Category: depression

I Bruise Like A Peach

Ellen ThomasLeave a comment

I am highly aware that I haven’t posted or written in quite a while, I have had some pretty big life changes (moved house, walked 100km) that appear to have taken all of my energy, (funny that). So life has been a little… stressful, but I know, hasn’t everyones.

I always like to write when I feel I have something to write about, this blog wasn’t for me to set goals to ‘write at least one post a week’ – but mostly just an outlet and a therapy. The fact that so many people do enjoy reading it, is just a bonus.

Anyway, listen to this.

I was having a conversation with my best friend a few weeks ago – I think we were around 4 Prosecco’s in and got knee deep into a DMC (deep meaningful conversation). I had had an accident a couple of weeks before where I basically had to break into my new house as I had forgotten my keys (I know, adulting). We were discussing the HUGE bruise that was now glistening on the back of my thigh. She told me I should write about our conversation, so this ones inspired by you, Luce.

Let me put this to you. Have you ever seen someone with a bruise and thought, “blimey, how did they get that” or “fucking hell, that must hurt” – “Does that hurt, mate?” – you have no qualms in asking them how they got it, how long it’s been there for and commenting on the size of it. You feel sympathy or even find it quite funny. The size and intensity of the bruise usually dictates to us, the level of the pain.

The bruise is visible and will, more often than not get much worse before it gets better. We will injure ourselves, and it will hurt, but the bruise takes quite a while to come out, and when it does, people begin to notice and react “goodness me you must of done something terrible”. In all honesty, in relation to my bruise, I don’t even remember how I hurt it, but it was clearly a big enough impact to cause a big mark, one that people would be shocked at.

It didn’t hurt to press it, it looked a lot worse than it was, and in all honesty – was pretty impressive, I think.

Now let’s bring this back to our mental health and look at the comparisons here, if you have an emotional injury or trigger… what’s to say you even know it’s actually happened. What’s to say that the emotional bruise isn’t going to come out, it might not, but it might come out and be bigger than you ever expected. But the difference here is that most people don’t see it, they won’t be able to comprehend how big your emotional bruise is, how much you’re struggling. And what angers me, is that it takes a physical injury for people to recognise the extent of the damage. Damage, is damage. Why are we not asking why someone is feeling down, or even, if they are ok?

Bruises are visible and the darker they get the more people react, but it’s not going to result in our body part being chopped off, the reaction people give is that of shock, but they know it’s not going to result in death. Our emotional bruises on the other hand, can quite easily cause death.

People understand bruises, they have had one before, they’ve pushed one and it has hurt. But they have also had bruises that just came and went, they made a mark, but they were nothing to note.

What we must be careful of is that we do take note of the little bruises, the little hiccups, the stuff we are struggling with but it goes away relatively quickly and we move on. I know no one is going to notice it or give you that massive reaction that you think is appropriate. But what we want to attempt to avoid here, is any of this resulting in a big bruise, one that takes weeks to heal, one that gets darker before it gets better. Unfortunately we are never going to avoid these things, these struggles, but if we can use a bit of the dramatic nature we approach bad physical bruises with, maybe we will begin to get there.

Bruises might not be, but sometimes they can be painful. Check up on your friend whether they have a bruise or not, and know that some people suffer when bruises are pressed, so maybe they just need to be left alone.

It’s a hard one, a hard one to judge and manage, but just know, and if you can relate, that I bruise like a peach, remember some others might too.

Hang in there.

Ellen on the Edge xx

Ps, told you it was bad.

We Are Not Brave

Ellen ThomasLeave a comment

“That is so brave of you to tell people that you have broken your leg”

“You have a bad back? God, I don’t think I would be able to tell people that”

“It takes so much courage to announce that you have an ear infection!”

Sounds weird? Right?!

Now listen, before you read this, you should know that I am in by in no means being ungrateful for the amount of support I have received, or how it has come to me, or shunning anyone who has EVER reached out. I appreciate it more than you will ever know, but please, just hear me out here; when I talk about how I don’t feel brave talking so openly about Billy, and why none of us should.

It’s normal to talk about. It’s healthy. It’s responsible. It’s not fucking brave.

Talking about stuff in your brain is no different than talking about stuff going on with any other body part. Talking about improving your mental health and fitness is no different than talking about improving your physical health and fitness. Swapping techniques on how to do difficult exercises is the same whether it’s a CBT exercise or a running distance. It’s all about health.

Speaking about mental health isn’t brave. It’s the stuff happening in your brain. Your brain is an organ. It’s a fact. It’s happening. Big deal. It’s nothing special to talk about. People like me who spend all of their time talking about mental health are really just the mental health equivalent of that sweaty guy at the gym in a tank-top that won’t stop talking about gainz. I don’t think anybody would tell that guy he’s so brave for speaking openly about his biceps.

So not only do I think it’s weird when people say that speaking openly about mental health or mental illness is brave, but I also think it’s stigmatizing. After a little bit of time speaking openly about mental health issues, I would say that’s the only stigma I’ve encountered. It’s stigmatizing because you’re going up to somebody and telling them the thing they’re doing is risky and dangerous, that it’s not a normal thing to do. And that’s what stigma is all about—labelling something or somebody as separate and abnormal.

When somebody says something is brave, they’re reacting to their own fears and judgments. They think it’s scary and they dump that fear on you and expect you to carry it as well. Telling somebody that sharing a story is brave is like saying, “Wow, I wouldn’t have done something as dangerous as picking up that grenade and throwing it away. You could blow your hand-off and get shrapnel in your eye.”

At first, when I would hear people say that being open about mental health challenges was brave, I thought those people were just being silly—these stories aren’t grenades, they’re not dangerous to handle. They’re just stories about things that happened and things I do. It’s like narrating my grocery list for the week (lots of pringles, lots of chocolate). But now I think of it in a slightly different way: now I’ve accepted that some of these stories might be grenades. They might not seem dangerous to me because I know how to handle them and have practiced handling them. But to others they could be dangerous. But that still doesn’t make it brave, it’s just responsible. There’s something dangerous lying around and I know how to pick it up and dispose of it, so I do. It’s a thing we can all do because we don’t want others to get hurt by that grenade. We could run away from it, but somebody else might just stumble on it and not be as fast or as experienced as us. So throwing it out of the way is something we do, because we can. It’s common sense, not courage. Privileged, not risky. Maybe there’s danger involved, but there’s danger in everything, and that’s why we practice and we have the support of other grenade throwers, other people willing to speak up and practice grenade throwing alongside us (people like you).

If we want it to be normal to talk about mental health, we have to start treating it as normal. If we want to see less stigma around mental health, that starts with ourselves and making it normal in our lives.

If honesty about something so common is dangerous, we need to practice honesty about mental health more, so that we’re capable of handling the risk. If it’s truly dangerous, avoiding it will only make it more dangerous.

From what I’ve seen so far in the real world, professionally and personally, most people are super excited to have somebody around that can identify mental illness grenades lying nearby and throw them out of the way so they don’t explode in anybody’s face. I definitely prefer to be around people who can recognize something nasty and pick it up and throw it out of the way and create something more awesome in its place.

Please, go forth and do incredibly normal things like talking about the actions you take each day to maintain and improve your mental health.

Flex those biceps and hang in there.

Ellen on the Edge xx