#anyway - Scott Morrison? I'm coming for your kneecaps

[chipped-chimera]

I think the large part of the reason why people get extra pedantic about those with mental illness engaging in self-destructive coping mechanisms (because that's what all of these are! Coping mechanisms! Even for those who are not 'mentally ill') is because it is loudly showing the symptom of a larger problem - that society at large has let this individual down, and badly.

Mental health attitudes have improved a lot over the recent years, but there is a certain kind of bitterness around it for me as someone who has been living with mental health issues 'officially' for 14 years (but arguably might have been my whole life) to see governments (or mine at least) finally sit up and throw more resources into mental health support services post pandemic because they KNOW it's going to have a lasting knock on effect.

Like I am glad it is happening. I am glad there is more support. But at the same time I'm wondering where was this 15 years ago when I was diagnosed with depression which would turn out to be treatment resistant over the years? Where was the care that could have gotten me out of the hole I was in and identified root issues, instead of me largely having to figure out that shit myself at 30? Where is the financial offset for the really expensive treatment I now have to get just as a last ditch effort before literal BRAIN SURGERY just so I can fucking live as someone below the poverty line? Where is recognition of the fact that every medication I have to take to keep myself stable enough to keep going is basically life support and I shouldn't have to PAY just to keep my will to live?

I know my government has launched multiple different programs over the years to try and drive down the suicide rate, but it's never put a dent in it - in fact in recent years it's getting worse. And that's because they only treat the symptom, not the problem.

Highly distressed people show up to hospitals regularly requesting to be admitted for their own safety, and if they aren't turned away (I have read some SHIT let me tell you) or abused within that system that's supposed to help them (... again, I have read some shit) once they're 'recovered' they're turfed out into the world, right back into the same situations that made them so distressed in the first place.

Neurotypical people who are 'mentally well' only get so bent out of shape over those who are highly depressed or distressed engaging in self destructive behaviour because it is in a way showing them that they have failed. They have in some way, let us down. That they did not care enough. While that distressed person is engaging in self-destructive coping mechanisms to try and self soothe or just hold on to their scrap of life by a thread - they tell us to knock it off because they can't sit with the discomfort. We're inconveniencing THEM by just trying to fucking survive.

Any depressed person has the potential to reach that end point, and unless we actually sit the fuck up collectively and get our shit together, address the REASONS people are depressed like discrimination, ableism, racism, poverty etc. nothing is going to change. Telling someone to 'knock it off because you're making me uncomfortable' isn't going to solve shit. It's only going to make it worse.

Because right now when someone has depression? That's sad. But when someone commits suicide? Now it's a tragedy.

Depression was ALWAYS a tragedy of society. And it shouldn't take someone hitting the point of self harm or death for it to be taken seriously.

Some people really hate the idea of mentally ill people fucking up or making choices that damage ourselves and it's so exhausting. So many people talk about how people should be able to make choices about their own body until it's mentally ill people self-harming, or doing drugs/alcohol, not taking meds, doing things generally considered "unhealthy" and then they decide no, actually, people should be able to take control of your right to make decisions about your body because people deemed "mentally ill" just can't be trusted.

Somehow we're not allowed to do things that bother other people, or hurt our bodies, even if other people do shit like that all the time. Somehow people considered "sane" can exercise to the point of making themselves ill, can drink and "occasionally" do drugs, can refuse to take medicine and even self-harm in ways but we're often not allowed to without someone threatening to violate our right to decide about our bodies. Because we don't understand consequences or we "might kill ourselves" but it's so ridiculous.

Like yes, we might kill ourselves. We might fuck ourselves up. We might destroy our entire lives. And? People do that! It happens! It's part of living. People do dangerous shit, people fuck up, people hurt themselves. It's not like we're the only ones who do that but even if we were, you can't puppet other people's lives just because they're living them differently.

Not without violating their right to make decisions about their body. Not without being involved in a violent system that destroys mental health and bodily autonomy. Not without being a part of a violent system that will try to make sure no one is ever free.