An Introduction

Hello!

My name is Lisa and I am a mental health (survivor, sufferer, patient?). I’ve been dealing with my mental health struggles for around fourteen years and I like to think I’m well on the way to recovery. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was younger and have carried the label into my adult life. There’s been a few other ones interjected along the way, but I try to focus less on the names nowadays. 

 I’ve had all the therapy that could be thrown at me, I’m on antidepressants (big up, Sertraline) and as of last week, I am a daily meditator. I’ve had my fair share of trouble in the world of mental health – diagnoses I don’t agree with, refusal of treatment I think I needed, flat out nasty comments from people who were supposed to be there to help. All in all, I’ve been at the very bottom, as well as the very top (yay, bipolar), and am currently hovering around the middle. I’m okay. I’ve learned to quite like okay.

So where is this blog going? Well, as we sat in a Costa on an uncomfortably warm Thursday morning, Robert had a brilliant idea to have a conversation. We’re quite good at conversation, Robert and I, and tangents, so what could be better than doing that in blog form?

This is intended to be a bouncing of ideas back and forth, with perhaps some epiphanies and revelations along the way. Personally, I think more people should be interested in what’s going on in their minds. Mental health still has a long way to go and despite the media talking about depression and anxiety as (rightly) a common and valid problem to have, some of the murkier aspects of mental ill-health are still swept under the rug, which is why it’s always important to keep up a conversation to demystify and destigmatize the topic.

So that’s what we will try to do. 

No pressure.