Mental health awareness

Discussion in 'Lounge' started by mk3golfcab, Oct 10, 2019.

  1. mk3golfcab

    mk3golfcab Elite Member

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    4EF20570-190A-47D5-B133-EBAE50ED3F92.jpeg hi all, something that’s very close to my heart. Not ashamed to say I’ve had my battles with poor mental health. It’s not embarrassing to talk about and im always here to talk if anyone needs it.

    Much love all.
     
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  2. Spygoat

    Spygoat Well-Known Member

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    Been there mate, still struggle sometimes, but not as often as I used to. Brave of you to be so forward. I know quite a few good men who couldn't deal with their issues, couldn't get in front of them and went out the only way that made sense to them at the time.

    22 a day.

    Unless someone has walked in your shoes, they can't judge you or know what you've been through.
     
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  3. mk3golfcab

    mk3golfcab Elite Member

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    Used to be ashamed of it and cover it up mate but it’s me. There’s millions of people who suffer in silence. I’ve had two really bad spells in the last 6 years. Latest was 8 months ago and I’m still in recovery. I was lucky, I got help. Many people don’t get that luxury.
     
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  4. Spygoat

    Spygoat Well-Known Member

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    Keep at it mate, there are better days. I wish you peace.
     
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  5. mk3golfcab

    mk3golfcab Elite Member

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    Thank you. You too :)
     
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  6. Mattie660

    Mattie660 Elite Member

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    My best mate from school has his issues - brother committed suicide, and his mum used to bring us cigarettes on a plate, with a cup of tea, when we were only in our teens. Still a happy madhouse and I used to love going round there - watching the latest video nasties !

    My mate has two sides - one very happy, great with people of every kind and the other fly off the handle if you argue with him - lost in it and completely pointless arguing with him - wasting your time - or worse. But he even finds humour in some of the stuff that has happened to him - he said - you do not get a medical record like that by throwing a few sickies !

    We have had some great times. I used to take him to work early in the morning - call round his house and he would still be getting ready. He told me that he had often fallen asleep on the back of my Vespa as I took him to work at 6.30 in the morning.

    We went on holiday together, as you do with your mates - we went to Morocco - bad idea :D paranoia central ! got very ugly and we had to leave the country in a cab in the middle of the night after an argument - knives waving around :D - funny looking back on it

    I have never met anybody less impressed or concerned with money and wealth - no interest in money at all - completely genuinely not interested. If he was to have a windfall it would go on beer and cigarettes - that would be it. I have known him to smoke 200 cigarettes in a day - up all night not sleeping for what seemed like days, chain smoking - getting stopped by the police for walking the streets at all times of the night and morning. I remember going to see him and the TV had gone, but there was a broken window - he had thrown it out of his flat window !

    Yet for all his ups and downs I cannot think of anyone who knows so many people, their names, their stories, the gossip - all kinds of people.

    It took his dad a lot of years to come round to the idea that it was not a character - pull yourself together thing. But his mum always loved him no matter what.

    As far as I know he still speaks to his brother, when he sees his brother's face in the clouds in the sky.
     
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  7. Spygoat

    Spygoat Well-Known Member

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    For me it’s more severe mood swings and fits of anger. Rage. Memories. A lot of times they culminate and the upheaval is too much to handle. So I found ways to cope with those times. Mostly bikes. The solitude of carving a windy road or just being in the helmet focusing on the road and the task at hand. Riding. Losing everything else in the process. The weight of this world melts away and there is just the machine. Just the act. This is ritual for me. Catharsis.
     
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  8. mk3golfcab

    mk3golfcab Elite Member

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    Yeah the bike is a way out for me too, almost a break from reality. You’re on your own, no technology or social media, no calls/texts and just the wind bashing your lid for company. Really helps me clear my head because I can concentrate on riding and not my anxiety. That hour or so is bliss.

    Funnily enough, the day I trashed my RR7 was a particularly bad day for me. My life had kind of fallen apart; business not doing great, stresses of that driving a wedge in at home with the family. I felt I’d lost it all. Went out on the bike to clear my head and allow me time to think rationally. Ended up putting it into a car. It made me see life from a totally new perspective and see what’s important. I think that was as good for me as any counselling I’ve had before; albeit in a different way.
     
