To paint a background, I have a loving family, an incredible wife and two wonderful kids. My brothers are two of my best friends and I’m very close to my parents.
“You’ve always been a worrier”. This is true, but I mostly managed to deal with or largely ignore it. However, the past couple of years have become uncontrollable, and at points, quite unbearable.
There is a secret; one that nobody is prepared to talk about; one so shocking it may bring down society as we know it. Am I talking about a scandal, or some sort of political corruption? Am I talking about some secret society that quietly rules over us, or perhaps I am talking about the fact we are all lizard people. While I would infinitely prefer to talk about any one of these things, I am in fact talking about the truth that, literally, nobody is talking about. I am talking about the fact that people with mental illness walk among us.
My gruelling battle with depression has been somewhat of a pilgrimage, without the heavenly resolution at the end of the journey. The experience could be described as a paradox. I savour the essence of being alone. However, that idealism is detrimental to my mental health.
What’s more awkward? Making a colleague a cuppa and asking how they’re doing, or running through the DSM-V diagnostic criteria for depression to ascertain whether they require a professional referral? Any idea what I’m talking about?
The point is, you don’t need to know all this stuff to have a conversation about mental health. And even if you did, I doubt anyone would thank you for using it as an ice breaker.
