Just Snap Out Of It

I started this project late last year and unfortunately I started to become ill over Christmas and last month found myself unable to do much more than stare at the internet and occasionally eat some toast. As such this project became impossible to continue. Depression took over me more gradually than it has before and I didn’t realise it was doing so until far too late. I believe it was my job as a chef, for which Christmas is the most stressful time of year, which was the main cause, but I have suffered from these brick walls periodically for as long as I can remember, so I’m not going to blame anyone or anything specifically. I will however probably have to end my career in cooking because I don’t think I am made for that life. Initially this idea had caused me to regret yet another failure on my part, after a life of failing at various attempts at education and other jobs all of which I had been doing reasonably well at until I hit this brick wall and had to change direction. I’ve come to realise that this is no more me failing than a man with no legs finding he can’t compete in any type of running race, whichever one he tries. The difference is that the man with no legs knows what his limits are without having to test them, my limits seem to be invisible and appear just as I’m warming up. Of course as we’ve seen with recent London sports events, men with no legs can be tremendously successful at running, which is where this analogy fails, but I was never very good at analogies. 

The good news is that, while I am still feeling a little bit “off”, I know now that I am coming out the right end of this recent episode, and I’d like to thank a number of people who helped me do this. Firstly my twin brother who always knows exactly how I am feeling and seems to know when to phone me exactly when I need it. When I am at the stage that I can’t even see the end of the tunnel, somehow he manages to remind me that there is light out there somewhere. Secondly my mum who fully lives up to the title of a mum by turning up and telling me to have a wash before we go and see a doctor and generally sort things out. Thirdly the completely lovely people who sent me cards, they really did help quite a bit. Finally everyone else I know, each more brilliant than the last, who got me outside doing stuff, dragging me out there and back into the world. Oh and extra merit for my other brother and housemate who has had to endure me stinking up the place for the last few months. 

I consider myself very, very lucky that the people I am surrounded with understand mental illness. Not everyone is so lucky, and this is why I feel like I need to carry on with this project now. Without people knowing what’s up, I would have been somewhere far worse than I am right now. Let’s get back to talking about what people do that is unhelpful so that hopefully more people can learn how to behave helpfully instead.

Apologies for the lack of anything much here over Christmas, I have been working flat out at work cooking people’s Christmas dinners and haven’t had time between work to do much more than eat and sleep. 

Anyway, I hope your winter months were alright whatever you did, I know that christmas can be a particularly challenging time for some people and at the very least, it’s over now!

So, it feels like all the twitter submissions we get here kind of float off into distant twitter land and we never see them again, so I’m going to collect a few on this here blog. (these submissions were not anonymous when posted but if anyone ever changes their mind for whatever reason, please please contact us and say so that we can remove the content or remove your name or whatever)

First up is a collection of work-related mental health discrimination, (for more info see here http://tinyurl.com/awasye4 ) in no particular order. 

I was warned in my last job not to say I was bipolar. If I did I was told I would be fired. I was fired.

in a previous job I was told if I took time off for depression, as ordered by doctor, I would never be promoted.

If you ever find yourself in a conversation about suicide, you will often find at least one person saying something like suicide is a “coward’s way out” and that we “all feel depressed sometimes”. Even Jeremy Clarkson recently “joked” that suicide victims who jump in front of trains were selfish, and although he only really pretends to have such views as a method of rile-based self-publicity, it is indicitive of a wider trend of mental illness prejudice and misunderstanding. You can’t really blame people for not understanding mental illness and suicide, because it can be very difficult to imagine things in any context outside of your own head. Imagining what it is like to suffer from depression must, for someone who has only ever felt sad for normal, non-illness reasons, be pretty much impossible. For them, when they are sad they know they will be happy again soon. How can we expect them to realise that when you are depressed, you feel as though you might never be happy again. How can we expect them to conceptualise exactly what that feels like? The difference in experiences is so huge that it makes sense, in a way, for non-sufferers to struggle to comprehend that difference. It also doesn’t help that everyone’s depression is different in so many ways.

So how can we expect people to understand the feelings of someone who is suicidal? Other than by getting them to listen to people’s experiences, I’m not really sure. The trouble with that is, people understandably may not want to talk about it maybe because of such stigma, and maybe because it is a part of their life they don’t want to recount. It is very much a catch-22 situation, but our project (and our option for people to post anonymously) hopes to create at least one outlet where people can talk about their experiences. 

