329- #timetotalkday 2018

Throughout this blog, I mention the word support, in as many as 90 other entries, but I never discussed the topic fully. 

Support is something that used to be very very hard for me to ask ; Yet, I give it a lot. Although I made progress, and have recently asked my friends for their support as I suffered depression after a diagnosis of DFSP (a type of skin cancer), and even more so when I had surgery for it, I still need to work this part out, and this is one topic that I want to raise today,  time to talk day.

What is that, you may ask ? 

It is a campaign led by the UK-based charity, Time to change, to create dialogue and space where we can openly talk about mental health topics - from sharing one's experience with mental illness, to discussing among co-workers, co-students, raising awareness, aiming to get rid of stigma, and to either be there for someone, or ask for support, which is precisely the first aspect that I want to discuss.

I preemptively answer your question "why" with the following backstory :

As a child, I experienced multiple traumas (as you can read in many entries, with either PTSD, CPTSD, DV, Cult, and other such keywords). I developed several mental illnesses, though I didn't know that back then. 

I was forbidden by my father (a religious cult leader) to talk about what was going on at home and thus I was suffering, alone and in silence. 

A classmate had invited me to his home on numerous occasions, and there, I saw how he and his family interacted, and the stark differences in communication, care and love shown by this family - composed by several people who were either deaf, and/or mute (especially the parents) - and my experiences at home struck a cord with me, and planted a seed of rebellion, which years later, would yield a series of events, including going back to my home-country and starting a healing process on which I have embarked  just over 23 years ago.

A few months after that, I started psychotherapy (=talk therapy), for 12 years, until my therapist retired. After a while, I returned to talk therapy, with my current psychotherapist, who took over my first's office. I talk about these experiences in post 256. 

In parallel, for many years, I suffered in silence, from what I would learn are multiple C-PTSD's, phobias and GAD. 

I did learn to talk about my traumas, outside of therapy, confiding in friends (and my best friend who'd become my wife) ; but, I still felt very different from anyone around me, even if I knew that I wasn't the only person to suffer from PTSD. 

I also was stuck in a loop of feeling only as a victim, and it's only thanks to exchanges, chats with friends from the mental health community on twitter that I learned to push forward, and in time, through the help of books and blogs that I read ; vlogs that I watched, that I could start healing and finding myself to have been a survivor. 

This was made possible only thanks to a lot of patience, work, research, and one key ingredient: Support. 

For support to occur, we need several other ingredients:

• Not experiencing struggles alone, in silence
• Learning to trust others, even if just a few friends
• To learn that we are worthy of asking and receiving help 

Then, and only then, we can reach out and ask, and to talk openly about past experiences, past and current effects from our past, and to receive this high commodity called support . 

But, what IS support ?

I think that every person may have a slightly different answer to that, so I'll say what I need, and feel is support.

• A person is available to actively listen (active by asking questions to make sure there is full understanding of my situation) 
• This means the person is open minded and caring
• This person doesn't need to be a therapist or specialist or know answers or offer tips to help me progress ; these are only cherries on my healing-cake. 
• What is needed is someone who can just be there, and offer kindness, ears to listen or eyes to read me, and to be patient, and non-judgmental
• This person may also, if and when possible or needed, offer distraction and be friendly ; to see beyond my experiences, traumas and mental illnesses, to see that I'm a person who suffers but that I am more than the sum of my suffering, and to learn about one another's interests, and chat about any topic that we want, within or without of mental illness topics.

Support can have many benefits, as you read between the above lines, it can

• Help creating bonds of friendships, and expand beyond mental health, which is good for post-healing times, as when the person heals or at least becomes more functional, the friendship can include any number of additional topics that the persons involved had raised, and bring new ones. 
• Help the sufferers feel they aren't alone and can rely on someone to help them through difficult moments
• In short and long term, support can really change and even save a sufferer's life.

Evidently, talking about one's mental health in school or work environment can be quite different ; Time To Change offers may ressources and advice about this topic and others. 

