to be sick of all the "tell someone" nonsense following RW's death?

[cailindana]

My fb feed is full of trite messages saying "if you're suffering, talk to someone, we care, we will look after you blah blah blah." Bullshit. When I was severely depressed I did tell people - my GP, my parents, my sisters, my friends everyone. For the most part I got indifference, annoyance, "what can I do?" "get over it" "you're worrying mum," etc. It was only because DH is a bloody saint who spent hours and hours with me that I didn't kill myself. If he hadn't been there then I wouldn't be still alive.
I'm sure if I had killed myself, my family would have done the whole "I don't know why she did it, we had no idea," fuckwittery when in fact they would be perfectly aware of why I'd done it, they just wouldn't think it was a good reason and they would blame me for being cowardly.
Equally everyone else I know who is/was severely depressed is pretty open about it, in fact, I find that depressed people mention their condition quite a lot. The response is generally fear, a sense of not knowing what to say or how to respond, indifference or even disgust.

IME people who are in the depths of depression don't tell others because they have already told them in the past and got nowhere. Implying that if you are in that state all you need to do is "reach out" and someone will be there and everything will get better it totally inaccurate, very few people I know have had that experience. Even the very good kind close friends I had when I had PND last year essentially ignored the illness. They were helpful, very very helpful on a practical level (visiting, sorting out the kids etc) but they never asked me how I was or how the medication was working, I always had to bring it up and then they would just nod and mutter something encouraging. I don't blame them at all for that and I am extremely grateful for the ways in which they did help. It was actually on MN that I got the best support. Here, I met people who had gone through the same thing, who acknowledged my awful thoughts and feelings without trying to change my mind (the whole, "Oh it's not that bad!" that only makes depression sufferers feel they must be mental if no one else can see what they see) and gave me reassurance that yes it was shit but it would pass. They were here whenever I needed them, unlike RL friends who are understandably busy with their own lives.

Depression is a complex illness that requires specialist help. Talking does help, definitely, but a depressed person can't save or cure themselves by just being more open and talking more. Having someone listen is a welcome temporary relief but it doesn't treat the illness any more than talking to a cancer patient would treat their illness.

I completely agree OP. I have had chronic depression for years, it is always there to some degree.

This 'just tell someone' bollocks really makes my blood boil. There is the assumption that if you just tell someone all sorts of help will suddenly appear and within a few weeks you will be cured. - Well that is not my experience at all, I have a good GP and I have tried counselling but nothing else is available and I am stuck just trying to manage this illness as it is.

Also my experience is most people don't have a clue about MH problems and are either rude/ignorant or just plain naive in their response.

You know after reading your posts I am starting to see your pov and think you are right but I still think people are coming from a good place and the odd person is bandwagoning

So sorry db, it's personal for me too x

Yes, think I'd agree with you there Mrsjayy

The state of mental health care in this country (and in most countries to be fair) is piss poor. It needs to change. It's all very well saying "Call the samaritans, tell somebody, we care". Caring is all well and good - and is a vital first step - but it needs to be followed up.

The government doesn't care, NHS staff and social workers largely care but don't have the time or resources to do much about that. Ordinary people may well care about their immediate family/friends, and fleetingly about a stranger, but don't very often know how to actually help someone in that situation, and as OP says it's incredibly hard and draining and unrewarding to care and help somebody with depression. And depression tends to get in the way of relationships as well so a person who is depressed may not have family and friends to care about them, which is neither chicken or egg, but both at the same time, a vicious circle.

Yanbu. Iv had depression and anxiety for 10 years since i was 16. I was met with people who told me just to cheer up and that people who kill themselves are selfish.
It's so sad. One gp i saw was so awful to me when i was young, it's always stayed with me.

I agree with you, OP.

I don't think celebrities tweeting to 'raise awareness' of mental health difficulties or the average Joe on my FB feed posting up the Samaritans phone number really gets to the heart of this issue. Social media just seems so trite and hollow on these big issues.

Mental health is massively stigmatized. Thats the first problem. Its easy to be sympathetic and heart-bleeding over other people with mental health issues. Its not so easy to discuss these issues openly if you're the one suffering. Throw the words 'schizophrenia' or 'personality disorder' in to a conversation and watch peoples reactions. Society at large isn't understanding of these sorts of conditions.

Mental health services are seriously underfunded. Thats another big problem. And thats not something that Lady Gaga's tweets are going to solve.

thanks Juggling, I'm sorry to hear that

I completely agree that there needs to be more help available. I find it shocking people have to wait 6 months, 9 months, to talk to someone.

I was very lucky that I was in the US and had good insurance, I was able to see a proper psychiatrist within days. I think if everyone had that level of care then 'talk to someone' might actually be good advice.

A very well written OP. These issues are far too complex to be condensed into a natty little message to make everyone feel better.

My mother died from complications following a suicide attempt. It was years ago and I don't think she ever spoke to anyone about her depression. It was a taboo subject. It's impossible to know whether talking to anyone or getting treatment would have helped her or not.

