A Depressive With a Megaphone

I haven't blogged the last few days or so. This is because I've been busy. However as I say down to write something I realised that I didn't have much to say today. I think this is because I have emptied a lot of pent up anger and frustration on this blog so far and this has emptied me a lot. I feel much better having written a lot of stuff down in this blog. Quite a few people had told me to start writing my thoughts and feelings down, as they had also found it very beneficial. So if you aren't doing so already I'd definitely recommend the cathartic process that is known as blogging. However any form of writing is good. One friend of mine said that her depression lifted when she started writing poetry about how she felt. Her poetry is often quite witty and it helps her laugh at tough situations, as well as helping her release the pent up energy. So a short blog today. Try writing and let me know how you get on.

Here is a reply from the Department of Health regarding my concerns about the huge lack of support for those with mental health: Dear Mr Youell,  Thank you for your correspondence of 22 October to the Department of Health about mental health.  I have been asked to reply.  The Department recognises that many factors influence a person’s mental health.  Evidence from population surveys, in which people were asked to rate their own happiness or mental wellbeing, shows that although Britons have become richer over the last 50 years, overall mental wellbeing has not improved.  This would suggest that many of the things that are commonly assumed to improve wellbeing, such as greater wealth, more possessions and expensive holidays, do not on their own lead to a lasting improvement in an individual’s mental health.  Over the last 20 years, new evidence has emerged about the factors affecting mental wellbeing, and this evidence shows that the actions we tak...

I've just finished speaking to a lady on the phone from a local charity that helps people with mental health issues. As I might have mentioned previously I had tried to make a GP appointment (with a new GP) in order to access this very charity (they require a diagnosis or doctor's letter). The receptionist had said the only available appointment was 3 weeks away. I initially accepted this but later went back to ask for an earlier appointment, as I felt that they had let me down earlier. I was assertive with the receptionist which did make me feel better, as I was attempting to get my needs met (authenticity again). We had left it that I would talk to the GP practice manager to get an earlier appointment. Anyway I had been quite angry about the delay. However after a bit of a rant online and the assertive feedback to the receptionist (I wasn't that bad honest!), and a couple of days doing other things, I have calmed down quite considerably (I guess I had emptied and also...

I've just arrived on my teaching course. I'm feeling slightly anxious. But I'm OK with that. Sitting in the car waiting to go in. I have been behind with my homework which meant I had to find a place to print out the worksheets before the class! I managed to find a voluntary organisation at 8.45 in the morning to do this. 5p a sheet! Such a kind lady! :) I managed to get almost all my homework done. Reflection: getting behind on urgent tasks creates stress. Stop procrastinating haha :)

I have been eating more healthily recently and I feel much clearer headed tonight. I don't drink alcohol so that's not an issue for me, however I find sugar does make me feel pretty rotten. I tend to get a 'sugar high' at the time, then followed by a 'sugar low'. I have been eating more fruit and vegetables and I've had fruit smoothies (freshly made) in the mornings. My exercise is pretty non-existent at the moment so that's probably the next thing to work on. Anyway goodnight!

Sometimes We Can't Be Authentic? I had a friend say to me that she wanted to be fully authentic, however sometimes she felt that society wouldn't let her. The example she cited was in regards to the electoral roll (in the UK it is a legal requirement to sign up to it, or so it seems). She didn't want to vote so she didn't see why she had to fill it in, fair enough. Her point was that she felt authentic to not fill it in, but the government would fine her a lot of money if she didn't so she felt like she couldn't be authentic now. However the reality is, that no matter what happens, we can always be authentic. In the above case, she would simply need to be authentic in relation to learning about the fine. This is just new information that is added in to the mix. She would now just be authentic with how she reacts with all the available information. So we can always be authentic. Being authentic doesn't mean that things always go as we want. It's...

I over-slept which means that I have missed a session of one of my courses. I have a vague recollection of the alarm clock going off. I awoke a bit dazed and confused. I suddenly realised that I had awoken without an alarm, which could mean only one thing... I had over-slept. I grabbed my phone from the side of my bed and low and behold it was 9.45am or so. This mean that the next train would be about 10.30am which would mean getting in to the course for the last half hour of a two hour course! I initially phoned and said I could make it for half-time, as I was sleepy when I first called. I later realised I couldn't make it in time. Surprisingly I didn't feel that annoyed at missing it. I have done all I can do, which was to get a message to the tutor before the course started in order that she and the other students know. Hopefully I won't miss a practical today. Apologies for a boring post! I'm still sleepy!

