Sort of an adult recently diagnosed with BPD. Sometimes I get badly depressed so be aware that I could share some triggers. I'm a beard-enthusiast, hobbit-wannabe who sing writes, knits and dances.
I’ve been asked by Rae to type out a guest post type of thing for her Read About Mental Health project that she’s doing on her blog for World Suicide Prevention Day so here goes. I don’t really know what to talk about so I’ll start with a brief introduction. I run booksfrommyshelf and booktriggerlist I’m 26, I have a degree in psych science, I’m studying counselling at the moment, I have a boring job in a supermarket, I read a lot, I spend too much time on tumblr, I have two partners and no other real friends, and I have/had clinical depression.
I say ‘have/had’ because I’m still not sure exactly what’s going on with me. I’ve been out of therapy for a few years now, and I think I’m recovered although I am still medicated. Things have improved greatly for me over the last couple of months with relationship related things, but every so often I hit a spiral and I go down and down and think ‘maybe this is it, maybe this is a relapse and I couldn’t be bothered fighting it anymore.’ So far I end up alright but the not knowing for sure is the most tiring thing because if I knew, I could decide what to do about it, if anything.
When I’m down I crash spectacularly, and when I’m fine I’m embarrassed and think I was faking it and all that. It took me a long time to realise that I was sick enough to warrant help. I think I’ve been depressed for most of my life, and for a while recovering terrified me because I didn’t know who I was without being depressed. I know the symptoms of depression, I always have, even before I realised I was depressed, and I’ve spent most of my time online doing my best to help others who were depressed. I’m not a trained mental health professional (not yet, at least), but I just wanted to do what I could to let people know they weren’t alone, and to urge them to seek proper help when they needed to. In the same track of wanting to help people, I created the trigger list for books when I told my girlfriend (then my friend) to read a book that she couldn’t get through because it triggered her. So I made the list because I’ve been triggered by books and I wanted people to be able to be aware of things before they just jumped into a book that could have such a negative impact on them.
So Rae is doing this thing for RFMW and Suicide Prevention Day. I have never attempted suicide. But that doesn’t mean I’ve never wanted to, because I have, so many times. I used to think that I wasn’t strong enough to do it because I never could. I like to put a positive spin on it now. I held on to whatever I could, literally sometimes. I remember one night crying hysterically in my kitchen with my cat scratching me convincing myself I had to stay so that there was someone to feed him. Find whatever it is that you have to hold on to and never let it go. This also has something to do with never feeling like I was sick enough. I was never really in crisis. You deserve help even if you’re not in crisis. You deserve help even if you think you don’t because you’re not in crisis. You deserve help even if you don’t think you’re sick enough because your symptoms may not be as severe. Comparisons are bad and every illness is unique in how it’s experienced. All of us deserve help at any stage of our illnesses. All of us deserve help even if we think we don’t.
I think that books that discuss suicide and mental illnesses (as well as other potentially triggering topics) are, overall, a good thing, depending on how they’re portrayed and treated. When they’re portrayed well they can be educative and even supportive. These books can be read, if they’re not too triggering for a person to handle at any time, as a method of feeling less alone, as well as the potential of fostering hope and showing that struggles can be overcome. Books that deal with these issues can also be helpful for people who don’t suffer from a mental illness. If someone can empathise with a mentally ill character, they may learn to empathise with people who are mentally ill. If a book helps someone to understand mental illnesses in fiction, their understanding can cross over to people they know. If a character in a book can manage their mental illness and recover, so can you.
Read About Mental Health is part of the Read About It, a joint project cofounded with thebooker. It features books that discusses/promotes mental health awareness as well as human psychology.
This post is written by Trina (booksfrommyshelf) at my request. We are not mental health professionals or therapists, but we are people that are passionate towards mental health awareness. We would love for you to contribute to the Book Trigger List or to drop any suggestions as to how we can better raise mental health awareness amongst the book blogging community here on Tumblr.
