Its great that this is being done to obviously try and raise awareness. It is a shame however that it is concentrated on an age group which is relatively young. When i was at rock bottom earlier this year there was a tv fundraiser on, one of the big ones like sport relief. They had a part on mental health and it started with a premiership goal keeper. Great i said to my wife. There going to show "normal" people suffer. Then it was all about a group of unfortunate men who had clear mental health issues. Hopefully i wont offend but these guys were stereo typical fruit cakes. The type of people who the general uneducated would cross the road to avoid. I was aghast. The feature probably just enforced the perception of mental health sufferers. Mental health will never be acceptable in this country until it can be seen you don't have to be outwardly effected to suffer.
BBC4 have had some great programmes on recently. One was about broken brains and showed the effect on people who have had terrible accidents or strokes etc. Depression was mentioned briefly but was seen as a consequence of their situation. It needs a programme to show people like us normal people (if there is such a thing) or rather in the uneducated eyes of the general public what people perceive as normal. Builders, house wife's, teachers, police men, insurance brokers. People who have not suffered any obvious trauma and can to a degree live a seemingly normal life or at least give the perception to others we do. Everyone ( not 1 in 3) as i have discovered has black thoughts who they never tell anyone until you show or reveal your own issues, but, only ever when its one on one unless alcohol is involved. Ive had profound conversations with all sorts of people who are seemingly indestructible. It is however very interesting that next time you see them they avoid any such self imperfections like the plague and will talk about anything other then look you in the eye and ask "how are you at the moment? ". There was an add on the tv a while ago showing a guy returning to work following a bout of mental health illness. They were promoting "just ask" and showed what people imagine could be the result of the simple "how are you" with the guy exploding or breaking down etc. Friends and family seem to be the biggest culprits at not doing this. I saw my sister for the first time in 6 months and she knows what is going on with me through text msg from me at the beginning but has had no contact since. She lives 6 miles away. I visited last week and not once asked how i was but we spoke about everything else. I suppose that is unfair to a degree as unless you are that way inclined to really really care about others, people don't truly understand. So thats why we can come on here and rant or whisper how we feel as we know someone listens, as lets face it, that is what sometimes all we need.
