What does mental illness look like exactly?

justanother57yr, yep, sure did, just wanted to see what those people who are, responsible, for helping us are saying. But you never hear them advertise the site or talk about MI except for 6-7 days a year and yet it is the most expensive and debilitating problem we have.

Uggbootdeva, all it needs is this group to make the first move, how, not sure but it has to be done before much longer. If you had cancer, sorry, it is all over the TV, and any other PHYSICAL illness you never stop hearing about it, but because we are afflicted with a silent monster who gives a sh.t??

justanother47yr, who is he fooling?? only himself. Why pretend that you are just one of the crowd when you belong to another mob, those derailed by MI. That is my thought.

well i for one,

take a little bit of offence at your remark there @loopy, my struggle is for me very personal and private, so i hide what is "wrong" with me so that to others i appear fine/normal LOL, i find it very confronting and i get very stressed when anyone asks me how i am doing or feeling, i bottle up and just say the appropriate "yeah i am ok" and then divert the subject as quickly as i can, now i do that face to face or even through text message.

What is wrong with pretending to be one of the crowd if it diverts the attention that i don't want away from myself?
Just because someone is fine with there condition/illness/whatever they want to call it does not mean someone else is.

My privacy is mine if i want to tell someone what is what and how i am truly feeling it takes a lot of effort on my behalf to build up the courage inside my own head to even broach the subject with someone, i have a friend i have known my entire life since the age of 3, He asked me the other day how i was feeling, i bullshitted my arse off to him, Why?

Because to me my illness is mine, to share with who i want, when i want and how i want, if it means i bottle up how i am truly feeling until i feel comfortable enough to divulge such a personal expierence, why would that be fooling myself?

@Loopy I think it actually takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there like that. It's like he's set himself a challenge each day, the motivation to set a task for one self shows determination.It would be easy to not do that, and remain at home, but he sees this as part of his own process.

Kato, if I have offended you it was not intentional. It is only intential if i did I know your story and that I do not know. In that case it could not be intentional. I have been suffering since 1989, which is not a short term and for me to say that I have never "pretended" would be a lie. But luckily for me my close group of friends, who suffer the same problem, take me as I am at the time. When I cry I cry alone away from everybody certainly not in company. I cannot say sorry for something that I have said unintentionally. We are both the same, with the same lurgy.

Kind regarda,

Loopy.

unintententional i know, but i was just letting you know the struggle something you forsee as simple can be quite a tricky and difficult thing for others,

I was not looking for an apology just giving you a second insight into why some of us choose to do things our way, which is obviously different to how you do things.

I cry late at night when no one is around and even then it is not a howlish cry as i don't want anyone knowing that i am upset,

I can appreciate what your saying and i hope one day i can feel that way too, but i know for myself and many others it is not the easiest thing to do.

I apologise if i have come across as angry, cos i am not i just wanted to put out there my view also,

i currently have no-one around me who has MI so my close friends actually know very little about me and what i am going through they just know that i am sick and when i feel better i will let them know the situation, that might be in 20 years or it might be in 20 days

again sorry if i came across annoyed or angry

kind regards

Kato

@kato and @Loopy I think your posts are a reminder that no 2 experiences of mental illness are the same. Although there will be some common experiences and similarities, we are talking about indivdual's dealing with mental illness. Their experience is like no one else's, as they bring their own stories, experiences, traits and temperaments to the table. I'm glad different perspectives are able to be offered here, and recognised as different, but valid.

Kato, as you I don't need an opology , we all deal with our problems in our own way and in owr own time. Just because I mentioned Friends, be they Vietnam Vets or ant body else, I do not live in their pockets I may see them six to seven times a year, during that time I to am alone and do as you do. The only reason that some things become second nature is that from 1989 I was deserted by the people I worked and lived my life with. I would have followed them to hell anb back, thats what you do when you are in a job that I was in. You watched their back and they yours, you never lived in fear. Now all I have are the Vets whom I see once evcery two or three montghs, other than that I am a lone wolf hence I say "cunning like a fox. After all of these years you learn, as hard as it may be, to disguise the real you. I do it by being the village idiot, hence the tag, "loopy". A quote from Forest Gump, "Simple is as simple does".

Kind regards,

Loopy.

Would it be fair to say @Loopy that you've been around the block a few times...and @kato that you are new to the block? Can you remember loopy what it was like in those initial months and years, perhaps leading up to a diagnosis, or when things weren't quiet right? I imagine a very different space for you now...? 'life is like a box of chocolates'