A thread for people to learn some more about mental illness

I think clinical depression can just come out of the blue, sometimes to people who have no reason to be depressed. I also think that when people have had a lot to cope with over a long period of time, it's like the top blowing off a pressure cooker. I consider myself a 'coper' because I have had a lot to cope with but a few years ago I totally lost the plot. It was as though my mind had been an ordered filing cabinet and someone had tipped it upside down and all the files got mixed up and I couldn't get them back in order (does that make any sense?).

Anya. Do you mean that you feel blanked on this thread, or elsewhere? Please feel free to talk more about schizophrenia if you want to.
I do hope that no one feels able to talk on this thread.

kittylester - no I dont think that the thread is off course at all. Quite the opposite.

Maybe your brother needs the counselling to keep himself on track? Just a thought.

I think that whether someone is a naturally happy person or a naturally not very happy person has no bearing on whether they get a mental illness. But I could be wrong.

unable not able

I agree, Mishap that we are still in the dark ages re treatment of mental illness and understanding its causes.

Posted before I finished.
KatyK I have a friend who mostly seems a happy person but who suffered a severe bout of clinical depression late last year which came on suddenly. Luckily she had family to help her as she said something had been driving her to the edge (literally) and that seemed the most logical thing to do. She said she could not make sense of anything.

My consultant said that in my condition I wouldn't care if I heard that I had won the lottery and he was right. I had no feelings left at all.

Thank you S2B

rosequartz, I'm not a trooper, I am what I am, which is where my confusion lies, I think.

Did anyone see the Louis Theroux programme last night about his visit to a prison/ psychiatric unit for the criminally insane? I think that's the kind of condition which is most difficult to understand, and the most frightening.
I only watched for a short time, it was upsetting. The patients seemed to be drugged up to their eyeballs.
I doubt if many of them are ever released back into the community.

Perhaps what my DM would have called a brick then kitty

Which she called me occasionally, never sure quite what she meant!

Yes, watched both of them. They're almost identical to the regional secure units (run by NHS, a step down security-wise from special hospitals) that we have in this country. Same case meetings, facilities, ethos about treatment. I found the programmes really interesting, especially observing the medical people, who had little time to spend with the patients. A tough environment to work in.

I've watched both programmes too, thank heavens there are professionals who are dedicated to working in secure units, I couldn't work there... Seriously though-provoking programme, how little awareness I have.

kitty I'm a 'go to' person too, I think possibly, it's because I actually listen to friends' problems.
I get stressed and desperate, but I tell myself to "pull yourself together and get on with it".
I have, years ago, taken two overdoses, but I know they were a cry of desperation, not taken to end my life, and I swore that I would never let myself get that low again.

That wasn't clinical depression, it was just being upset and depressed.

While I'm very low at the moment because of family problems, I can still just about cope.

It must be so dreadfully hard to live with, or suffer from, clinical depression.

anya please tell us some more about your experiences with someone with Schizophrenia. I have had peripheral involvement with some people with this awful, frightening illness but was most struck by a work colleague whose adult son had it. Poor woman, she was so stressed and frightened all the time. She was a lovely woman just doing her best and keeping a roof over her son's head but with absolutely no thanks for it. Her and her son just seemed to have been completely ignored by the rest of the family and left to get on with it. It was years ago now but I'm still left wondering. Any insights anya?

I wish I could Jane but I find I can't after all. I never talk about it, even to close friends, I just gloss over it. I've tried to put it into a box and pretend it never happened.
But thanks you for asking x

I understand. Thanks anyway anya.

My nephew had a psychotic illness and took drugs for it for 12 years. He is now off them and fully recovered. His was induced by a combination of weed and LSD - that is another thing to tell the GC as a good reason for steering clear of drugs.

I watched Clarke Carlisle on Good Morning Britain today talking about his battle with depression. So sad. His advice was to talk to someone which I think is the advice always given and is good advice.

Why have I never heard of these people?!

#livinginabubble

Clarke Carlisle is a former professional footballer and former Chairman of the PFA. He has a high IQ and has been on such programmes as Countdown. He has a history of depression and hit the news last year as he deliberately walked out onto the motorway into the path of an oncoming truck. He was severely injured but survived and is now fronting a campaign to make people more aware of depression and its effects. Heaven alone only knows how the poor truck driver was affected.

Interesting Mishap that you mentioned drugs because I thought that they must feature somewhere because they are mind-altering. I was loathe to mention it in case people thought that I was suggesting that problems were self induced.
My sister's friend jumped in front of a train after she had her handbag stolen while they were out for the evening. To some this would have been an inconvenience but to her it was enough to push her over the edge.

anya I don't think anyone is "blanked" or ignored on a thread, I always just think that people "talk" on these threads and sometimes someone replies to something specific but mostly when so many people are "talking", one can only "listen". .

Also sometimes people post something and I read it but don't know what to say, so I don't reply. Maybe that's often the case for others too.

I don't know what the current treatment is for schizophrenia, you don't seem to hear so much about it now.
When I was a student I spent a few weeks in Friern hospital as an "assistant nurse". I was placed on a ward with schizophrenic women, they had weird delusions, bless them.
I was told to give an enema to one old lady, and she said "you can't do that to me, I'm Queen Victoria!" Can't remember what happened next. Another old dear took a fancy to me but she had advanced syphillis, so I tried to avoid her cuddles.
The treatments at the time were insulin therapy and a drug, the name I can't remember.
There were many Jewish patients in the hospital, I expect refugees from the Holocaust, and many of them were schizophrenic. I took one lady to the hospital synagogue to pray on their Sabbath.
It was quite an education for me.

And the more young people use drugs such as skunk etc the more people may react and end up with a mental illness

I thought I had mentioned it earlier in the thread, harrigran

(^Interesting Mishap that you mentioned drugs because I thought that they must feature somewhere because they are mind-altering. I was loathe to mention it in case people thought that I was suggesting that problems were self induced^)