Glory Glory Mental Illness
/TRIGGER WARNING : this article discusses mental illness and suicide. If you are not feeling great about this sort of thing it may be a bad idea to read it.
This is a list of international suicide hot-lines should you need them. If you can’t find your country on it, google for it and there should be something - https://ibpf.org/resource/list-international-suicide-hotlines
Plus here are a couple of Australian links that are relevant to depression and suicide prevention :
If you are looking for my usual jokes and satire you will not find it here. I’m playing it straight this time as this is a serious topic. But I feel it needs to be said.
To start with, apologies I haven’t written more articles this year. As I said in Gothquisition 4 (If you haven’t listened to it yet, you can do so here) I have been busy doing goth stuff IRL.
But I wasn’t telling the whole truth there. I have also had a lot of family health issues on the side that have taken up a lot of time between things. So it generally means lower motivation even when I have the time to write. Some of these issues have been mental health ones with my son.
So when I was looking in r/goth and say this post it got to me a bit :
While talking about mental illness is a good thing, I felt talking about a suicide in r/goth because a Bauhaus song was posted by the person who killed themselves is a bit off. Add in the reference to a group that is “pro-choice” regarding suicide to be even more dangerous.
My response :
As well as this, after making the decision to write this article I listened to the new podcast from Necromancy Radio where they also discuss mental illness and how it is glorified by some “goths” too. You can listen to that here
Renee from Necromancy Radio proof-read this article for me (thanks Renee!) and gave me a link to an article that inspired the discussion in the podcast
I am writing this on the 23rd of December. Right in the middle of silly season. A very stressful time for many and unfortunately a time when mental illness and suicide can be common. It is a relevant time of year for this message to get out.
My Story With Mental Illness
I originally posted this as a Facebook note in September 2013. It explains my stake in the game well and that I have been there.
When I was younger I suspected I might have been depressed or had bipolar disorder. At the time I was studying psychology as part of a security certificate. I did a 12 month TAFE course instead of the usual 12 week crash course most security guards do so it would soak in better and even over-qualify me for basic security work. Anyway one of the big points is to never self analyse so I dismissed it. This was around 1998.
My second child has numerous issues which had her in hospital, the big one being she would not eat. We had to literally strap her into a chair and force food down. It was a harrowing time for my partner and I. She would shriek at me because she was that stressed out by it pleading for me to do something. I was already doing everything I could. To make matters worse a care nurse dobbed us into welfare because we decided to follow our GP's instructions (keep feeding her as well as we could) when in her opinion our daughter should be in hospital. Our GP knew hospital couldn't do anything more than we were already doing. Welfare grilled my partner pretty badly over it but when the hospital has the same feeding issues and they saw we had a house full of food they dropped the case. But it still took its toll.
I was stressed too but I handled it differently. Whilst my partner handled the hospital stuff with our daughter I looked after our first born (who is autistic but at least he had no problem eating) and kept the house and finances together. The doctors who couldn't diagnose why she wouldn't eat decided she needed her tonsils taken out for an unrelated matter. Then all of a sudden she wanted to eat! It was like the problem was solved out of nowhere yet the after effects would linger on. This happened in 2005/06.
Cut to 2007. My third child was born in late 2006. Early 2007 we were trying to feed him one day when he was sick - he had a cold or something minor like that. It all came back - my partner started shrieking at me to do something and again we were already doing everything we could. But this time something was different in me. Before I used to get mad because I was doing everything I could - why yell at me? This time I didn't - I just felt low and began to sink lower. I started to have thoughts not of killing myself but taking a kitchen knife, slashing my arms and yelling at her 'Here! Is this what you want?' as I felt I'd given all I could.
When I was younger I used to burn myself with cigarettes or cut myself just to feel something. This used to happen before I did that psychology course and went on for a couple of years after. Eventually the need to self harm just went away. But now it was back. I started burning myself with cigarettes again. I knew something was wrong as I couldn't shake this low feeling. Apart from my son being sick and not eating life wasn't bad. We had survived the bad patch and things were looking good. We had recently moved into a better house and things were going well so to feel down didn't make sense at all.
The next day I told my partner I was going shopping. I went to see my GP. I didn't want to tell her in case she tried to talk me out of going. I told my GP what was going on - how I was feeling, the self harming - all of it. He diagnosed me with depression and put me on a medication to try.
It turns out his diagnosis wasn't quite right as the medication triggered manias. So he tried another which made me feel aggressive and on edge all the time. Turned out I have bipolar and not depression. It took a while to get the balance of meds right but they did help. Problem is they left me feeling deadpan all the time. I didn't feel like I was 'me'. But I stayed on them while I needed them. Part of the treatment was to see a psychologist but it didn't do anything for me.
Some time in 2009 I felt I didn't need the medication any more. Life issues had sorted themselves out and as a whole was better. I couldn't handle stress the way I used to but I felt I didn't need the meds to function (as opposed to being a weepy non-functional mess) and my mind felt clearer. I haven't been on the meds since.
