Saturday 14 January 2012

My first thoughts.

Welcome to my blog, hopefully you may like or identify with i write here about my struggle with mental health and the issues with surviving/existing/coping with such a thing as well contemplating on having known so many who also suffer from mental health.

Where to start? I'll start with why i decided to blog about myself, while i do not regard myself as interesting in anyway, i have doubts as to why anyone would even want to bother reading anything i put but alas here i am in the vain hope somebody will actually relate to what i put here.

Currently i am trying to get back into full time employment after somewhat successfully completing 16 months of group psychotherapy and i have been trying for over a year now, as time passes by it is getting more and more difficult to maintain the motivation to carry on, especially when a jobcentre plus adviser talks to you as though you are a skiver who is happy to collect benefit and not seek work (last time i checked such people were supposed to help you in your quest to be a productive member of society but i guess in their own perverse way they think they actually are).

I find it is very easy to fall into the trap of self-stigmatization after job application is rejected or ignored, consistently a recurring thought in my mind pops up "the only time you managed to get employment was by concealing the fact you have depression but now having been out of work for a few years you have no choice but state to every potential employer this was the reason you have been unemployed for so long (and not because you don't want to work) and hope they don't hold it against you, although they most likely will" 

Such thoughts are of course negative and unhelpful even though it is not unreasonable, what i do find distasteful is the feeling of having to put a positive slant on having mental health issues "well i believe i'll handle the stress of working for your company perfectly fine, having mental health issues makes you very resilient"  That is the gist of i have said in a couple of interviews (as well attempting to reassure the interviewer you are over the worst and it isn't likely to happen again anytime soon).

While the short term on that front appears bleak i will take comfort in the fact i am working towards a long term aim, namely becoming a counseling psychologist and for this i am enrolled with the Open University taking a degree in philosophy and psychological studies to help achieve this ambition.

What i have come to learn throughout my battle with my own existence is while survival is enough under some circumstances if like me its all you end up doing ultimately it will undermine what potential you have, whether it is career, education, spirituality etc. Hope is important, my hope is one day i will be a mental health professional and i will be able help people who feel like all they can hope for is to survive their existence.

Well that is all i have for my first post, thanks for reading. 14th January 2012, the journey goes on.



No comments:

Post a Comment