{"id":583,"date":"2010-10-17T16:37:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-17T15:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mattwpbs.com\/?p=583"},"modified":"2010-10-17T16:37:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-17T15:37:00","slug":"seeing-as-last-tuesda-was-international-coming-out-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mattwpbs.com\/?p=583","title":{"rendered":"Seeing as last Tuesday was National Coming Out Day…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not coming out as gay, let’s get that out of the way first. But in the same sort of spirit, I am coming out as someone who suffers from depression. <\/p>\n

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Some of my friends know this already, I’m not overly secretive about it, but it’s not something I tend to shout about either. I’ve been taking anti-depressants for the last few years, and I have it under sufficient control that it’s not a major problem in my life. This isn’t a call for help or anything similar, I’m not planning to go into detail on my symptoms, I don’t want people to treat me any differently (and hope they won’t). The main reason I’m writing this is because of some conversations I’ve had with other friends over the years – both those who I know are also sufferers, and those who may be.<\/p>\n

There’s a certain degree of stigma which is still associated with mental health, and leads to people not seeking treatment in the same way as they would for a physical problem. This is my attempt to contribute in a very small way to changing this. Partly I think the reason for this is that people have a fear of mental illnesses – they aren’t as visible as physical illness, yet they have an impact which can affect the very core of who you are. The problem with this secretive behaviour is that it makes mental illness seem to be a rarer problem than it actually is. Statistically, about one in every ten men and one in every four women will experience depression at some point in their lives. Even this may be a lower number than the reality – the same stigma can lead to people not seeking help from their GP.<\/p>\n

If you do feel you might be suffering from depression, it’s incredibly important to discuss it with your doctor. Nobody would think of not discussing the possibility of asthma, diabetes or similar with their doctor, and there is no reason why you should feel any differently about discussing a possible mental health problem with your doctor. In fact, it may be even more important to discuss something which can be so insidious and creep into so many aspects of your life. It may be that the doctor doesn’t diagnose you with depression, in which case you can go away as reassured as someone with an ankle sprain instead of an ankle break. If you are diagnosed with depression or another mental health issue, there are lots<\/strong> of ways that your doctor can help you – not just prescribing medication. You could be referred to a therapist, a counsellor, to discussion groups, be given access to CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – which I personally think is great), given a self help regime, etc. The important thing is to get started with treatment, and hopefully it’ll help you get out of the funk that depression and similar illnesses can get you into.<\/p>\n

Like I said at the start, this post is partly the result of talking to friends who also have treatment for mental health problems, and partly from talking to friends who are reluctant to about it to their doctor, think they are particularly abnormal for feeling this way, or think it’s not worth talking to their doctor about it. If you are in this second group, you are not alone<\/strong>. I don’t have any intention of betraying confidences and ‘outing’ the other friends of mine who have\/have had mental health issues, but I can honestly tell you that it’s not a small number. That’s just those people who are close enough friends that we’ve broached this sensitive subject, so my belief would be that there are a fair few more on top of that. You’re not alone, this isn’t rare. Treat it the same way you would a condition such as a bad back, a dodgy ankle or similar, and get help. <\/strong><\/p>\n

If you want to talk about this in private, feel free to drop me a mail – matt [dot] white [dot] uk [at] gmail [dot] com.<\/p>\n

I’m not the most secretive person about this, but it has still taken me a few days to decide to hit the “publish” button. <\/p>\n

The NHS mini-site on depression (here<\/a>) has some useful information.<\/p>\n

MIND has a good section on CBT here<\/a>, and on depression in general here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not coming out as gay, let’s get that out of the way first. But in the same sort of spirit, I am coming out as someone who suffers from depression.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[440],"tags":[441,442,443],"class_list":["post-583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ramblings","tag-cbt","tag-depression","tag-self-help"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pAkBY-9p","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattwpbs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattwpbs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattwpbs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattwpbs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattwpbs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mattwpbs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattwpbs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattwpbs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattwpbs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}