Stigma & prejudice

I have just been diagnosed with PTSD & depression at 51 years of age. For decades I was, in essence, a high functioning, high achieving alcoholic with addictions to illegal drugs in my 20’s & 30’s then settled for prescription drugs once I no longer were able to source the others. The way my diagnosis came about was when I finally had a breakdown. Unsure what this was as thoughts of killing my self was new to me and somewhat scary. Looking back on my life I can now see the times when I had been depressed, certain times of high stress, relationship breakdowns, (causes by my illness), risky behaviour sometimes dangerously close to death events. At no point did I ever think I was depressed or was mentally ill. Knowing now that I have an illness has been somewhat enlightening and given me chance to reflect and review on my life. I no longer drink or take drugs.

I grew up in an era and environment when mental illness was a weakness. It’s something that happened to other people and why can’t they just snap out of it. We didn’t talk about emotions or feelings, instead just bottled it up and hit the bottle! What I now find disturbing is the evident prejudice, Bias and stigma around mental illness. Recently my local council organised a mental health day and called it “Mad Hatters Tea Party” is it just me or is that bang out of order and dare I say it offensive to persons suffering with mental illness. Maybe I’m being hyper sensitive in my midlife?? I’m just wanting to know if we can collectively do more to stamp out this stigma, it’s overwhelming at times. I’ve had people say, oh it’s his personality! WTF. ITS AN ILLNESS. I have no control over it, I didn’t choose to have it. Then you have those that say, well Joe Bloggs has depression and he’s not like that. Just lack of awareness, understanding and knowledge. Please give me the training to go around all these local & state governments who incidentally I’ve worked for and they talk the talk and tick all the boxes but they don’t really get it, not really. They need educating about these things. Well rant over, thanks for reading and I’m glad I’ve found this forum to talk to like minded individuals who hopefully can see what I see and feel what I feel. Merry Christmas.