I’m going to be honest with you. I may have lied in the title of this post…BUT WAIT! Before you explode in rage and click the little red cross on this window, overwhelmed by the fury that someone on the internet has had the nerve to lie to you and use the promise of your very own waddling flightless bird to catch your attention, please hear me out. If you do I will give you a cookie (this may or may not be another lie.)
The most difficult thing about starting a blog is the uncertainty as to whether or not anyone is actually going to read it and this concern has held me back for a long time. However, this year I have made a resolution to go for it anyway as I think I have a lot to say on certain issues and the sure fire way to make sure nobody reads my words is to not write them down at all.
For the past few years mental health issues have been on the rise and with 1 in 4 of the UK population suffering with a mental health problem each year, it is now a big issue in our society. True, there are a lot of voices discussing the issue, from health care professionals and charities to newspapers raising awareness and generating scare stories of the much feared “mentally ill” (deranged humans so frightening that it is now common place to see at least one person dressed as a “mental patient” at Halloween or to watch a horror film where the villain is clinically insane). However, I personally don’t think that there aren’t enough voices from the mentally ill people that the horror films, headlines and statistics are about. It is to these voices that I would like to add, and, rest assured, I’m really not that scary.
With three mental illness diagnoses under my belt, the survival rate of some of which is lower than your chances with certain types of cancer, (hence the importance of speaking about mental health), I have been in treatment for well over a decade having first got ill around age 11. People often refer to the process of “going mad” as “losing one’s marbles”, but to be honest I don’t feel I have lost any marbles, rather I was born without them, as I showed signs of various mental health conditions shortly after my exit from the womb. Maybe my connection to “sanity” was cut at the same time as my umbilical cord, but, rather than mourn my lack of balls (unfortunate phrasing but I can assure you that we are still talking about the metaphorical glass balls of the marble variety), I’ve decided to use my marbleless brain to try and help people who are also struggling in their search for mental stability amongst the giant haystack that is everyday life.
A very wise and wonderful nurse once told me that “there is nothing wrong with you that what’s right with you can’t fix”, so, as an aspiring writer, I am therefore going to use my love of writing to find my way in this “crazy” world and hopefully help my fellow mental health warriors along the way. I know that by writing a blog I am not going to “fix” or “cure” anybody, but still I am going to do my best to do what I can. Picture this blog as a hug to a broken leg if you will, it won’t heal the bone inside but it might provide a bit of comfort, even if just for a little bit.
This whole grand plan may very well go down in flames and have no readers other than my mother (hi mum), but this year I am going to get off my ass give it a go anyway rather than continuing to put my hopes of helping people “someday” off even longer and finding myself still sitting at this computer screen in fifty years’ time, crying into a tin of baked beans and asking where all the time went and what happened to my dreams. Don’t get me wrong, I love baked beans, but that image of the future just isn’t part of my plan.
So yes, I will admit that I may have lied to you in the title of this post in the hopes of piquing your interest, but I hope you will forgive me and continue listening to my voice in this crazy life of a mentally ill person trying to find their way whilst attempting to support, educate and maybe even help someone else struggling out there. As for the promised pet penguin and proposed cookie for all readers, I promise I will be working on it.