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Genuinely interested in what the people telling mentally ill to “ask for help” think happens *after* you do ask for help? Do they think we get pills and are then just fixed with no side effects? Or that we get therapy without waiting 2 years? Or that anyone checks on you at all?
It’s made to sound like a one time deal - like you perform the single, contained act of “asking for help” and then that single thing initiates a domino effect of actions by others who want to help you and then you end up mended...?
“Asking for help” is not a single act. It is a very long list of actions you have to perform, horrible conversations you have to have, behaviour you have to exhibit, forms to fill out - oh my god sooo many forms! - you have to show up to things that make you want to die more.
For a lot of people “asking for help” is not a 15 minute conversation with a GP.
There’s this idea that you confess how bad you feel to someone and that’s the end of your part in the process. It’s actually just the beginning of what is actually a shit ton of work.
There’s this idea that you confess how bad you feel to someone and that’s the end of your part in the process. It’s actually just the beginning of what is actually a shit ton of work.
That is not even getting into the barriers put in place intentionally and unintentionally by both the system and the people who make up the system. The “simple” version is grueling already.
This is brutal, I know. And it feels vaguely irresponsible to talk about this so bluntly. I don’t want to discourage people from trying to get help, but I wish there was more honesty about what the system looks like from the inside. It’s not simple.