But it saddens me greatly to read that all these years later people are still struggling to get their GPs to listen and to access the support they need.

The RW reaction is the same trite, shallow, self-aggrandising nonsense that is always trotted out in the media (or certain parts) of it when something sad happens to someone famous. It always reminds me of a very good ans very sad article in the Guardian a short while after Princess Diana died from a woman saying friends who said not a word when her own father died rang her upset wanting to emote about the death of Princess Diana, whom none of them knew.

There's a tendency to suggest these reactions to celebrity deaths etc are a learning moment and help to get issues into the public discourse. I think they've become a disingenuous replacement for real caring and an opportunity for people to grandstand how kind and thoughtful they are.

Yabu.

I'm sorry your own experience of reaching out didn't get you the help you needed OP. However not everyone will have the same experience.

I'm also surprised that you feel the majority of depression sufferers are quite open about it. I don't believe that's true at all. Those that are severely depressed often isolate themselves and struggle to accept that depression is what they have.

I can't see anything wrong with encouraging people to reach out.

Thanks dreamingbohemian

I think that reminding people that there are services that provide counselling when they are in crisis has also been useful. I've seen a lot of that.

Anything that holds someone whilst they can get a bit of help is useful.

Perhaps showing people who are in relapse that there are different services or that opinions may have softened or changed will help.

It feels wrong that the death of a famous person might help someone close to you to try to open up and understand your illness better but that really might be the case.
Seeing that a famous person can suffer horribly from depression and then complete suicide can sometimes bring things into a horrible reality for people who are trying to pretend that their family member will 'just snap out of it'

Oh yes, I agree that absolutely responses like "tell someone" come from a good place, it's just disgraceful that the problem is no matter who you tell it is very hard to access support.

This is just your perceived experience.

Every depressed person I have ever known have had people falling over themselves to help and understand, quite often at the expense of their friends and families own feelings and mental health.

Only one of those people have ever acknowledged the help they have received, all the others have been of the impression they were not helped or ignored when in fact they were.

Oldraver - did it occur to you that the "help" people were offering wasn't actually suitable or helpful? "Help" that doesn't actually do anything isn't really worth much IMO. For example, I told my GP clearly what help I needed, and she didn't give it to me. She might have felt she "helped" by telling me to go for a walk, but I just felt ignored because I was ignored.

Really agree with abbiehoffmans post above. Whatever the issue, once it's a news story that can be shared on fb of course everybody has a heart of gold.

While in their own lives they are not tuned in to otherpeople's problems at all.

Of course we're all sad about RW, he was so loved. But depression doesnt present itself as Mrs Doubtfire, or Mork. It presents as a truly difficult, complex problem, and not always attractively. It is snot, tears, broken promises and apparent bone idleness.

I've had depression, my family were amazing. So were my friends I have to say. But I'm lucky I think, many people just don't have the backup.

Oldraver, I find that hard to believe.

I have family and some close friends 'falling over' me to help with my mental health problems. But NHS services are NOT falling over themselves. The system is stretched to breaking point through underfunding.

I often see people on MN, well meaning and kind, advise those suffering mental distress to 'reach out, tell someone' etc.

'Go and see your GP'

I waited 5 months from seeing my GP to an initial appointment with a psychiatrist to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Five months when I was manic, and then crashed into a severe depression. My GP prescribed an antidepressant in the meantime. Antidepressants on their own can send those with bipolar disorder manic - and boy, did it. My GP couldnt help me, really.

'See a counsellor'.

I waited another 4 months after my initial psych appt for CBT. I was offered six sessions only. During that wait I was incredibly ill and very nearly wrecked my life through my self destructive actions. I waited a further three months to be re-referred to a psychiatrist when I had another manic episode.

'call the mental health crisis team'

My DH called them four times in a six month period begging them for help when I was manic. They advised him to see our GP (GP angrily barked back that she had referred us to THEM for specialist help) or to go to A&E if suicidal.

'Go to A&E'

I spent 24 hours alone, unfed, in a chair in a corridor waiting for bed on a psych ward when I eventually did become suicidal and went to A&E. I was found a bed at the eleventh hour in a hospital miles away from where I live. I was 'lucky'. There aren't enough beds on wards, not even nearly enough. Many people are sent home under the care of the home treatment team instead. My experience of the HTT has been woeful, also. They dont always turn up when they say they will and when they do its a 5 min chat with a mental health worker, not a medical professional. Its a mickey mouse service. Hospital was awful, too. Filthy, smelly and when I arrived on a psych ward on a Friday night there were no doctors there - they dont work weekends. So a few nurses and mental health workers were basically in charge of a 22 bed ward for the most disturbed and unwell women, with no therapeutic interventions offered over the weekend. What on earth?!

Sorry, I just dont think people understand what its really like out there. Its not all lovely kind ladies offering cups of tea.

Oldraver I think you are not grasping the situation.

Every depressed person you know - do they all let it be known then?

