I Couldn't Care Less: Deep Pit Mind

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A hypodermic needle and a vial

Deep Pit Mind

Earlier this week I was having a conversation about mental health on twitter. Specifically, the issues at hand were firstly who amongst us had mental health problems and secondly the degree to which the sense of anonymity in forums such as twitter cause people to feel free enough to discuss these issues in a way they might not do if they were, say, in the pub with their mates. My drifting thoughts regularly collide with a current event of some sort to create the content of this column, and of late I had been thinking about how I should draw myself back from hectoring on the subject of The World According to Me and talk about what it is to be a carer again. So here I am, talking – writing – about being a carer and having mental health problems


I don't mind telling you it took a bit of writing, that last sentence. It takes me back to over a decade ago, after a friend had suggested that I needed counselling. I hadn't made any friends at University and I was getting rather lonely and was becoming somewhat clingy and anxious and isolated. Anyway, my university provided a fine counselling service and all it took was for me to approach someone at the reception and say, 'can I see a counsellor, please?' I did manage it on my first visit to the place, but it wasn't easy. I don't really know why. I think the idea of such an admission made me feel very vulnerable, far more so than admission of a physical malady would have done. I wasn't scared of a descent into madness, but anxious of the process impinging on my private little world.


So I talked about myself, my thoughts, fears, anxieties and dreams. I've seen counsellors on numerous occasions since and I've learned how better to make the person-centred approach work for me. I don't think at the time I had what you would call a diagnosable mental illness, but I was mentally under the weather. I needed treatment and support and had issues with my mental health. I wasn't bipolar or autistic or OCD or anything specific. Most of us aren't, and that makes those of us that are seem, I think, somewhat disconnected. Whereas really I think many of us do, at some point, need help of some kind or another with our mental health. Anyway, anon:


In due course it became apparent to me that I was a carer for my wife. I have mentioned her issues in this space before but she has a periodically debilitating physical health condition, and the associated trauma of being abused for years as a child. But this is not about her, it's about me. I had known about her abuse since before we were married and had no intrinsic problem with it. I had also known about her illness – although her diagnosis changed and her condition worsened – for all that time, so it too was not a nasty surprise. But here are the reasons why it was a considerable mental strain:


First of all, there are practicalities. I needed to learn as much as I could about her issues and health problems, I got more and more involved with her medication, to the point where I am now ordering, tracking and distributing her pills into those little pill pots you can get. I accompany her, as often as possible, to her appointments. As I have said before, much of caring is proactive, much occasionally when the poo lands in the air conditioning and her health takes a turn for the worse, I have to be reactive. Suddenly it changes from the tiresome stresses of routine drudgery to the delights of pure what-the-hell-do-I-do-here panic. And in between these she is facing the trauma of her child abuse, the nightmare that keeps on giving. I am under no illusions that she suffers infinitely more privations in this than I do, but it's tough to listen to her memories, watch her nightmares and contemplate the suffering that I am powerless to prevent.


That's the big obvious mental challenge, but the less obvious one harks back to university and beyond for me. It seems trite to say that caring teaches you about yourself, but seeking to nurture another person's physical and mental well-being means you have to address your own. Physical flaws are relatively easy to identify and address, but seeing your mental weakness and overcoming them is a challenge that continues to bite. I am aware that it took me too long to accept that I was a carer and needed help, that I am still too reluctant to ask for help, or to back away and say I need rest or time for myself. I am not, I think, mentally ill. But I am not completely mentally well either. I think that if we were all asked to look at our own mental health we might find that it sometimes drifted below where it should be, and we'd probably be stronger if we did.

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