My friend had a dream last night where it was her birthday party and everyone was invited. Everyone was there. Her partner, her best friend, other friends, parents etc. She put on a huge effort for everyone. Cooked food. Set everything up. It was an amazing party and everyone was having a great time... except her! No-one had remembered to give her a single birthday card. She was deeply hurt in the dream, but in the dream she tried to justify it (i.e. her friend is stressed at the moment, and another person is forgetful, another friend doesn't 'do' birthdays etc). But she still remained hurt. She told me about the dream and I actually felt guilt (authentic guilt of course!). I worked out that I hadn't been there for her the past few months as my depression had got really bad and I was too much in a mess to be a good friend! She s the sort of person who gives SO much to others. Her kindness and compassion is unparalleled compared with anyone I've ever met. She has...

I believe that non-duality is the same as being totally authentic. When I had person-centred counselling several years ago, one topic the therapist kept talking about was the topic of learning to lose the false-self in order to find the true-self (i.e. to learn to be authentic). The parallel to this in the spiritual world (mainly in the non-duality or Zen world) is to just 'be'. When I first heard this I thought "Well I AM my true-self already. How can I NOT be me!? I am just 'being' already". However deep down I sensed there still might be some truth in these ideas. When someone suggests that we need to be authentic it can appear insulting. Being inauthentic is certainly an intended jibe that is heard occasionally in relation to someone being fake. However the state of being fake I am talking about in this article is when we are fake to ourselves. Some people in the non-duality / spiritual world believe that there is no way to reach the state of onene...

I got speaking to someone recently. Someone I knew well from my past. His condition of worth (or self-label) is one of 'politeness'. He is always ridiculously over-polite. This is an irritating behaviour. It is suffocating. As you are probably aware extremes of any behaviour (the word 'extremes' gives this away) are often unbalanced and harmful in some way, either to the giver or recipient of said behaviour. Due to being over-polite he tends to not be assertive with his needs. He then feels like his needs aren't being met, and his inner-self feels neglected, and a bit irritated at being ignored at the expense of another (again). What I noticed with his behaviour is that he has cycles of apparent peacefulness and thoughtfulness followed by passive-aggressive behaviours (sometimes just very angry and resentful). It should be obvious what is happening here. Due to trying to be polite all the time, he suppresses his needs and in turn bottles up more and more anger...

I've just come back from a walk in the countryside with a friend. There was a beautiful view from high up. I really find nature to be therapeutic and healing to me. I'm tired so this is a very short post. Going to my other friend's mum's house later for Sunday dinner. Can't wait. Hope you are OK today. This blog has so far all been about me. How are you doing? Let me know in the comments or send me a message (I'm new to Blogger so I don't know if you even can send me a message!?). :)

Question: What is 'Authenticity's Auto-Correcting Mechanism'? Answer: Us! (When we allow ourselves!) I spontaneously picked Carl Roger's book 'On Becoming a Person' off my book shelf. It fell open on page 190/191. One paragraph particularly resonates with one of my last posts regarding authenticity, and the way in which it is auto-correcting. Here is his message: In this weighing, balancing, and computation, his organism would not by any means be infallible. It would always give the best possible answer for the available data, but sometimes data would be missing. Because of openness to experience, however, any errors, any following behaviour which was not satisfying, would be quickly corrected. The computations, as it were, would always be in process of being corrected, because they would be continually checked in behaviour. At first our authentic nature is likely to be rough around the edges (due to it being a new experience), and also due to the suppre...

I wrote this letter to the minister of health. I also got on to another hot topic which is not relevant to mental health, however it is related in that a feeling of injustice in the world I feel does cause suffering to people. Please read this article (http://blackdogtribe.com/news-features/why-mental-health-political-issue#comment-110614) Almost everyone in the mental health field seems to believe that ALL mental health problems are down to the individual to adapt to. i.e. it's the person's responsibility to adapt or change.  This sounds great doesn't it.  However it is time that people realise that our modern society is making people mentally unwell. If 1 in 4 people suffer from mental health issues then it becomes absolutely untenable to deny that society is creating mental health issues.  However it is in your interests (and indeed all those in power) to maintain the delusion that there's nothing wrong with society and it's all down to the individual...

The most authentic day of my life and how it lifted the darker / deeper depths of my depression. A possible shift? Is this a possible cure to my depression? Did I mention that I lost my temper at a group of workmen? Well now I'm in trouble because I said that I would be TOTALLY honest with you. So here it is! Warts and all! Total self-honesty leads to greater self-learning and I feel it's a path to curing or at least greatly reducing one's depression. One of the issues of being authentic, is that if we have suppressed hurts and grievances from the past for a very long time then sometimes our emotional expressions of total honesty can also bring with it some of that baggage! Baggage is really just another way of saying "All the hurt and pain I've bottled up in my life so far". Being authentic is like opening the bottle cap. This metaphor fits perfectly in this situation. I'm quite transparent aren't I! Seriously though the suppressed em...