The goals that I can see in the possibility of talking openly about struggles with mental illness in such instances would be to elicit adequate support, specifically targeting difficulties encountered in these venues. For instance, I could have benefited that in my old jobs, as I was already a bit of a misfit and often mocked in hostile conditions. The efforts that I was making to just go to work weren't understood by anyone. Had I known of any way to get support in those moments, I might have led a different, easier life. 

In essence, and to expand the topic, for support to occur, we need communication between people, a safe space and time to do so, and campaigns by mental health activism makes all these possible - by starting up dialogue, showing that we all have a mental health to take care of and maintain ; that it's ok to talk, and to get out of any stigma and statistical data about those of us who suffer. 

All this aims to break stigma, to create dialogue, and the end goals are to heal our wounds and mental illnesses, and widen mutual understanding. 

Time to talk day, just like many other awareness days, should be a bridge among many, and to open up the gates to further days of awareness (even though there are many, they are never enough, in view of misunderstandings, stigma and taboos around the subjects) and thus, make every day a good day to talk, as openly and humanely as possible. 

It's time to talk, today, tomorrow, and the all the ones after those. 

How has talking about my mental health impacted my life ?

This is a question that I hadn't initially thought to discuss, and which was brought her by Angela, and is part of my participation to her own Time To Talk Day blog post and campaign which will be on her blog. My reply is a longer version, as Angela needed to trim it down to the essentials. 

As I said earlier, talking in therapy had locked me into a cycle of victimization ; talking with friends during that time was only about my past. 

A second psychotherapy, followed by personal involvement and research and joining the mental health community collaborated and combined to get out of my cycle of victimization : I realized that I was a survivor, on a healing path - albeit slow and tediously non-linear.

I learned to blog, and to openly talk - not only about my past traumas, but also their long-lasting effects and my struggles with mental illness. 

In time, I also expanded topics, and bonded friendships with other mental health activists and bloggers ; we had started these ties based on our respective struggles, but expansions out of these topics helped to see beyond diagnosis and difficulties : we could talk about other subjects, and to deepen our bonds into more varied forms. 

Talking about mental health with these friends, but also others who remained only as mental health based relationships, have helped me to feel that I belonged somewhere, and wasn't alone to struggle anymore. I wasn't suffering in silence, and I was receiving support, understanding, and sometimes advice. 

Before parting, I want to share the questions that Jodie, a Time to Change champion, and a person I feel lucky to call a friend, asked as part of the campaign for today. 

I do so with her approval. 

These answers appear as a series of posts on her own blog ; a series that divided the week in such a way that every day corresponded to a question, and all participants' answers for the day's question. 

Here are direct links to each question/ day:

1 = importance of time to talk day

2=being supported

3= Having someone in your corner 
4=Small things...
The 5th question only pertained to the participants' identity or anonymity. 

My replies to the campaigns had to be short enough to be included in Jodie's blog posts, alongside other people's. 

I had typed my own in a file, that I copy-paste here :

1. Why are initiatives, such as Time to Talk Day, that aim to open up conversations around mental health so important to you, as someone with lived experience of mental health problems?

They are important because I grew up in a stifling environment where I had no right to express opinions, feelings, nor complain about anything. I suffered in silence and I find it highly important to learn to talk, and to listen to those in need. 

2. Can you remember a particular time when someone supported you, what did they do? 

I struggled with suicidal ideation last year. People from MH community, offered support, by talking & listening,  and helped me through the dark moments.

3. What did it mean to have someone #inyourcorner

It meant that I wasn’t suffering in silence, nor alone anymore. That someone was there to help, support and surpass struggles. Which I always return to all.

4. What small things do you think would make a big difference to someone struggling with their mental health? 

Listening, talking, not only about struggles but any topic, to distract and also show a person’s more than their illness and struggles.

5. Finally name,age,country (you can be anon if you would like, include either, both of neither name/age). Lulu. 42. France.