Resilient characters…

I’m from the country and I’ve lived there for most of my life.

Back in my town people know me.

They just know that I get a bit excited, that I can be the life of the party, tell jokes, light up the room, be really charismatic and fun.

My workmates at my old office saw the other side.

Because I would always still go to work when I was low but I’d sit quietly in the corner and send emails rather than speak to people.

But I would still tell jokes because I would be trying to cheer myself up.

It’s a bit of a manic-depression thing.

But my behavior was completely accepted.

That’s just Ivy. She has big feelings.

In the country, we don’t speak so openly about officially diagnosed mental health disorders and our needs.

In the country, we are resilient characters.

I do not care for this label. I do not want to be resilient. I have needs. We (that is the mentally ill) all do.

At this point, I would like to point out that according to a coronial inquest released last year into what was found to have been a preventable suicide of a young man in the Riverland regional South Australia’s mental health resources are so inadequate, there are fewer psychiatrists in the state per person than in Mongolia, Ukraine or Russia.

This is based on a news report from September last year and I have no reason to believe that the situation has changed.

Residents of regional South Australia have higher levels of alcoholism, drug use, and suicide than people in Adelaide.

It is my personal belief that if better services were available there could be harm minimisation when it comes to addictive and negative coping mechanisms.

I think a lot of country people are self-medicating with drugs and alcohol and if they had easier and more equitable access to mental health care this would be addressed.

Unfortunately, once a person has become a full-on drug addict or alcoholic the reasons behind wanting to ‘make the pain go away’ are forgotten and they become demonized.

While locals are painting trees blue, skiing for life, riding postie bikes across the country, asking RUOK? and reminding us to call Lifeline a lot of us need a timely appointment with a psychiatrist who can prescribe the correct medication.

In my personal experience, my mental health care completely changed when I became suicidal, gave up on the public health system, and paid my way into private mental health care.

My doctor charges $90 for 15 minutes and it’s worth it.

Finally after years and years of being prescribed the wrong meds I was given anti-psychotics instead of antidepressants or mood stabilizers and everything changed.

I felt more stable than I had been for quite some time.

The last time I had been so calm was during childhood.

My mental illness presented itself when I was a teenager. As it often does.

If anyone has a teenager or a person of any age in their family that they are worried about and are thinking twice about whether they should bypass the public system, spend hundreds of dollars, and lose a few days of work because of a trip to Adelaide – DO IT.

The right meds can make all the difference.

Another thing – don’t ever think that a person with an officially diagnosed mental illness who is now able to get out of bed, get back into the world, and has stopped crying all the time is ‘all better now.’

It will always be there and must be managed.

If you show too much enthusiasm around your loved one being ‘all better now’ they’ll be hesitant to reveal their struggles when the black dog comes back.

This is not coming across as a funny post – but that was something that I wanted to say.