It has been said that depression is merely suppressed anger, others have said it is 'learned helplessness'. Well being authentic means we won't suppress anger, so that's the first potential issue sorted! The learned helplessness issue also eventually resolves with the authentic approach. This is because over time authenticity gives us greater self-respect. How does this self-respect happen? Well your authentic self is actually the WHOLE of your being. It is the darker depths, and the positives and the negatives. It is totally you. Warts and all. In short this authentic way of being means that you are TOTALLY LISTENING to your WHOLE self! You are not rejection or suppressing any part of yourself. You have no fear of ANY part of your self! You don't even fear your fear! This means that the part of you that has 'needs' (e.g. the need to assert and protect yourself against physical or psychological threats, or to be loved) is getting listened to as well. L...

Hi everyone. As I hope you are aware by now, the idea of this blog is to show a TOTAL authentic account of depression. I have decided to be honest at all costs. I came to this rather insane conclusion because I feel that only total authenticity and truthfulness will allow people to know what depression is REALLY like. In this way I hope it will be both cathartic and helpful to people suffering their own flavour of depression or mental health issue. I have also started being totally authentic in my life. The masks of fake-self have been peeling off for decades. I have been deprogramming negative social conditioning like 'respect ALL people in authority' or 'Be nice' or 'Don't talk about your feelings'. There are dangers to any black and white rules as I hope you realise. When some people begin the path of authenticity, which in my case was triggered by receiving person-centred counselling several years ago, they initially fear that they will become rude...

Frank Bruno (Ex-British Boxer who suffers from mental health issues) has criticised the NHS for their poor treatment of people with mental health issues. This completely echoes my experiences. I believe that removing stigma and campaigning against the current lack of care provided by the NHS and psychiatrists will help to improve matters. Read the article here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/boxing/9612290/Frank-Bruno-criticises-NHS-mental-health-care-and-launches-campaign-for-reform.html

A couple of years ago I started some evening course in counselling. After a year and a half break I completed another counselling course. I always try to remain intellectually honest. This can partly be attempted by trying to avoid 'confirmation bias' ( Confirmation bias,  also called  confirmatory bias  or  myside bias,  is a tendency of people to favour information that confirms their beliefs or  hypotheses ). The best way to do this is to research views or concepts that oppose your own! It does your ego the world of good, it is also a good way to check if your view is correct or at least as concrete as you first thought. So halfway through the counselling course I started researching the efficacy of counselling (aka psychotherapy). As ever there were positive and negative takes on this topic. According to the research I found: It doesn't matter what type of counselling you try (e.g psychodynamic, humanistic (e.g. person-centred / client-centre...

After my second assessment with the community mental health team (at Maindiff Court - the first assessment was dismissive and therefore I threatened legal action to get another thorough assessment) I have now received a letter from them. They have suggested that I should be able to access the new primary mental health team. This is for people who are between mild depression and hospitalisation. Previously people only got help if they had attempted suicide (they would be sectioned and therefore helped), or if they had mild or moderate depression in which case they might be referred to their GP's counsellor for 6 or so weeks of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. What can 6 weeks of CBT help fix? Well nothing more severe than the distress caused when dropping your custard cream biscuit in to your cup of tea, and later having to fish it out with a teaspoon. Anything more serious than that and it won't work. I really mustn't be facetious. On a serious note counselling only re...

Readers of my blog will probably be aware that I emailed Nick Ramsay regarding my feelings of being let down regarding my mental health. Well he replied and this is his amazingly, pro-active and supportive response: Hello Mike, Thank you for your email earlier this week.  I was very sorry to read about your mental health problems and the lack of support  you have received from the NHS over the years. Clearly you fee very strongly about the issue  in view of your own and friends’ personal experiences, but I was pleased to hear that at least you have an excellent mental health advocate who gives you support. I do have meetings with Mind Cymru and the Chief Executive of Aneurin Bevan Health Board from time to time so I will pass on your views at the next opportunity in the hope that some improvements can be made for sufferers of mental health problems in the very near future. This is also an issue I will be able to discuss further with my colleagues in the Assembly. Th...

On Wednesday I had to do a 5 minute talk for a course I'm doing. I had anxiety all night and couldn't sleep until 3am. When signing up for the course I specified on the form under 'health conditions that may effect your learning' that I had depression and anxiety. However the tutor didn't pick up on the anxiety part and didn't approach me regarding this. I feel in hindsight that she should have kindly taken me to one side and asked if I was ok doing the talk. As a tutor I might have generally asked the group if anyone felt particularly anxious about their talk, and if so I might have done a short learning exercise on how to cope with anxiety (a common issue for people who aren't officially diagnosed as having an anxiety related condition). I did give the tutor feedback on this there and then via email! My tact was struggling but I tried hard! I am dreadful when I'm anxious (negative self-talk - Time to 'CBT'). At 2am in the morning I was pani...