of your love and care.
If you do one thing today, move towards that. I’m here to tell you it’s worth the investment, whether it’s a social change for you, some inner reflection or flat-out therapy.
Because I’d rather be in debt with a therapist than in bed with instability like that.
🜁
Personally, I’m fed up of seeing the same patterns in people I’ve loved.
Patterns of shame mixed with avoidance and wrapped in goals that never fill the hole within them. Maybe that’s their fate…
Bucket lists mean nothing unless you truly care for the other bucket-listers around you.
There’s zero point in learning to swim unless you’re ready and capable of holding others above the waves when they grow too tired.
Remember, as Tony Robbins once beautifully said about achievement in any area of life… “Success is getting what you fucking want, fulfilment is bringing what you’re made for to those you love and those you’ve learned to love.”
Fulfilment isn’t found on mountains, in waterfalls or even under the stars… fulfilment is knowing we’re all one and we’re all doing our bit to help each other get home safe.
If not, then leave people alone.
And let them find the care they need.
Lilith x
🜁 Further Reading and Resources
If this brings anything up for you and you feel at risk, please contact Samaritans free on 116 123, text SHOUT to 85258, contact your local crisis team or call 999/go to A&E if you are in immediate danger.
Please also see: 10 Reasons Why... Why Not To Kill Yourself
Thank you so much for reading and being here with me on this messy, beautiful journey.
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