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  9. BoroRich

    BoroRich Elite Member

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    Crap how we're all still so scared to admit that we have a problem. Especially us blokes. The stigma is still there.

    I've struggled, not with depression but with anxiety. I'm much better now than I used to be back at the end of the 90s when I was virtually housebound but it's still there to a certain extent. At least now I know how to cope with it.

    I went off to boarding school when I was 8, really didn't like it very much. It wasn't awful ALL of the time but 8 year olds are supposed to be at home with their parents, not living miles away in an entirely loveless environment. In fact studies have shown that being sent off to boarding school can have a damaging psychological impact similar or worse to being taken into care. Then in 1986 my Mum got cancer. She fought the best she could for a couple of years but it ultimately got her in 1988. Touchingly it was my maths teacher that told me that she'd died. :confused: I was 13 at the time. My Nana died one month before my Mum. Then two months after my Mum died my other Gran died. I'd lost both grandfathers before I was born.

    After that horrible 4 month period I watched my Dad unravel. He just didn't know how to cope. I was the one comforting him despite the fact that he was 55 and I was only just a teenager. He just kinda lost hope I think. Didn't really look after himself, smoked more than usual and then 10 years after my Mum died, one Tuesday morning in August he had a massive heart attack right in front of me and that was the end of him. I was 23, parent and grandparentless and wondering what the hell to do. I had no relatives left in my home region.

    Hilariously. Despite all of this I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I'd developed anxiety and panic attacks :D and nor could my friends. I'd always been very outgoing and the class clown. Never afraid to stick my head over the parapet if there was an opportunity to make people laugh. It didn't make sense that someone who seemed to like being the centre of attention would develop anxiety. So I hid it. Told very few people.

    For a long time I felt a kinda shame that I couldn't get my shit together and snap out of it. Now.......most of the time......meh. I care very little about other peoples' opinions of me. In the end I think that's one of the biggest things to learn. It's ridiculous trying to impress other people, especially people you don't know. You have no idea what their state of mind is when you meet them.

    Focus on the positive. Realised just how blessed you are. Don't be too hard on yourself.
     
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  10. Spygoat

    Spygoat Well-Known Member

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    When I was diagnosed with PTSD I tried to laugh it off. I always looked at it as an excuse for people who weren't mentally tough enough to deal with what they'd been through. I was wrong about that and it took me a little while to get help. I came to realise you can't send someone to do what we did and not expect there to be some mental repercussions.
     
  11. BoroRich

    BoroRich Elite Member

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    Absolutely right. That much stress for that length of time. Most people just aren't designed to handle it.

    Excuse my ignorance. I've seen your posts but I haven't figured out whether you're British or American. Either way I presume you're referring to military service?

    I read before that military PTSD is quite often down to the things you've seen yourself do rather than the things you've seen. Does that sound right?
     
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  12. Spygoat

    Spygoat Well-Known Member

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    I am Scottish by birth, live in the USA and worked for Uncle Sam's Misguided Children (USMC) for quite a while in quite a few places.

    And yes, it does come down to what you have seen yourself do. Oftentimes it is easy to make a decision when the immediate ramification of not making that decision is your (or your men's) death. It's the aftermath of that decision that becomes difficult.

    I remember the way I felt the first time I saw someone die, it was terrifying. By the 20th time, it was routine. That's not normal.
     
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  13. BoroRich

    BoroRich Elite Member

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    Nope it's not but if you're in that situation I guess normal doesn't really apply.

    I can't understand how you can experience that shit and then just come back home and be around people just shopping for paint or something.
     
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  14. Spygoat

    Spygoat Well-Known Member

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    I've been back 7 years now. For the first 2 or 3 I came close to strangling people on line at coffee shops..lol
     
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  15. BoroRich

    BoroRich Elite Member

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    Now THAT's normal :D
     
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  16. mk3golfcab

    mk3golfcab Elite Member

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    I think this post just goes to show how many people suppress these feelings. You really do never know what people are going through inside.

    Well done for sharing guys, I know it’s not easy. I’m happy to support where I can. Anytime you need to chat send me a pm. More than happy to pass my number over.
     
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