It seems today that mental health is the hot topic in UK news. Some of it is for fairly good reasons, like trying to appreciate the importance of early detection and treatment:

Mentally ill are ‘dying needlessly’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24240408

Call for children’s mental health checks at seven
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24263452

And some of it for less good reasons:

Asda and Tesco withdraw ‘psycho’ patient outfits
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24278768

It’s two steps forward, and one step back. And yet, it’s all steps forward, because hooray for a country where people can say, ‘Oh hi, that’s some insensitive stigmagtizing bullshit you’ve got goign on there’, and the retailers throw their hands and say, ‘Whups, my bad.’ It would/will be even better when we hit a point that this kind of BS never comes, but you guys know me — I like to celebrate the steps in the right direction.

Some would consider the proposed checks for children to be a bad thing, on a related tangent. While I can appreciate that folks might find the concept an intrusive step too far for the nanny state, I think there’s room for such an idea to do a lot of good. I can’t fathom how different my life would have been if someone had caught my bipolar much earlier down the line. Not that I’m displeased with my life (quite the opposite!), but I will concede not having to put up with years of suffering in silence would have been peachy. I also feel that if people are brought to the idea that some folks have mental health disorders at a younger age, it certainly has the potential to make people more open-minded and accepting of things. After all, no one is reputedly born making negative stereotypes.

But really, all in all, it boils down to teaching society that mental health issues are just as devastating as physical ones, if not worse. No, I’m not trying to make it a pissing contest; after all, there are any number of physical illnesses that are just as invisible as the mental one. My beloved heatherbat has a physical sign (his cane), and still gets treated like some sort of faker.

But then, I’m preaching to the choir yet again. Most of you reading are like me — someone with a mental illness doing their best to show that hey, we’re just like everyone else in wanting to have a decent quality of life, and doing the best with what we have.

And now, I’m going to drag my fatigued butt back to data entry. I hope everyone out there is some shade of okay.

<3