Suicide is not a cowards way out, it is the desperate, final action of someone who may feel like there are no options left, someone in a burning building who has had to jump out the 20th floor window to avoid being burnt alive. Unless you have been in their head you can’t possibly judge them, so instead of filling the gaps in your knowledge with what you reckon, fill those gaps with actual knowledge.

EP

Someone who wishes to remain anonymous sent us their story by email: ( justsnapoutofit@gmail.com )

I had to leave my school in the final year of GCSEs because of a

downhill spiral which ended in the deputy head shouted at me calling me
‘spoilt’ and saying ‘what [myself] wants, [myself] gets’ because I
wasn’t coping. This was two weeks after I had been in hospital due to a
suicide attempt which itself was due to the pressure and complete
despair brought on by the place.  When I told her that she didn’t
understand, she said that doctors had explained it to her and asked me
what there was to understand in an intimidating manner.  She completely
disregarded my doctor’s opinion that I should be in school for a maximum
of two hours a day.

She’s now the head teacher of what is deemed one of the best schools in
the county.

Someone who wishes to remain anonymous sent us their story by email: ( justsnapoutofit@gmail.com )

While dealing with an ex employer, and suffering from stress, depression and anxiety I had them send me to a counselor.  At the second session I had  the counselor tell me that she had received a letter from my employers asking if in her opinion I was well enough for them to sack me. She had replied that anything between myself and her was confidential, so she would not tell them.

From someone who wishes to remain anonymous:

“When I was suffering with anorexia my boss took a photograph of a skeleton with medals draped around its neck (something he found in a science lab) and presented it to me as a “Slimmer of the Month” award.”

We’ve had quite a few submissions along these lines which feature incidents in work that, as far as I’m concerned, count as discrimination or bullying. If the people doing the discriminating don’t realise that what they are doing is discrimination then it is entirely possible that neither do you! While I fully understand how doing anything about it may seem daunting, (sometimes I find just getting out of bed too much to cope with!) the good news is that there are people who can help you! Teams of legal law type people dedicated to this sort of discrimination. 

You may have guessed already, but I am not really up on my law knowledge. Fortunately the fantastic people at Time To Change are, and have a full page on their website to help explain what you can do: 

http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/your-organisation/support-workplace/where-do-i-stand-legally

EP

While we welcome and enjoy all the stories we are receiving on twitter, and hope that nobody minds us retweeting them, we are aware that a lot of people want to talk about their experiences of mental health discrimination but wish to do so anonymously. We completely understand this, for instance if you wanted to talk about things you have experienced in work but some of your work colleagues follow you on twitter. We really don’t mind what your reason is, and this site is where we will post the majority of anonymous content. Just drop us an email: Justsnapoutofit@gmail.com

Also, send us a message if you have a story that is too long for twitter, as we can post it here and if you have a longer story AND want to remain anonymous, well, we’re fine with that too. So send us your tales of mental health discrimination and we promise that we will read every email we get.

Finally, I want to apologise for my slow replies to emails and messages the last day or so, this project has only existed for two days and I have been in work for 20 hours of that, I was not expecting things to gather momentum at quite this pace, so please don’t think that I am ignoring you! I have a few trusted, good friends who have offered to help out as well so don’t worry about sending more messages either.

I hope all of this has made sense, and thank you to everyone who sent messages of support and encouragement, and thanks to everyone who has been open and honest about their experiences. Who knows, maybe we really can help reduce the stigma and taboo of mental illness, and if not, at the very least this is a decent place to have a good old vent!

Thanks again,

EP

“Just snap out of it” might be a familiar phrase if you or someone you know has ever suffered from mental illness but to a sufferer is as useful as telling someone who just broke their legs to just have a bit of a stretch. This project aims to show how common attitudes and misunderstanding are seriously affecting the treatment of the mentally unwell today.

We want to catalogue instances of mental illness prejudice, that is things like portrayals of mental illness in all media, comments and assumptions sufferers may have to face regularly and even the sort of issues patients have to deal with within the healthcare system itself. Inspired by the Every Day Sexism Project, we want to create a place where people can share their experiences and talk openly, anonymously if you wish, about your experiences facing a social stigma and taboo that only makes such illnesses more difficult to deal with.

To contact us:

email: everydaymentalhealth@gmail.com NOW CHANGED TO: justsnapoutofit@gmail.com  (so that everything has the same name) note: i will still check the old email account occasionally in case anyone accidentally sends to that.

or get to us on twitter @justsnapoutofit