Underneath the small talk, smiling hellos and comments about
the weather lies my true self, the one I feverishly hide from the real world.
People don’t want to hear about pain and suffering, they don’t want to know
about the broken dreams and confused realities that haunt me. They want to know
that I am “fine, thanks for asking”.
In my village I was seen as the girl who was caring and
thoughtful but could sometimes be a bit too talkative, over the top, loud and
annoying. I became involved in EVERY committee in the small town and surprisingly
there are a lot of them. They puzzled because although I worked full time and
had 4 children I didn’t appear to need food or sleep and then one day I suddenly disappeared off
the radar for a month and returned more subdued and without proper explanation.
When I got out of hospital for that manic episode, the
longest and worst depression of my life followed and it hit me like a brick. I pretended I was
fine for months, until I couldn’t.
My 2015 suicide attempt was a huge shock to all but a small
handful of my closest family and friends. Most people had no idea I had ever
suffered from depression. Many people still don’t know, I live in a place where
stigma is still very real and I keep things like that on a need to know basis.
Even the people who say they want to be there for me through
thick and thin, the ones who open their own hearts and souls to me can’t be
expected to hear the inner workings of my mind day in day out. It’s not like I
have a one off problem with a colleague that I can vent about and after some
stellar words of wisdom from a mate it will simply go away again, this is
chronic, this is for life.
Mental health is so often compared with physical, visible
issues; yet unlike a broken leg it doesn’t go away after six weeks. After a
while friends tire of hearing the same story day in day out, particularly when there
is nothing that they can do to change the situation and half the time it looks
like I’m not trying very hard to change anything either.
So stigma aside, I can’t expect to be brought a casserole every
day for the rest of my life or for friends and acquaintances to be there to take
me to every doctor’s appointment because I don’t trust myself to drive, pick
the shopping up for me because I can’t get out of bed that day. That stuff is
for the short term, that stuff is for broken legs, not for chronic mental
health conditions.
Finding help for these needs for an ongoing basis steps away
from the role of ‘friend’ and into the role of a ‘carer’. Carers are usually
partners, siblings, children or parents; they see the ugly side, the
repetitiveness and the draining reality. They bite their tongues, count out the
pills and decide when to call the doctors. Even when I know I need it and I
love the person doing it, I hate being ‘cared’ for. For me it reinforces the
fact that I am a “burden” and increases my suicidal thinking.
All in all, I think I cope better for longer when I’m hiding
my struggles. After the 2015 incident I was open with some people for a while,
but those closest to me just constantly worried analyzing every facial
expression, calling daily to check up, they asked about my psych appointments
and if I was taking my meds.
I felt like I had no privacy and even on good days I was
being reminded that I wasn’t just Kate to them anymore, they no longer saw me, they only saw my illness. Slowly I
have convinced almost everyone around me that I am doing great and they have
relaxed, entire conversations pass without bipolar or depression being
mentioned once, and I like that.
When I am down I keep my sadness to myself, I hide away,
make up excuses and I write. The internet has given me a much needed outlet
where I can privately scream from the roof tops to like-minded individuals and the
blog is a platform where I can express my manic thoughts, opinions, fears or even
suicidal ideations without judgement.
So under a veil of “I’m really well thanks, and you?’ and for
as long as I can, I will keep on, keeping on. Quietly.
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