World Mental Health Day

Today is World Mental health day and I thought I would do a post about it. Before I start though, I would like give you readers a warning as to its content. Its going to mention depression, self harm, bipolar, graphic description of suicide, being trans, abuse and rape. If you are unable to cope with the subject matter, please please do not read this. Self care is important, and if you are concerned about your health please seek advice from people you trust.

I’ve posted previously about my mental health state, and how I cope with being ill, but I felt like I needed to write something more. Because October itself is a funny time for me, mentally and I think its about time I got it out there.
A few years ago a close friend of mine killed themselves. The anniversary of this is coming up quite soon. They died in hospital, in fact the night before they were due to be released. They hung themselves of their sink using their shoe laces. When they were found they were brain dead. The next day I had to talk about what their life was like, so the drs and nurses could see if she was a viable candidate to donate her organs (something she had always requested). Her funeral was held, and I presented her family with a book I had worked on several weeks for. Something that took a lot out of me, and I do not regret doing. However when I presented it to the family, they assumed that someone else had done all the work (as it was they had left Brighton during the whole time and was there the day before the funeral) and I got no thank you for it. I’m not going to lie, it hurt a lot when that happened, but at that time I was fully aware that her parents had issues with LGBT people, and even then I was quite queer. Before Rosie had died, one of my other friends had passed away in the month previous due to a heroin overdose, and a close friend died of cancer two months after her. I ended up having a huge break down and shut everyone out of my life after this. I couldn’t be near anyone I loved because I was scared of them dying. I went into a huge spiral of depression that cost me loosing friends and isolation to realise I needed help. I would self harm so badly that I would pass put from blood loss. I blamed myself for Rosie’s death for a very long time, and its been only the past couple of years that I have let that guilt go.
Suicide fucks your head up. Not only the person who acts on it, but for the people around them too. I could never accuse Rosie of being selfish, because I had done the same. Many times. I may even do it again at some point on my life. I cannot guarantee that I’m not going to. Only last year in October/November had I attempted suicide, by trying to chuck myself off a bridge, so I cannot tell anyone that suicide is selfish. What goes on inside your head sometimes cannot be dealt with, and I know that the feelings can take over.

There is another reason why I hate October.

I was raped by a partner. I spent years of my life thinking that I had been the person at fault for it. I had kissed an ex whilst out, and he got aggressive with me, beat me and raped me. I didn’t want to tell people at the time because he had recently been in the military. I had also not particularly wanted to tell the police because, they had been useless with other cases of violence towards me. The ex called the police on himself several months later, because he couldn’t “deal with the guilt”.
I had to sit in a police station for 2+ hours, telling the police what happened. Telling them what he did to me. Not once was I offered a female officer (I was female at the time) and do you know what the kicker of it was. He got 2 years on the sexual offences register and a fucking caution. No court case, no prison time. A caution. A slap in the wrist and told to run along. He was then bailed to an address 2 streets down from me. Every night for 6 months he stood outside my door, writing threatening notes, smearing blood over the walls. I would call the police and they said there was nothing they could do. It was a civil matter!!! I still have not got over what he did, or the police interaction, or any of it. I spent a lot of my life trying to deny that it happened, but the nightmares wouldn’t go away. It affected how I got into other relationships and nearly cost me my life on several occasions, because I just didn’t care any more. When rape happens, its nor the first minuet, or week or even month when you have to deal with it. Its every fucking day. You cannot trust people , regardless of how nice they are. You loose all faith in the emergency services. You sometimes cannot function in relationships, because you are scared its going to happen again.

There is always one positive of October. It was the end of the month when I met Kai for the first time, and he got the chase mixed up with deal or no deal.
It was the first time that I had decided to go to a group to help me come to terms with coming out as trans.

Since then, my life has improved. I am coping much better, since I came out, and Kai has been so supportive with me with my mental health, as well as Steph ❤
My moods have improved, and although I will spend the rest of my life dealing with bipolar and ranging between hyper manic, and crippling depression, I hope that with each day I improve just a little more.

I know that this hasn't been the easiest of reading material and for that I'm sorry. I just want to tell you all that, no matter how bad things get, no matter how dark it is. There is always some light out there

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