I taught myself how to use my recording gear in my studio, its changed my life. Starting small but building to releasing my first music shortly. It has given me some focus and life.
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Goodonya Twist, youâre still fighting.
I got nothing specific to add except just say âfark Carltonâ on a regular basis. Itâs good for the soul.
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I canât thank everyone enough for sharing. A lot of time and effort went into those messages and I highly appreciate it. So information to take in. I found comfort in reading all your posts and thatâs worth itâs weight in gold.
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Heard a great quote by Prince Harry on the radio. The bloke was spot on.
We all have mental health. Just like physical health.
You have to look after it.
My personal experience is they go a little hand in hand.
Good physical health = good sleep and rest = good mental health.
(simple equation there is also social support family friends and perspective. I realised the important of breaking from routine to get some every now and again)
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Hey Twist, it is excellent that you are being open and sharing, that always helps.
The answers given so far are spot on however I will just add that the best help really comes down to what the root causes of the issue are. So if you know what the root cause is then you can work to mitigate how this impacts as things happen to you in your life (such as a relationship break down).
For me the root cause is rejection (I was ârejectedâ by my birth parents - even while I was with them - but thatâs a whole bigger story). So for me, when things happen in my life my reaction always comes back to that. So knowing this helps me work to mitigating how much it impacts me when things donât go the way I want. As an example, if I donât get a job I go for, I work towards saying to myself it wasnât me they were rejecting as a person, they werenât invalidating me, but rather they found that the other candidates skill set was greater than mine in the area they needed. Blitz is another example.
It doesnât really stop me feeling bad of course, but rather it helps me understand my gut reaction and work towards lessening itâs impact on my mental health.
Some can find full healing but for most people it is about finding balance and coping mechanisms that reduce the severity.
I hope you can find yours and that life finds a level of balance that you find it mostly enjoyable.
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This is the trap of mental illness IMO.
Yes, some healing or change needs to ultimately come from within, but you can also end up putting pressure on yourself by trying to cure or fix yourself.
Which contributes to the whole downward spiral.
I think of it like a balance or see saw. If youâre in the middle, itâs easy to move one way or the other, but if youâre right down one end, itâs that much harder.
Get help if you think you need it. Just to help give you a push up towards balance. Once youâre there, you can probably do most of the work yourself to stay there in terms of routine, exercise, and the relationship stuff will settle after a time.
Get your GP to write up a mental health care plan which gives you a number of subsidised sessions.
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Agreed. Entirely.
Life got a lot easier for me when I realised it was acceptable to not be OK all of the time. The worst kind of low is when you feel depressed about being anxious or anxious about being depressed.
It happens. It can happen to anybody. This is of course not to minimise, just to say that everyone should go easy on themselves, particularly when things are hard.
@Twist, from personal experience, definitely follow HAPâs last piece of advice.
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I had a friend of mine who I had become friends with over the last 5 months or so commit suicide about 2 weeks ago. He had depression but only a few people knew, he mainly kept everything to himself.The hurt that it has caused to those that knew him and loved him is massive
It is ALWAYS better to talk about it. I applaud you twist for having the guts to speak openly about it. We are all here for you.
Sometimes just putting you thoughts into words or writing can help see things a bit better and can really help
I think guys in society( not saying you are like this twist) think it isnât very manly to discuss their feels or emotions, that is complete and utter garbage. It takes a lot of courage and toughness to let it out. Be proud of yourself twist for opening up
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Iâm a doctor. My wife is a doctor. Her parents are doctors. And her brother, an engineer, committed suicide a month and a half ago. We recognised some of the signs. Recommended he get help. Supported him through this process. But in the end, we didnât see the final spiral. Didnât appreciate how fixed these ideas were. And in that brief moment of relaxation he did something that tore the very fabric of his family apart.
Iâm not mad at my brother in law. He fought valiantly for a long period of time. He tried, tried really hard. But he had an illness, and just couldnât see anyway out of his own head.
Mental illness is still stigmatized. People donât want to talk about their feelings until it reaches that crisis point. The point at which it is so hard to drag people back from the abyss.
I think any person with the bravery to voice their own inner demons should be commended. These are changes that people need to make FOR themselves, but not by themselves. Mental health does not discriminate. It affects everybody. And everybody is capable of assisting somebody who is experiencing problems with their mental wellbeing.
Asking people how they are going, about how they are really feeling shouldnât be confined to R U OK day.
I commend HM for starting this thread, as I obviously feel this is an important issue. And itâs just nice to see a thread on the internet that isnât dedicated to tearing at peoples insecurities and instead offers support.
