Mental health pains

Ah the age old argument of mental health, the good, bad or worse that is the mind.  It is easy to dismiss it as all in the mind and say things like get over it but the harsh reality there is problems and places in the mind we just don’t understand.

This is not I am having a bad day type of thing, this is a real struggle where your mind does not know which way to turn or if there is another day to start again let alone light at the end of the tunnel. When heavy depression kicks in sometimes there is no hope in the mind but a friend and a hug does good things, a helping hand or voice just to listen. I don’t pretend to even know the depths of depression but have sampled it in the past and now most of the time I can climb out of it before it grabs hold. I have a mind that I can say bounces back from most downtimes pretty quick, until this last week when I sprained my ankle and still trying to get the positive flow back into full swing.

This started this morning when I saw a post on Facebook from a friend on the subject this morning about depression and suicide. Now, suicide is easy to claim that this is the cowards way out, really? Nope have to disagree, when your mind is on such a downward spiral that you cannot see the way forward, you cannot see that somewhere somehow there is a future for you and you are actually worth something, something to you or your family but you are so far gone that you truthfully believe the people around you will be better off without you. Hence a word and a hug from someone often works or is at least a start.

An example, not to far ago there was a plane crash, it is believed that the pilot flew the plane into the ground to commit suicide, despite the overwhelming desire to hate the pilot for what he did and yes the brutal truth is he committed mass murder in the process he could see or hear nothing past his own mind and what he ‘needed’ to do. The flight crash investigation concluded he would not have even heard the banging on the cockpit door trying to get his attention. It was a sad day beyond words for families and the aviation world.

Just a thought, depression is evil, the dark side of the mind that is very powerful, so the next time someone says I am depressed, don’t bite back with some pull yourself together sentence, offer a shoulder to lean on and a friendly ear.

You might be surprised,

 

Fight or flight

Fight or flight,

Not quite that bad, but… Last Wednesday had a little incident and managed to create an issue with my ankle. Cant go into details at the moment but it still hurts a week later. So, the day job currently is driving a recovery truck, a job I enjoy for the challenge and the people, but mainly the people that are having a bad day and my pleasure of helping them in the hour of need is great. I have gone from times gone by hiding behind a computer, screen and a phone to a need for personal interaction. This is daily part of the joy, the hard part of my job is the time of my shifts, 12 hour days on a good day is hard. Sometimes it flies by and others drag, same as anywhere I guess.

Most of this I guess is a bit feeling sorry for myself, after a good few years of the odd day off sick and not needing any state handouts I suddenly find me grounded from a small incident and having to apply for said state handout 🙁

Then having said that, it made me think about income, how vulnerable we are to life changing moments in life. We are a very materialistic country and people in the west, dumb people living on smartphones. But what if, and that’s where this is coming from. I have no life insurance is the horrible scary reality, my job is quite dangerous and whilst my role involves risk assessments on every job and continually checking all my angles there is an element of unknown.

Where am I going with this, no idea.. That’s not true, mainly, I need to consider the options carefully because having always enjoyed (mostly) recovery and 3 years later still finding the challenge I am having a want more moment, I can do more and I need to, is this the push and shove I need but never wanted? Could be,

Watch this space to see what happens, but then I am sure there are doubters amongst us that we say no, nothing will change..