"You are not your illness. You have an individual story to tell. You have a name, a history, a personality. Staying yourself is part of the battle" - Julian Seifte
The Anti-Santa
You have it, your friend has it, a family member has it, your teacher, husband, wife and partner have it. Even if mental illness has not knocked on your front door, you can be damn sure that it has broken into a person's life that you know and taken everything that is warm, happy and stable.
It's like the Anti-Santa, it comes hooded and cloaked, carrying a big empty bag and makes off with all that was good and happy in your life. Sometimes on it's way out it'll dig a little hole just for you, just deep enough for you to fall into before you even realise that it was there in the first place, before you can scream or call for help.
Some people fall into their specially dug hole and don't even realise they are there until it's too late, by that time they are used to it. It's all they know and even if someone puts a rope down for them to climb out they can't or won't grab it. It's hard because they know that person is trying to help and they know they might be pushing that person away but staying in the hole with your pain feels like your only option.
You feel as though you have no control and being in this hole will be your life forever, and even if you did grab the rope it would break when you were climbing out and you would just get hurt again, am I right?
The Three Certainties of Life
My Dad says that there are only two certainties in life, death and taxes. I think there are three certainties, death, taxes and pain. I am speaking specifically of mental pain and anguish, everyone must go through some form of distress at least once. None of us are strangers to it and many are good friends with it, someone in your family, friends or work mates are struggling every single day.
Almost everyone is aware of mental illness but people are still blind to the fact that it isn't something that happens to "other people", it is happening to your people and my people. This time of year dictates that you should be happy and full of joy, when actually for most people it just reminds them that the Anti-Santa robbed them of that ability.
What have Dementors got to do with it?
J K Rowling experienced severe depression and this experience manifested in her Harry Potter series in the form of Dementors; hooded, spectral beings that fed off any joy or happiness you had ever experienced, leaving you with only the bad until you are unconscious or dead. A fairly accurate description of deep pain and anguish if you ask me.
If you are reading this and are in pain, I would like to say "yes things will change and you will feel better soon", but I can't. That would be irresponsible of me and wrong, as many people will live their entire life with mental illness, it will play up like bad back or a dodgy knee. However, one thing you need to remember is that you do not need cured or fixing, you are not broken and there is nothing wrong with you!
You are not alone
I want you to read this and realise that you are not alone, that pain is universal and a fact of life. Remember when Frodo despaired and wished The Ring had never come to home him, Gandalf replies "So do all who see such times, but it is not for them to decide, all that we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." I have said it before and I will say it again, every experience whether positive or negative is still an experience and you have the power to act on that experience if you wish to. You see that hole you are in right now? Well there is a rope hanging there and when you're ready there is so much sun light waiting just for you.
