Usually, I like to write about shiny happy things on this blog ... this is partly in an attempt to assist people in remaining shiny happy people, and to give them some cheer and a few nice things to look at if they feel blue. It's also so I can spend as much time as I can while working on it, looking on the bright side. But as it's World Mental Health Day, I thought I might just share my own thoughts on the subject.
Firstly, I think it's a darn shame that of the 5 people I've known who have died in the last few years, only one died of old age, and three committed suicide. I also think it's a shame that even while writing this, I'm unsure whether to post it, as my family read this blog and I have never discussed my own struggles with them in the 10 years since I was first diagnosed with depression. Admittedly this has been easier to avoid since I now live in a different country.
But maybe if more people talked about it with those that care for them, we could save some who might not otherwise make it through. Suicide is particularly abundant amongst men who made up 80% of the victims in 2010. Ireland apparently has the fourth highest suicide rate in the EU, and I sometimes wonder if this is because people avoid spending 60quid going to the Doctor when there's nothing physically wrong, or whether it's just because of the temptation to maintain that 'everything's grand.'
There does seem to be a (gradual) change happening though, which I hope will continue ... there are awesome plays like 'Solpadeine is My Boyfriend' and films like 'Shopgirl' that present it without being horribly depressing themselves; public figures are becoming more open about their struggles; and even the existence of a Mental Health Awareness Day, and the 'First Fortnight Festival' must be good signs ... but there is clearly still a long way to go, and people (myself included) need to find a way to open up, and to push on through. After all, it can't be too shameful to be part of a group that includes Stephen Fry, Winston Churchill, Virginia Woolf, and Spike Milligan can it?
So as not to bum everyone out, here is a list of simple pleasures: Helium balloons, afternoon naps, baking cookies and eating them while they're still warm, sausage sandwiches, surprise flowers, blowing bubbles, hugs, the smell of ferns, freshly cut grass, or bread; romantic comedies, buying a magazine and reading it cover to cover, feeling the sun on your bare skin, roast chicken with all the trimmings, getting real post, dancing enthusiastically, listening to the Beach Boys, looking out of the window and discovering it has snowed!
So as not to bum everyone out, here is a list of simple pleasures: Helium balloons, afternoon naps, baking cookies and eating them while they're still warm, sausage sandwiches, surprise flowers, blowing bubbles, hugs, the smell of ferns, freshly cut grass, or bread; romantic comedies, buying a magazine and reading it cover to cover, feeling the sun on your bare skin, roast chicken with all the trimmings, getting real post, dancing enthusiastically, listening to the Beach Boys, looking out of the window and discovering it has snowed!
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