• Blog,  Blogging,  Chronic Illness & Neurological Disorders,  Personal Posts

    Medication Can Be Good, Actually

    Content warning: suicide, depression, death.

    What a fuckin’ shocker.

    Before I get into this, I want to make it clear that I am not a medical professional in any way. This is just my (very) personal experience. Got it?

    Good.

    I was raised in an environment that was negative about modern medicine. I was made to skip school so I wouldn’t get vaccinated, my pleas for a diagnosis of asthma fell upon deaf ears, and I imagine discussion about medication for mental illness was so far off the table it might as well have been flying into the sun. As a pretty sick kid, I was always told that I should eat more spinach, or do yoga, or shine yellow light on myself, or follow what-fucking-ever the new-age health mags were saying.

    And because I was young, I wanted to believe my parents when they said these things would help. Then I looked at my friends, who went to doctors and hospitals and had prescribed medication for their bad flus and infections and other ailments, and I got that strange sense you get as a kid, when you start to think, Why is my family so different? 

  • Blog,  Chronic Illness & Neurological Disorders,  Personal Posts

    MHAW: Silence and Stigma

    This week has been one of mental health awareness, and in typical Saf fashion I left this post to be written at the last day. In NZ it’s been Mental Health Awareness Week, while elsewhere it’s been Mental Illness Awareness Week. Exactly a year ago I wrote a post about why awareness is important, and a year later it’s still just as vital.

    It was maybe a month or two ago that a friend on Twitter opened up about their own struggles with mental illness, which prompted an open discussion among our little community. A lot more of my friends were struggling with mental health than I realized, and I’m sure others felt the same about me.

    Despite my personal vows to be open and honest with regards to mental health, I suddenly realized that I am essentially a freezer of feelings—I carefully tuck the bad ones away in a back shelf and leave them to freeze for a few months, until the power breaks down and they begin to thaw. I fully contribute to the lack of awareness, in part because I don’t like to show weakness, and that is a failure of mine.

  • Blog,  Chronic Illness & Neurological Disorders,  Personal Posts

    Mental Health Awareness Week: IT’S IMPORTANT

    Apparently I’ve basically missed Mental Health Awareness Week, which is something I wish I’d heard about earlier because it’s something I feel very positive about. It’s been a while since I’ve written much, so now feels as good as any a time to talk a little bit about mental illness and how it’s affected me.

    You’re probably asking, how many more personal posts do I have in me? And I’d reply with a winky face, because I could talk about myself for yonks.