Edit : I did go back on the meds in early 2014 and I have been on them ever since. I will be taking them for the rest of my life but the delicate balance is right so I am not having the massive mood swings and my creative thinking isn’t stifled. I still get manias and depressions but they are nowhere near as dangerous. The chemical imbalance in my brain will always be there.
I still get bouts of depression and manias but nothing as long or strong as they were back in 2007 and 2008. I can wait them out and most of the time still function normally in life. In fact some manias can be sources for creativity so at least I get an up side to the deal.
My partner was eventually diagnosed with depression too. She is still on medication for it. It helps take the edge off things.
Something people say helps is to get yourself out of the depressive environment. Take a holiday or something similar. But when its a situation with your family you can't just walk away. You are forced to deal with it and take your breaks when you can. Even a small break for a couple of hours a couple of times a week can make a massive difference. For me that's going out on the town and DJing once every month or so - that's my vacation.
About six months after I was first diagnosed I found out my cousin had committed suicide. I consider myself fortunate that I had the sense to get help before doing anything too drastic.
Glorifying Mental Illness
In the last couple of years I have been dealing with my son being suicidal on a few occasions. I am not going to go into the details of why (it is not my story to tell) but he is 17 and has come close a couple of times to ending it all. The most recent time was a little over a week ago.
I find the idea of so-called suicide support groups that had a pro-choice for suicide mentality horrifying. If my son found such a group it would be the last thing he needs. He also doesn’t need suicide to be romanticised and glorified through people boasting about how mentally ill they are.
I should note at this point that there is a difference between telling your story and boasting. I take no pride in being bipolar, it doesn’t make me special, it is not something people should find cool. I will admit in my youth I did do the edgy “LOL I’m insane!” thing for a while (years before I was diagnosed) but I was called out on it and I stopped doing it. I am glad I was called out on it.
Thing is when you call someone out for glorifying mental illness, people get very defensive. Especially if the person being called out is a celebrity or well known personality they like. So many double down and embrace the insanity (so to speak) even more.
If someone is using mental illness as leverage to guilt trip people into giving them money and stuff that is bad too. If they are rewarded it only encourages them to ask for more and potentially fake it. There are genuine cases where people do need financial help and it can be hard to tell who actually needs it or not. I think it comes down to sincerity and whether they glorify mental illness or not.
There is a right and wrong way to talk about it. The right way is sharing your story but not taking pride in it. Yes, take pride in the fact you have endured and are still here. But don’t take pride in having the mental illness in and of itself.
The wrong way is to treat mental illness like a social accessory for cool factor.
How Does This Relate to Goth?
My personal mental illness does not. There are people with mental illnesses everywhere. But something we often see in goth communities is people glorifying mental illness. It is often seen as edgy and cool to do this. It is not.
Some people also seem to think it is some sort of pissing contest to see who is the most mentally ill. Again, part of thinking mental illness is cool and edgy. Mental illness is scary. I’m not talking going to see a horror movie or ride a roller-coaster for a thrill scary here. It is not beauty in darkness, spooky and macabre scary. This is real. It is too real and you can’t pause the tape to take a break once it starts.
For those who haven’t experienced it, imagine having someone else take over your mind so you are a passenger whilst the mental illness is in control. Your perception of reality is warped, you are reacting to the world in ways you normally would not. You have no control over this and it can come and go at any time. For some people it is constant and can last for days or even with some conditions a lifetime. Your mood can turn on a dime.
It is like losing who you are and not even knowing it. But the people around you know. Unknowing to you they cop the brunt of it. Life is not easy living with a mentally ill person while the illness is ravaging everything inside and outside them.
What is goth about that? NOTHING!
I would not wish mental illness onto my worst enemy, let alone promote it as a thing goths like.
What Should I Do?
If you are feeling that something is wrong, if your reactions to things are strange, if you feel down for no reason at all - get help. You need to talk to a medical professional and get treatment whether it is medicine, therapy or just even talking to someone until you can get that professional help. Everyone is different and different treatment methods work for some, not for others.
Do not self diagnose, leave that up to the people who know what they are doing and can look at your situation and well-being from an outside, unbiased perspective.
If you are feeling suicidal, talk to someone. Do anything to distract yourself from doing it. You have a reason to live, you just can’t see it right now. But it is there.
I have felt that moment when the madness is telling you to end it all. It is a fight to survive and unfortunately not all people make it. But that doesn’t mean we should stop trying to save people and abandon them to the fate the madness desires. Too many people have died already.
You are valuable, you are loved, you matter!
If you don’t have anyone to talk to, talk to me. I have been there, I might be able to help. But most importantly I can listen. Talking about it does help. Just search for Aytakk on Facebook, I’m easy to find and my profile is public. I know I will likely attract trolls and the like for doing this but I don’t care, some things are too important.
For those of you who aren’t mentally ill (or are managing it) and may come across someone in need of help, reach out to them. Ask if they are OK. Listen to what they have to say. You might be saving a life.
“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
- Dylan Thomas