As for acknowledging 'help' - someone with depression:
a) doesn't owe anyone thanks, and
b) depression is not a finite thing. There is not a point at which the sufferer can jump up and announce they are cured. It is always waiting to come back.

I had so many people say 'oh dont worry about it'. Oh ok then. That's me cured!

And I would also like to see something else on my FB newsfeed now. Those posts are there to make the poster feel better, like they've done something to help.

I'm an RMN and have experienced two episodes of major depression that was life threatening at the time.

It's hard to 'do right' when a friend or loved one is depressed. I often simultaneously wanted people to leave me alone and was pissed off when they did as I asked!. It's not easy. People often don't know what to do or say. 99% of my friends are RMNs and obviously very knowledgeable and compassionate people but when mental illness strikes 'one of us' it's still hard. A lot of my friends didn't know how to approach the subject or understand how I was feeling. Or they'd say the sort of things I know I say to depressed people as a professional and that really, really upset me because it felt like they were talking to me as a service user and not their mate.

When it comes to what help is out there I agree there's not much. Cuts after cuts, bed closures etc have absolutely decimated MH services in this country.

MH services are now just 'firefighting'; only the most disturbed and risky people get admitted to hospital. CPN caseloads which used to have a broad range of MH conditions are now full of personality disordered complex cases and people with severe psychosis. 10 years ago you'd have a CPN if you were severely depressed or anxious but now you probably wouldn't even be seen by secondary MH services.

I have colleagues being moved to jobs they don't want and/or downgraded in community 'redesigns' because more money needs to be saved. At least once or twice a month now I'm hearing there are no MH beds in the ENTIRE country which means community teams are trying to manage risky and unwell people in the community who should be in hospital. The government wants 'more for less'.

It's only going to get worse I'm afraid.

With regards to RW. I wonder was the depression caused by his addiction to alcohol and drugs. Having lived and then gone NC with someone who from what I can gather had a problem with alcohol and then depression I wonder in a lot of cases whether the drink / drugs etc causes the depression. That is whether if RW had been tee total all his life would he still have killed himself because of being depressed.

Running, it's just as likely that Robin Williams's drink and drug addictions were an attempt at self-medicating his depression. We'll never know, nor do we need to.

Ynbu OP :(

One of my first childhood memories was crying and wishing I could die. Over the years my depression has been the constant in my life. My family are dead, friends I have few of. My depression always there. I have now lost another job. The only way I could force myself out of bed was to cut myself. Finally even that did not work. HR couldn't get rid of me quick enough when I explained - though they treated me very well indeed, and I am very grateful for that and the kindness shown.

Most of my friends don't want to talk to me in the way I need to talk. My depression is situational. My current options are to (a) work in a job I hate (if I can get another) (b) live on benefits (c) try something like crowdfunding to raise the money I need to finish my degree and have a career I enjoy or (d) take my own life.

I actually don't want to die, but I have little option. I can't describe the hell my 'life' is. I have suffered 42 years. I don't respond to antidepressants. I want to talk to my friends and plan my passing. Use what little money I have left to visit and say goodbye. But they refuse to acknowledge that this is the best option for me. I don't even know if they would rather not know. I have no family, and only online friends, so I would have to tell them the day before or get a trusted friend to notify the others. Maybe they would rather not know - better for some to disappear. If I was an animal with no quality of life and In indescribable pain with no treatment options, the owners would be prosecuted for cruelty in keeping me alive. As a human I am left to suffer. It is inhumane.

It's hard to 'do right' when a friend or loved one is depressed. I often simultaneously wanted people to leave me alone and was pissed off when they did as I asked!. It's not easy. People often don't know what to do or say. 99% of my friends are RMNs and obviously very knowledgeable and compassionate people but when mental illness strikes 'one of us' it's still hard. A lot of my friends didn't know how to approach the subject or understand how I was feeling. Or they'd say the sort of things I know I say to depressed people as a professional and that really, really upset me because it felt like they were talking to me as a service user and not their mate.

Mrs Boldon That’s exactly the point I was trying to make earlier. What one depressed person finds helpful and supportive words, the next depressed person finds patronising and trite. I remember once when a friend of ours was going through a very bad patch of depression, and I listened intently to what my husband said to her (he also suffers bad bouts of depression). I reckoned how he dealt with/spoke with our friend, was how he would like to be dealt with/spoken to. So next time he was down deep in his pit of depression, I said some of the things, gave some of the same advice he had said a few months earlier to our friend. And he … well it didn’t go down well at all. He found it upsetting and unhelpful. I don’t get that. I thought it would be a bit along the lines of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” kind of thing.

It’s like the “what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger” phrase. Just from this thread alone it’s obvious many people would have that phrase banned from use. Lol. But it genuinely is a phrase my husband clings to in his worst moments. Not just the phrase itself, but the meaning behind it (i.e. he is a stronger more self-aware person than he was 20 yrs ago, but it is hard to see that in the midst of a deep episode of depression, but he knows when he comes out he will eventually be overall stronger)