Mental Patient!

If you haven't already seen the Asda, Tesco and Amazon 'Mental patient' halloween costumes then you can view them in the article HERE. If you're not too interested in clicking the link here's a brief summary.

Retailers Asda, Tesco and Amazon advertised their 'Mental Patient' and 'Psycho Ward' Halloween costumes recently. The costumes boast fake blood, meat cleavers, boiler suits, jaw restraints, and you can 'complete the look' with a machete!

Clearly as a 'mental patient' I was shocked by this. Mental illness has enough stigma around it without needing halloween costumes to add to it. So inspired by the responses on twitter I thought i'd show you what a 'mental patient costume' looks like... So as you can see here is a picture of me.

Please note that there is a lack of meat cleavers and machetes, no blood and nothing out of the ordinary. There is on the other hand Jeans and a jumper that's far too big for me. Others posting similar images of themselves on twitter include them wearing, suits, t-shirts, dresses, leggings and well the same clothes a normal person wears! They also aren't holding dangerous objects. And just to clarify if you've never seen us mental patients before we don't actually have blurred faces. Shocking, I know.

We don't wear clothes that show we're mentally ill, we don't go around with warning signs and we don't walk around with meat cleavers. Mental illness doesn't have a certain look to go with it, you can't see them and you certainly can't distinguish a mentally ill person by what they are wearing. Just in case you didn't know that...

Distractions

As promised here are some alternatives to self-harm and/or distractions. I know that some if not all of these may seem like stupid ideas when you have the urge to self-harm but please give them ago even if it just delays the amount of time between getting the urge and giving into the urge. Hopefully some of these you can use as a distraction until the urge goes completely.

Depending on the emotion you're feeling you may want to try different things.
Angry/frustrated
Go for a walk/run/cycle.
Punch pillows (or a sibling) (actually don't punch your siblings)
Kick a football really hard.
Throw ice against a wall, watch it shatter!
Play a sport.
Snap sticks/pencils/whatever.
Just have an urge for 'no reason'
Take a cold bath.
Squeeze ice cubes.
Keep pinging an elastic band on your wrist.
Focus on breathing, notice how your body moves, this is apparently calming,
Feeling Depressed or unhappyDo something relaxing, have a warm bath with lots of bubbles.
Listen to music (Happy music that is) and dance around.
Talk. To anyone about anything.
If you enjoy doing something do it. (playing an instrument, some form of game console thing, anything that makes you somewhat happier)
Other things you could do to distract yourself.Sleep! Read, drink tea, bake something, do some gardening, write your feelings down then tear it up. Some form of exercise, use google translate to try and learn a new language, watch videos of cats on youtube. Visit a friend or relative, watch a film, (finding nemo is good), build a blanket fort. Draw on yourself with pen. Write a poem, draw/paint a picture, Just do something you enjoy doing.

A really important thing to do is TALK. You don't have to struggle on you're own, it is okay to need help and there are people who care about you.

Self injury

Like 90% of my other posts i'm not entirely sure of what I'm trying to say or how to word it. So if you haven't guessed by the title this post is on self injury.

Firstly I'd like to say that people need to stop romanticizing self harm. It's not something that the opposite sex (or the same sex, whatever you're in to) is going to find pretty or poetic or interesting. It is not cute it is not going to make people suddenly fall in love with you and its not 'tragically beautiful'. Boys aren't going to want to kiss every one of your scars when they first see them, don't believe it when you read rubbish like that on tumblr.

Secondly don't go bitching about other peoples injuries. Like seriously I am sick of hearing people say behind a self harmers back 'they don't even look that bad' STOP RIGHT THERE OKAY. Self harm is self harm. Whether deep enough to need stitches or whether it barely scratches the surface. Whether they punch themselves, burn themselves, pull their hair, cut themselves or anything else that hurts it is self harm. Whether they've done it once or a thousand times it is still self harm. Whatever their injury, however deep or 'bad' it is every self-harmer is hurting emotionally. As well as this, Stop saying that they're just 'attention seeking' when most of the time they'll go out of their way to hide the fact they do it. If they have done it for attention its because they NEED the attention. They need help and maybe they're too scared to out-right ask for it. Stop judging them.

Also, stop posting millions of facebook status' about self harm just for likes. It's almost like these people are making it seem like self-harm is an okay thing to do, it's not. Im not saying its wrong to self-harm im saying that there is better ways to deal with your emotions and people need to promote those rather than promote self-harm. Self harm is serious not some romantic, cute, clever thing. Not something to post about on facebook when you want likes on a status please bare in mind that some people may find posts like these triggering!

I'll post soon on alternatives to self-harm which will hopefully help anyone struggling rather than glamorizing self-injury like the rest of you. Sorry if this makes no sense but I needed to rant, byeeeeee.

 - To all the people who do self-harm, I honestly hope that you'll find an alternative way to deal with whatever you're going through. Please surround yourself with people who are willing to support you through this period of time (People who you feel you can give blades to, people you can talk to when you have urges). It also might be worth looking at THIS website, it has self help guides for self injury and other mental illnesses. Also please remember to look after your wounds - keeping them clean to avoid infections. If you accidentally cut too deep or something please go to A&E to get the appropriate treatment.  If you have me on facebook please dont hesitate to message me in times of struggle. 

Slow and steady wins the race?

I am typing this only with my left hand. It's taking a long time and is really difficult because this is not what I am used to. If I don't go slow I press the wrong letters and sentences end up like
"woo im sp fast at typung with my lrft hand... that actuakky wrnt better thab expected"
You cant even see the fact that I am struggling but I am. I'm gettinng better at it but it still doesn't feel normal. My right hand is dying to take over and be like "Yo dude, I got this, I can make this easier" because that is what It's always done. But I am determined to finish this paragraph using only my left hand. It's taken me a long time to do what is a 'simple' task because I have to concentrate to make sure I do not mess up. But i have done it.

That is what recovery is like. I have to go very slowly and sometimes I mess up. Nobody else can see how much of a struggle certain things are and my old habits are dying to take over just like my right hand was dying to take over the typing.  Although it may seem simple "Just eat/Just be happy/Just do this and that and the other" In reality it's not as simple as it may sound. It's very time consuming and isn't what I am used to.
I am going slowly but just like rushing the typing if i try to rush recovery I will just end up making a mess out of things.  So if the whole world can bare with me while my concentration is else where that would be much appreciated.

I'm not sure if this even makes sense, i hope it does otherwise i've wasted a lot of time on this post.  I'd also like to apologize for that lack of posts, I am ever so sorry! I promise not to dessert you for this long ever again!

(This is a pathetic excuse of a post but there is no otherway I can think of to describe whats going on in my life at the moment)