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I was about wind up and get into you about this post but the more I read it the more I agreed totally.
I touched on it before but normalise it if you can. Itâs not the same thing but definitely related, but I had a colleague whose son suicided a while back. I hadnât seen this bloke for a couple of years until a seminar and as youâd expect he was grey gaunt and not quite the bloke he once was or so it seemed, but maybe thatâs what youre looking for too closely in such a case. He was really upfront about it and I could see everyone getting really awkward and thinking âoh itâs effected him really badlyâ and âso sad to seeâ etc. It wasnât the case at all, he was trying to make people see thereâs no shame here. He was actually on the mend and had decided by treating it as taboo heâd missed the chance to talk to people a bit more about it, missed the chance to be more proactive with his son. I recon he was being a bit hard on himself but was pretty determined that he wanted to help anyone else go through it in a more open way. It was amazing to watch.
When I eventually started dealing with mine I decided to tell mum and dad and the first thing dad said was âIâm going to mow the lawnâ and Mum just gave it a âthere there everyone feels down sometimesâ. It showed me two things,1. Mums trot out benign comforts for anything and, 2, I think dad talks to his lawnmower when things get weird. Thatâs that generation. Thatâs not their fault.
Now everyoneâs encouraged to talk about all aspects of it. If thereâs one thing that staggered me about telling mum was she later came out with âpush on, ignore tra la laâ stuff which as she was a nurse staggered me. You get someone with a broken leg in hospital mum and dibyou push on ignore yep good work. Go Florence. It showed me the disconnect between the physical and the mental. It was only round that time things where starting to be looked at that way thankfully.
That strength to normalise looks like itâs now established, but there are some that still canât get there head around it. Itâs ingrained to an extent for xgeners from the boomers and itâs really hard for some. I swear thatâs where the grunge movement popped up from. assuming the newer generations are all over itll be the norm to talk it out, but for those who canât, are confused or in denial something as simple as a blitz forum has power in keeping people going and evolving by way of that anonymity. I strongly encourage older posters to take advantage of that - it was only a couple of years ago I found anti depressants in the old mans cabinet; Mum still claimed it was used off label for chronic pain.
Iâm called mad as a wheel in an endearing way (sometimes not so much,just dickhe@d) but itâs a mask used to blend in. Showing your real self at times can impact people. My mask became entrenched when I didnât know how to help myself, or there wasnât the help out there. Like major lillneses, it can be genetic and it can be a killer. One of the best ways to help yourself is just speak up no matter who you are, and no matter who you are there are people that care and can offer something, even if itâs just by a group of disaffected, squabbling bomber nuts.
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Many different experiences and opinions. There is never really a wrong answer as we all have our own path. Having a platform for this kind of conversation is brilliant. I always come back here and re-read everyoneâs comments - and absorb any information that I can use upon myself.
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Just want to say that the courage shown on this thread is remarkable.
Credit to those that have posted and shared details of their troubles.
Much respect and well wishes to you all : )
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Thank you for having the courage to be open and share your journey with us. Glad to have you in this forum. I think the hardest step is to accept mental illness happens and it often happens to people think âit wonât happen to me.â Owning it, I know from my own experience, opens the door to self acceptance, support and loving kindness towards yourself by not giving yourself such a hard time.
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Thankyou - the last week or so still hasnât been so kind, but Iâm making big changes that will hopefully allow myself to grow. I am petrified of what the near future brings, and I cry every night about it (which has allowed me to get some raw emotion out in which Iâve never done before). Iâm accepting that bad days will come before the good ones. There is plenty of time for that 
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I like to do house cleaning, starting with making my bed when I get up.
If I feel like â â â â . And Iâm going feel like â â â â anyways itâs just better feeling like â â â â in a clean house.
I donât know if this post is of much help.
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A very wise attitude. Accepting that there will be bad days and working through those days is a big step on the path to mental health.
Thereâs always someone around here, day or night, if you need to talk/vent.
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Withdrawn.
Best thread on the internet. Be kind everyone, particularly to yourself.
Go Bombers.
fark carlton.
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Are you seeing a psychologist twist? My wife has had a long history of depression and anxiety and finds that the most helpful thing for her. Having somebody teach you strategies to counteract some of the negative thought patterns. You get the first few visits subsidised under Medicare if you get a mental health plan through your GP (Very easy). Particularly when her brother committed suicide 2 months ago, the psychologist has been really great. Encouraging and affirming that itâs ok to feel sad but there are certain things you have to do for the betterment of your mental health.
Thankyou Darli - much appreciated!