'There's a lot of it about'

If you are old enough to remember the Monty Python sketches of the 1970s you may recollect the phrase 'there's a lot of it about'! I certainly do and there is, a lot of it about that is. There is a good deal of poor mental health and there is an even greater quantity of poor attitude towards it; as Stephen Fry once famously put it, and forgive me this is a paraphrase, 'one in four people have a problem with their mental health and even more people have a problem with that'.

How true that is. There is a very real sense in which the world adopts black and white thinking towards those of us who are struggling along this journey - ironically Cognitive Behavioural Therapy discourages black and white thinking! We are either ill or we are better, it's as simple as that. My own belief is that such polarised thinking comes most particularly from those who really do have a problem with those who struggle with mental health issues. If you are ill it is up to the Doctors to treat you; if you are better well, frankly, what is the problem? And the problem, as fellow strugglers know only too well, is that this is a journey and whilst a journey has a beginning and an end, most of the 'process' occurs in between.

Over the last couple of weeks I have discovered, almost by accident, that two people I know well, both professional people, highly competent in their own field, struggle with mental health issues just as I do. How come I never knew? Good question! Probably because whilst there is 'a lot of it about' even astute, confident, experienced professional folk are only too well aware that so many people have a problem at worst, a lack of understanding at best, with others' mental health. If those people are our employers or those who exercise some authority over us it compounds the issue by introducing an element of vulnerability. Simply put, many feel it is better to keep quiet rather than 'come out' lest Stephen Fry's prophetic observation is played out in our lives. So often the protagonists of Stephen Fry's observation pass on their insecurities about mental health issues onto those who are already suffering. How bizarre! Oh yes and how kind. Thank you so much for that!

What this rather convoluted verbal excursion leads me to is simply this. There really is 'a lot of it about' and whilst attitudes may be slowly changing those of us who continue on this journey know only too well those postures can have a huge, sometimes catastrophic, impact upon those demons we continue to wrestle with.

To those fellow strugglers who read this take heart, we are not alone, there really is 'a lot of it about'. To those who continue to deploy negative and injurious attitudes towards us because they can't cope with it shame on them! But I also hope that they never encounter the same struggle, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy!