watching 'the devil and daniel johnston'
and the brian jonestown massacre album 'thank god for mental illness'.

though i think my uncle is probably not all there due to his heavy drug use as a young man.

is schizophrenic. I know a few people with severe depression.

I went to the NHS because I was confronting some pretty hardcore childhood experiences and wanted someone qualified to listen to me and help me work through it. They said they didn't deal with that kind of thing.

Fortunately, taking the steps to do something about it seem to have helped enough, for the moment anyway.

I hope you're doing ok. Well done for doing something about the problem.

of getting a medical opinion on whether I have a mild form of autism or not. its a difference not a disorder though. yeah.

really hope your problems improve.

but not sure I have it at all, it was only something my mother suggested, as these things always are.

Grandad was schizophrenic and eldest sister (RIP) had depression. Dad's epilepsy gave him mental health issues, too.

i'm always counting things, mostly for no reason. i write stupid lists and throw them away. i'm always checking things, daft things. i dream about numbers a lot, too. i wouldn't describe it as an illness, though, really, but i get myself in a right muddle sometimes. no-one would know if i didn't tell them, but i don't really mind it. i've got to know where everything i've got is, all the time, if i lose things i panic. i used to count my steps aswell, and for some reason use a ruler to write. strange things keep me awake, like knowing i've got a pile of magazines not in date order, or something equally meaningless.

pretty shit.

awful awful awful. that's all i'm gonna say about it.

my cousin and my grandmother were both alcoholics.

mental illness runs in the family....

i suspect i may be mildly autistic or something. i also suspect i may become mentally ill at some point in my life.

Autism/Apergers is a spectrum, you can't "partly have it" or "fully have it".
Most men show traits of aspergers. For example, it's nearly always men who collect thousands of pieces of railway memorabilia or who make massive models out of matchsticks. And the geeky kid in the corner at school who always says weird things and plays video games all day is usually a boy.
Stuff like that is no big deal..although obviously severe forms of autism are.

FUN TIMES!

Come close to being hospitalised a couple of times. Never have been. The end.

the response to this topic is fairly disgusting and pretty much typical of the 21st century teenage/mid-20s mindset.

The vast majority of the people posting here have nothing wrong with them but, as I have experienced while being in support throughout school and seeing the shit people try to pull, people want to have some kind of "mental illness" they can pin their bullshit on. It's a lot like scar stories; people want a fascinating mental illness.

I find it disgusting that such serious conditions are looked on so lightly and have been turned into jokes by the vast majority of people. Just look what happens when someone tries to talk about mental illness with a friend or family member - its been turned into a subject that no one takes seriously.

I do understand that some of you may well have some forms of mental illness but please don't populate this topic with your unverified "ADHD" or "bipolar" conditions. If you're so worried about it, go to the doctors and get diagnosed. Otherwise, shut the fuck up.

with depression, it has affected me quite badly, these past two years in particular. Don't know whether that was partly due to the environment I was in then. I would have strong bouts where I would just stay in bed doing nothing for weeks at time with tears on an almost daily basis. I was on medication for quite a while but stopped fairly recently because it just made me feel numb rather than happy (I'd rather experience some feeling, even if it is bad, than none at all) and I've developed a distaste of going to the doctors. I didn't see a counsellor or psychiatrist (much to the disdain of everyone around me) because I have trouble opening up...I think this was why I stopped going to the doctor as well because I felt they knew too much about me ( I haven't been to the doctor since for any ailment probably due to this reason).

I feel okay at the moment; I am doing things and am around people that I enjoy, so hopefully it shouldn't make a reappearance.

that I am feeling so much better now. I tried to commit suicide about 5 weeks ago but since then have realised that nothing justifies doing that and have decided to concentrate on the things in life that I do enjoy. Life is worth it. I told my consultant this week, you know what I'm sick of this hospital and I want out, I want to get on with my life again. So I've got a probationary week at home, and if that goes well then I'll be discharged.

Can I also just say that the mental health services in this country are woefully inadequate. I spent three months sitting on a bed, taking medication in the hope that I would magically get better. No counselling or occupation. And at 21 years old was the youngest patient on the ward by a good 15 years, I've never been more scared in my life.

So anyway, a couple of months ago I didn't believe it possible that I would get better but I'm here now taking those first tentative steps towards recovery and I hope to return to uni in september. To anyone in a similiar position - it does get better, you will feel things again, there's hope.

Ive had bouts of depression of various severity for 8 or 9 years, and at one point things were nearly fatal. Im ok now, and more in control of my life than before. At times i think i have tremendous personal insight and at others im quite a confused person

Anyway my points of advice are:

1) time is a healer, think positive about how strong you are whatever your problems

2) Im reading a bought a book on "cognitive behavioural therapy" which is all about converting negative thoughts into positive action. Its a genuine form of treatment in many types of psycological and emotional difficulties and works on correcting unhelpful thought patterns to make life less complicated.

good luck curbyourenthusiasm and Good luck to everyone in this thread.

"trivializing" mental illnesses (i read this whole thing then couldn't be bothered to find the right thing to reply to, sorrry) i think that it makes it easier for one (such as myself) to joke about it. i seriously am fucked up but i'm not going to go into all the details here to strangers, and why think about how horrid it is...easier just to joke. and when you joke, it's hard to be sad :)

has been in a mental health ward for nearly 4 years, and is showing no real signs of sufficient improvement to be let out any time soon...

She's always been on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but since my dad divorced her, and I went to live with him, she just lost it completely. I didn't exactly help matters with that, but it had to be done.

diagnosed as Schizophrenic when he was about 17. It was caused by his own admission from smoking dope. I smoked dope for a long time (from the age of about 17 to 30)and never really thought it was capable of producing / contributing to such a condition, but then again, anything with such a side effect of paranoia is not to be taken lightly.

Anyway, Joe died back in 2002.He jumped from the roof of a hotel that he and his family were staying in on holiday.

so I would just like to say thankyou to you guys for keeping me in a job, I just wish you wouldn't all keep getting sane and healthy again, you'll be putting me out of a job!

My best friend is currently in a psychiatric ward at hospital after attempting suicide for the umpteenth time. She avois talking to me about it and I don't want to push her into dicussing anything with me if she doesn't fee comfprtable doing so, but it's horrible, it feels like I'm doing nothing to help.

Pretty much the majority of my family have had some kind of mental illness or another at some point. I have two schizophrenic uncles, an aunt and great aunt with manic depression (one of which has had electric shock therapy amongst other things for it). I slso have family members with clinical, post natal and post traumatic stress disorder. There have been no suicides commited by any of the family I know, but a fair few attempts. I reckon my family just has bad genes, what chance did I ever have?

An as for myself...

I've been seeing a psychiatrist monthly and a psychologist weekly or fortnightly for the past two years. Had been self harming and attempting suicide since I was about thirteen, which there's still a real stigma to and I debated a lot about before saying so on here. They think I'm a manic depressive because I do fluctuate between being extremely depressed and a social recluse to being quite a positive, friendly person, but I haven't been diagnosed officially for anything, other than clincal depression. I also had anger management therapy for a while because I'd just be such a walk over all the time and let everything build up to the point where I'd go crazy and black out doing things, such as being violent, breaking things, etc.