mental health

Rae Ritchie explores the power of reading and how it can help us to manage our emotions … 

By this point in the calendar, most of us have given up on any resolutions that we were attempting, especially if it’s one of the perennial statements such as ‘Get fit’ or ‘Lose weight’.

I’m not an advocate of New Year resolutions, but in 2017, I decided I wanted to read more.  In particular, I wanted to read more books (like most people, I already spend more than enough time reading my phone!).

A passion for reading

For once, I was successful.  Over the twelve months, I read forty-four books, each recorded on a dedicated Pinterest board.

A dormant passion for the written word, long quashed by a misplaced belief that reading for work purposes somehow sufficed, was reignited.  …

This article was first published by Mental Health Today. You can find the full article here.

Rae Ritchie: I blog mainly about history and women’s magazines, with more creeping in on contemporary magazines than I’d expected, and most definitely consider myself (and my writing) to be a feminist. @rae_ritchie_

(Cross-posted from Agoraphobic Feminist)

Originally posted October 2013

Since today is World Mental Health Day, I thought I’d take the opportunity to write something, since it’s been ages since I’ve actually blogged!

Also, on this day in 1903, Emmeline Pankhurst formed the Women’s Social and Political Union to fight for women’s rights in Britain – so today is doubly important!

I’m probably preaching to the converted here, considering someone who doesn’t relate to feminism/doesn’t have any interest in understanding mental health issues probably won’t be reading this blog, but I felt I had to write SOMETHING, at least.

I want to raise awareness of the crippling illnesses of depression, anxiety and agoraphobia.

Some may argue that as these illnesses aren’t ‘physical’, they aren’t debilitating – I argue that although these illnesses originate in the brain, and in the case of depression are mood disorders – they definitely DO have physical side-effects.

My agoraphobia prevents me from going outside, so I don’t get the benefits of exercise or the Vit D from sunlight that I badly need. This, coupled with the lack of motivation due to depression means that I’m also overweight because the majority of the time I can’t motivate myself to cook a healthy meal.

It’s a vicious cycle.

Being overweight adds to my depression because I look at myself in the mirror and consider myself too ugly to be seen in society.

Being overweight also makes me worry constantly about the pressures I’m putting my body under. Every minor symptom (e.g. palpitations, leg pain, headache) will be blown out of all proportion by my anxiety. I’ve had countless scans, tests etc. to check there’s nothing physically wrong with me. The doctors say I’m perfectly healthy. I don’t believe them.

Being unable to go out means that I can’t work unless it’s from home. This severely limits what I can do, and it contributes to my depression as there are so many things I NEED and WANT to do.

The majority of the time I get my family, my boyfriend, or my friends to do favours for me, with strains my relationships with people.

Recently my anxiety has decided to make me worry about the medication I’m taking, so I stopped taking it. I’m supposed to be taking 40mg fluoxetine and 20mg mirtazapine, with 5mg of diazepam when I need it.

I’m well-versed in the side-effects of fluoxetine, as I’ve been taking them on-and-off for years. The mirtazapine is another matter, though. I’m not even going to Google it, as I know I’ll end up reading the side-effects, or some anecdote from someone they didn’t work for, and be even less inclined to trust them.

I will be starting the medication again soon, as my family have said that I’m better off with it than without it. We’ll see.

Another thing I wanted to mention is the fact that there are no set targets for mental health treatment within the NHS, which is something that’s always confused me but I’ve never thought to bring up until I saw it mentioned on the news a couple of days ago.

The story was about a young woman with bulimia and anorexia who had been made to wait 18 months for treatment. Instead of waiting, she has taken her care into her own hands, which I completely admire, but it definitely shouldn’t be this way.

If you’re diagnosed with anything physical – from a broken ankle, to epilepsy, to cancer – you’re put on a set pathway that dictates what treatment you need, and there are set timeframes for when you need that treatment.

With mental health issues, this is, unfortunately, not the case most of the time.

Now, I understand that mental health issues vary greatly from person to person, but in my opinion it seems like a lot of healthcare professionals take a shot in the dark when it comes to diagnosing and treating mental health patients.

I’m still researching this, so I honestly don’t have all my facts yet. In my experience, though, every healthcare professional will bring their own opinions to the table when they decide how they want to treat you, which is very, very wrong as it has confused me and made me less inclined to trust healthcare professionals.

The item I saw on the news did state that there will be better guidelines come 2015 – but I worry about the people who will suffer badly between now and then, and those who have already suffered.

It’s not only the patients who will benefit from better guidelines, but healthcare professionals too, as they will be less inclined to include their own opinions, morals or beliefs when it comes to diagnosing and treating someone.

My intention is to join (or set up) some sort of pressure group, the main aim of which will be to see guidelines put in place a lot sooner than 2015, and to change the way things work right now.

Some may call me naïve, and I myself know I’m not the most educated person on the subject, but when I see people suffering, all I want to do is help.

If anyone has any ideas or opinions for me, please comment below or message me. I’d be really grateful.

Spread the word – it’s so important to keep the conversation about mental health going!

