My Bitter Insanity | The wild ramblings of a bitter woman and her messy, unpredictable, work-in-progress life.

Men’s Mental Health Stigma & Me

Contributed by: Andy Lloyd

May 19, 2018 / Guest Post / Leave a Comment

This post is part of my series for Mental Health Awareness Week 2018! The series includes articles, poems, and photo essays by many guest authors about mental health and related issues. For more information, click here!

How do you think men’s mental health is treated when compared to general mental health or women’s mental health?

I definitely think there remains more of a stigma in society regarding men’s mental health compared to women’s. That, said I think this is changing now though with men’s mental health getting more publicity(it is over here anyway). For example, there is a famous soap opera over here called Coronation Street and just last week, a main well-known character committed suicide. A few years ago the subject of male depression was a storyline featured in a comedy-drama called Cold Feet. Well known male music and sport stars have come out in the last few years talking about their mental health battles. eg Professor Green(musician) and cricketer Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff. There is definitely more of a societal conversation going on right now about male mental health than there ever has been in the past.Continue Reading

If You Say ‘It Was the Worst!’ — I Will Punch You

Contributed by: William Charles

May 18, 2018 / Guest Post / Leave a Comment

My name is ‘William.’ My son is in his late 20’s and has been struggling with mental health issues for the last few years, I’ve been depressed to varying degrees for the past decade and a half.

I won’t really punch you. I just wanted to get your attention.

There is a saying: ‘It was the worst!’ Or at least there was a couple of years ago. The hipsters these days (or some of them) used it from time to time. “I had to wait in line at Starbucks for ten minutes — it was the worst!” “On the way to work, it was raining, and I couldn’t get a seat on the bus — it was the worst!”

I respectfully submit that most people who say that have no idea at all what they are talking about. (Sorry about the phrasing, I’m watching a courtroom drama on the TV while I write this.)Continue Reading

The Effect of Chronic Illness and Mental Health

Contributed by: Kathleen Overs

May 17, 2018 / Guest Post / Leave a Comment

How is your daily life affected by your health issues? Can you give a bit of an introduction about yourself?

My daily life is 100% affected by my health issues; most of all due to pain and being faint/nauseated from pain and certain deficiencies in my blood. Fainting from pain actually drastically changed my life. For a long time it wasn’t that bad… I bruised my bones a couple of times from fainting on a hard surface either at the hospital or school, etc., but when I was working for Citizenship and Immigration Canada and I fainted from pain in the office, it was no small issue. I hit my head on the concrete floor and got a concussion. They required me to get a doctor’s note that said it was “safe” for me to continue working before I was legally allowed back in the building, and unfortunately, after that, I was never hired back.Continue Reading

A Selection of Digital Art from Fox Tales Art

Contributed by: Kira McCarthy

May 16, 2018 / Guest Post / Leave a Comment

When You Don’t Outgrow Your Mental Illness

Contributed by: Bethany Jane

May 15, 2018 / Guest Post / Leave a Comment

I have struggled with my mental health since I started self-harming aged 13. Throughout high school my mental health was dismissed as ‘being a teenager,’ and my mood swings and destructive behaviours were treated as something I would ‘grow out of.’

Well, I’m 28 now and I still don’t seem to have grown out of them.

Mental illness has been a part of my life for fifteen years now, and it sure does like to make itself known! In terms of symptoms, my mental illness hasn’t really changed much as I’ve grown older, but there are some definite differences that being in my late twenties has brought to the table.Continue Reading

Stop Calling Me Strong (I’m Not Brave Either)

May 14, 2018 / Support Yourself & Others / Leave a Comment

One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone tells me I’m ‘strong.’ Almost regardless of the context, I can feel anger bubbling up inside me; my skin starts to itch because I’m trying so hard not to get mad at them.

Because I’m not strong, and those are empty words.

I’m not strong because I’ve ‘made it this far.’ I’m not brave for telling my story. I’m not strong (or brave) for fighting.

I’m just stubborn and mad. I had mental illness thrown at me when I was barely 18 and there were only two options: fight or give up. It wasn’t strength that made me fight, and actually, I’ve given up a lot too. For four years, I’ve fought tooth and nail when I can, but more often than not, I’ve given up.

Anxiety and Fertility Issues

Contributed by: Anxiety Warrior

May 13, 2018 / Guest Post / Leave a Comment

When you decide as a couple to try for a baby, you assume everything will just happen. After all, you’ve spent so long trying NOT to get pregnant, that it seems almost inevitable that now you’re not being so careful, it’ll happen in no time.

Well sadly for 1 in 7 couples, it’s not always that easy.

My girlfriend and I decided that after 3 and a half years together, it was time to try for a baby. We’d got the house, the jobs, the next step was a family. We stopped using any contraception, and so began our journey of trying to create a family.

After 6 months we started to realise things weren’t quite right. After all, we’d had nothing in that time. We’d done all of the research, we knew when was the best time to conceive, but for some reason it wasn’t happening for us.Continue Reading

My Mental Health & Blogging

Contributed by: Angela

May 12, 2018 / Guest Post / Leave a Comment

How has your outlook changed on your mental health since you started blogging?

Since blogging I think I have realised how important what I do is. Not only for my own mental health but for the mental health of other people. In the last year or so my mental health has taken dips lower than I’ve ever had before, however, blogging has made me realise that recovery is about a journey rather than a final destination. Perhaps blogging has made me more determined to recover so that I can prove that life without anxiety, depression, and emetophobia is possible.

There are obviously downsides to mental illness, but are there any upsides that you’ve experienced?

I don’t think there are any positives. At the end of the day mental illness is debilitating at times and if I could get rid of it then I would in a heartbeat.Continue Reading

Psychosis: From Fear to Acceptance

Contributed by: Katie Conibear

May 11, 2018 / Guest Post / Leave a Comment

I suffer from auditory hallucinations, so, hearing voices and sounds that aren’t really there, since my teenage years. Although I’ve lived with them for many years, (I’m now thirty two), it’s only been in the past of couple of years that I’ve truly accepted I have psychosis. I lived in denial. Not understanding the true nature of what I was hearing, and later not wanting to believe the truth, I hid away from the glaringly obvious.

Everyone has conversations with themselves, right? Well, yes they do. We’ve all talked to ourselves whilst searching for our keys in the morning, or rehearsed what we’re going to say on a first date or at an interview. But have you ever had a voice talk to you, out of nowhere, loudly and clearly? A voice that is distinct from your own internal monologue, a voice that is unpredictable and spontaneous? I have, and so have many living with psychosis.Continue Reading

I Am ‘Kimmy Schmidt: Unbreakable’ and My PTSD Recovery

Contributed by: Saidee Wynn

May 10, 2018 / Guest Post / Leave a Comment

Content warning: this post covers c-PTSD and may affect those with PTSD

I fell in love with Netflix’s ‘Unbreakable, Kimmy Schmidt’ from the first time I heard Mike Britt (playing Walter Bankston) sing out, “Unbreakable, they alive dammit, it’s a miracle. Unbreakable, they alive dammit, females are strong as hell.” The upbeat song already sounded like it could be the theme song for my life. I often have had feelings of “well, I’m still alive, some how I’m strong enough to get through this.”

Then comes Kimmy, a woman who spent 15 years in a bunker run by a narcissistic priest, who decides to leave the city she had grown up in, and been kidnapped in, to start a life in New York. She not only wants to discover what the world has to offer, but she also wants to stop being identified as a victim.Continue Reading

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