Overcoming Mental Illness

It is Mental Health Action Week, to which the theme is anger. The Mental Health Foundation are holding various RANTfests in workplaces and organisations around the country - this is my own RANTfest, one rant a day for the duration of the week.

Every (non spamming) comment received on this blog between 23-29 March will see 50p (or even more, depending on it’s quality) donated to the Action Week Appeal. 

Rant #1: Passion!

As a very wise and quoted-way-to-often-on-this-blog man once said, “Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love, the clarity of hatred and the ecstasy of grief,” which is completely and utterly true. Period.

But what on earth does it mean to be passionate? What the hell is passion? Is there such a bloody thing? Because these days most people are far too obsessed with work, money, me, me, me to actually have time to have “passions” - because, ya know, there is far more to passion than merely having a quick randy shag behind the night club!

The 10th Edition of the Chambers Dictionary lists passion as: “/pash’n/ n strong feeling or agitation of mind, esp rage, often sorrow; a fit of such feeling, esp rage; an expression or outburst of such feeling; ardent love; sexual desire; an enthusiastic interest or direction of the mind; the object of such feeling; (usu with cap) the sufferings (esp on the Cross) and death of Chrst.“

And to be passion-ate about something you are: “moved by passion; showing strong and warm feeling; easily moved to passion; intense, fervid” and so forth and so forth.

Or in the words of Addy, to be passionate about something is to love something so much you want to whip off it’s undies, slap it on the butt and shag it for as long as you possibly can without passing out.

And - let’s be honest - how many of us are so passionate about our jobs that, if our jobs were personified in human form, we would rip off their undies, slap ‘em on the butt and shag them for as long as possible without passing out? Unless, of course, your job just happened to resemble Carey Mulligan when in human form, that is.

Exactly!

So, as we’re all working longer hours - slaving away every hour of every minute of every day - where does passion fit into our lives? How many of us actually make time for the things in life we are passionate about? Or is the ‘having a hobby’ becoming a dying art? Forced out of humanity by the quest for the almighty dollar? This is what I’m passionate about, but…

…someone once told me I was unpassionate, that there was nothing in life I was passionate about. Bull! And in an effort to prove it, this was my room at the time (early 2007):

View One:  View Two:  (Click images to enlarge)

Now, let’s have a wee test. I can spot 17 passions which are clearly on display in this room, for all who visit to see and digest. Now, when you look closer, it’s not just one small tiny thing - they’re either big things or repeated throughout the photos, it’s not just one tiny biscuit showing that I’m passionate about biscuits.

So before scrolling on to the answers, how many of my “passions” can you see on display?

All done? Got all seventen? Well done you, gold star!

Here are the answers:

View One:  View Two:  (Click image to enlarge)

And yes, I know it is a truly terrible photo of me, but them’s the breaks! And in all honesty that’s not even all of my passions, they’re just the one’s you can see in the photos!

My point is even though I was working at the time, hanging out with friends, trying to do everything I could to make money and make ends meet I always found time to throw myself into my passions because they were all around. Wherever I looked I could see the things in life that made me feel alive, made me marvel at this wonder called life.

These days, looking at those photos brings a tear to my eye, they were taken the summer where I had finally beaten my illnesses, when I had them all under control before the great triple whammy that struck in February which has been much written about. Within a few months all which you can see had gone and I was living in a room with a bare floorboard, white walls and whopping great cracks in the ceiling. My passions had been sucked out of me and were reflected in the dwellings where I was existing.

That’s the problem with mental illness, it sucks you dry and leaves you a shaking husk on a bare wooden floorboard. Depression, mood swings, panic, anxiety - they all make it virtually impossible to indulge in our passions. In fact, one of the most common symptoms of clinical depression is the inability to enjoy the things we were once passionate about. 

• My books are gone so, 
• I can’t read any more
• I can no longer write,
• Or produce art and photographs as effectively as I once did.
• I can’t watch movies & television either, and
• Going outside for walks is very hard with the anxiety and panic, which makes
• Friendship impossible; hence, no friends, no conversation, no occasional kinkyness and
• I can’t enjoy Christmas after last years self harm debacle,
• Or indulge in nostalgia as I once did, because of it’s triggering effect. 
• Travelling is out of the question, and Scotland is hard, as are new things with the anxiety involved
• And my creativity is at an all time low!

So out of those 17 passions I have but two left; faerie and computers.

The latter has been something I have focused on since my suicide attempt in October of last year, the writing of this blog which has been the only constant in my life since then, and the only thing which I can do which holds my focus.

Other blog projects (Eliminate the Stigma, Stray Thoughts Photography, All those Stray Thoughts) have come and gone, whilst others have appeared and ticking along nicely under pseudonyms, but this blog, this Journey with Depression has remained simply because of the passion I have for it.

So many blogs out there in cyberspace seem to be in it only for the money, which is fine, if that’s what they’re interested in. I traverse blogs who receive hundreds of comments and thousands of visitors a day. I’m kinda happy if I scrape 50 people dropping by a day. I don’t do this for the kudos or the statistics or how much money I’m making from it.

I write this blog because I am passionate about it.
I am passionate about spreading the word about the damage mental illness can cause and the lives it can destroy.
I have suffered greatly from mental illness; I do not want other people’s lives to be destroyed as mine has been.

I’ve ripped myself open and laid myself bare on this blog not because of prestige or the mighty dollar, but because I want people to know who I am, and for them to know they are not - and should never be - alone. No matter what they are going through.

The hopes, dreams and passions I once had have crumbled to dust and I know it’s unlikely they will ever be back. But I’ve battled on, losing more, because it’s passion which has kept me alive over the last few months.

Passion for this blog - and a passionate belief that one day I will get to put ‘ticks’ next to the two things I want most in life right now.

As we all rush to horde as much money as we can, achieve as much as we’re able in order to earn the reputation and respect from our peers, as we wear out the shoe leather and car tyres we should all find time in our lives to enjoy those things we are passionate about, whatever they may be.

So have a think. What are your passions? How do you enjoy them? Could you find time to enjoy them more?

We only live once remember.

Tomorrow…Rant #3: Slow Walkers

Donate to the Mental Health Action Week campaign here