The Weekly Friday Feast

[Mazarita]

@Appleblossom I don't do very well at all alone so have tended to gravitate to relationships over the years if there has been the possibility. I'm happy with my partner, especially since we've had two weeks apart and he's coming back late tonight. 😛 The relationship doesn't solve my mental illness (which I used to hope for) and it troubles me that it has been a strain on every one of my relationships over time. But then I have to deal with his strangeness too. All seems to even out pretty well for the most part. We are not perfect by any means and I'm in the farthest orbit of his family, who don't seem to approve of me (because I don't work I think).

[NikNik]

Sorry to hear you haven't had a good week @Crazy_Bug_Lady

Thinking of you.

Did you guys know that not next week, but the week after, is Mental Health Week?

[Jacques]

no i didn't @NikNik, their is so much dislike for people with MI in my area, a lot of people think i put it on.  a lomg way to go for people like us

[NikNik]

The ABC do a great campaign called 'Mental As'  where they show some really interesting programs related to mental health. Q&A will also be based on something to do with mental health.

Hopefully little things like this will open peoples' minds....

[Crazy_Bug_Lady]

Hey.
I feel clean now. 😊
It's been a looong week...
I've been struggling with the blues since last week, and the final straw for me was... it sounds silly. Up at the farm on Sunday everyone wanted me to look at the heifers and choose one... I couldn't do it. I never intended to be alive for this long.
Having a heifer... that means I need to stick around for way longer.
I am so scared.
Too scared to live, too scared to die...

[Mazarita]

I get what you are saying, @Jacques. I have the same feeling from a lot of people I meet too. I'm never really sure if it's their actual thoughts or my paranoia about it ('self-stigma'?). I have definitely had some stigmatising responses but I think I also 'fill in gaps' a bit too well sometimes myself. Does that make sense?

[Jacques]

Hi @NikNik,

 yes i have recorded all the documentaries from last year, they all make me almost cry seeing how others suffer like me, and seeing how governments have failed people with MI, it is so sad to see their priorities set on productivity instead of wellbeing.

[Mazarita]

@Jacques The main thing that gives me hope about the mental health system is that it used to be a lot worse than it is now and so appears to be getting somewhat better over time, even if only slowly. I have done family history research into one ancestor from the 1800s who ended up in asylums. I recognise that it could easily have been me too if I was born in her era, living years locked up and enduring who knows what torments. At least I've been able to live most of my life in my own place (even though I've pretty much locked myself in it for years on end at times). But, like you, I wish there was a way we could not be so looked down on if unable to work due to illness.

[NikNik]

Hey @Crazy_Bug_Lady Do you have to make a decision right away? Do you have some time to choose one?
Hopefully getting some distance will be helpful.
From what I know of you, you'd make a great.. carer... mother... (not sure what you call an owner of a heifer!) You seem to have a lot of compassion for animals.

@Mazarita argh 'self stigma' is a pain! You described it so well... 'filling the gaps yourself' is a great way of looking at it. If you can catch yourself doing it, that's the key!
@Jacques - I found Q&A during MH week last week very interesting.

[Jacques]

oh yes, you are right, i have an uncle who is severly brain damaged, he has lived all his life in homes for the disabled, he was sexually and physically abused, he has had such horrible treatment, even recently he was moved out of one home, because the wealthy wanted "holliday homes" on the place where he lived.  so cruel.

yes i often wonder where i would have ended up if i had been born earlier.  now pleasent, but the public MHU are not nice places either.