AF x

Agoraphobic Feminist: I’m a versatile freelance writer that suffers from depression and panic disorder with agoraphobia. My writing covers a wide range of issues including feminism, equality, social issues and mental health.” If possible, I would also like to include the following links: (@AtHomeActivist)

This post was written for A Room of our Own: A Feminist/ Womanist Network by @LUBottom.

I took part in a discussion with a few Twitter users (including @Roomofourown) the other day in which we spoke about the appropriation of the term “depressing” in a webchat about the effects of fourth wave feminism. This conversation took many meandering paths and we were pretty unanimous in our opprobrium of medicalised terms to discuss everyday experiences. We spoke, at length, about the myriad ways in which we, as women with disabilities, are erased from the discourse of mainstream feminism. On the one hand my instinct is to ignore the word “depressing” as something which has become deeply assimilated into our everyday conversations, but on the other I am aware of the hypocrisy of ignoring such terms whilst feeling offend by the use of other medical terms such as “schizophrenic” or “retarded” as adjectives for negative terminology.

My life has been full of a variety of tragic strands which, if sewn together, would make a large shroud. I have written about them on several occasions: my experiences as a person with disabilities, my fight against anorexia, my life as a survivor of rape, my battle against post-natal depression & my general feeling of being ostracised by the world, either because of my disability. Those who read my blog will be familiar with my life. But what I wanted to write about is my particular experience with depression and why I take issue with it being co-opted as a term to describe non-medical annoyance or frustration and why non-disabled feminists need to make more careful choices regarding the words they use.

I entered psychiatric inpatient care on a Sunday, much like any other, in July. There was nothing particularly special about that weekend, neither for the rest of the world nor for myself. It was by random chance that I had decided that that weekend would be my last. On the Friday I took a large dose of Valium, nothing happened, other than a long sleep and lost memories, and so on Sunday I decided I would give it a harder push and took an overdose of Baclofen, my muscle relaxant. I didn’t even get very far into this second overdose, due to the restrictions on my liberty (due to being a wheelchair user largely confined to bed), before the ambulance and police were called and so, before I could cause myself significant harm I was carted off to hospital. I don’t remember much of what happened next. But somewhere along the lines my indignation about my right to die led to me receiving a ticket to a psychiatric hospital.

When you first arrive for check in one of the first things they do is give you a physical medical, it was at that moment that a hidden truth was discovered: I hadn’t eaten in quite some time. I had fallen from a size 16 to a size 6 and the jutting ribs and sagging skin made alarm bells ring in the on call doctor’s head. It was from that moment on that the ins and outs of my body became public property. Scale reading after painful scale reading was meticulously recorded by the medical staff and weekly review meetings centred on whether they had convinced me to eat yet.

Every day a menu card was brought to me in my room and every day I would have to explain to another member of my medical team that “I don’t eat”. There is a painting by Max Ernst called Europe After the Rain, in it sits dozens of references to eyeballs watching the painter, signifying the paranoia during WWII. This painting perfectly exemplified the sensation of being watched which I experienced. In reality, my medical team were solely invested in keeping me alive but in the mind set I inhabited for that time they were the enemy who sought my destruction. All food was poison to me, a rotten carcass with detrivores spilling out of its remains.

Nurses, doctors were only seen on a weekly basis, tried to talk me out of my depression and desire to end my life. I was presented with classes in clay making, presented with dogs to pat, given sedating medications on my request, and een sent on long-spiralling guilt trips about my responsibilities to my children. Alas nothing would shift my desire to end my life. I was placed upon a course of drugs which I flouted by refusing some medications and, at other times, sneaking large amounts of laxative into my bedroom. My thirst for self-extinction was unquenchable.

I had no desire to do anything, and death occupied most of my thoughts. Indeed, the feeling of disconnection caused by starvation gave me cause for hope. No one could connect with me, because I inhabited a different plane: they were in the land of the living whilst I was somewhere nearer to death. Eventually the only thing which, ironically, sent me from my self-destructive course was the death of one of the most important people of my life. Though her death didn’t make me eat, it did stop me from being in a place of continual overdose. A desire to protect those I loved somehow caused a paradigm shift that I doubt I will ever truly understand.

When I think back to this time and compare it with my feelings about feminism the latter seems entirely ridiculous. How can something so desperate and soul destroying be used as a synonym for what equates to upsetting? That said, feminism does, quite literally depress me, specifically because of the way in which it makes women with mental illness and disabilities feel alienated and erased. The repeated instances of feminists using lazy and bungled ableist language need to end. Having a disability is already isolating, and presents women with more complex oppressions, feminists need to make a conscious effort to be more aware of these issues and seek to support their sisters. Perhaps the question of whether feminism is depressing wasn’t so silly after all.

bottomfacedotcom: proud owner of lady parts: Writes, makes vulvas, swears. Past caring. Home ed. Parent of child w/ ASD ADHD. Has ME & FMS. Lucy tweets at @LUBBottom. She also has an etsy page: Little Shop of Vulvas