Everyone hates me.

I’m crying. I’m crying really hard and really loud because I think everyone hates me.

In fact, I know they must hate me. My family, my housemates, my work colleagues. Everyone.

And why do they hate me? Because there’s something wrong with. I’m wrong. I don’t fit in. I don’t have many friends because people don’t like me. I’m too argumentative, too passionate about my world views. And when I show that side, people want to leave. When I’m not arguing, I’m too quiet. I’m shy and reserved. People don’t like that. I force awkward silences on them. I don’t have anything to say so I keep my mouth shut. I don’t like sharing.

Want to know how my holiday was?

‘Good. Fine. Only a few showers. Mostly dry. Went swimming’.

You’re not getting anything else out of me.

That’s not normal. I’m not normal. What’s wrong with me?

On Saturday night I sat up for hours crying. A never-ending stream of thoughts filled my head. Examples of social rejection, fights with siblings, throwaway comments made years ago all came back to me as evidence that I am hated. After everything I've done, I hate to be. I jumped from conclusion to conclusion. I was trapped. I couldn’t get out of my mind, I couldn’t make it stop. Everything that I was ever self-conscious of, any past event that ever could make me feel self-conscious flooded my brain.

But then it occurred to me.

Hurt yourself to make the thoughts stop. You know it works. You’ve done it before.

Pathetic, I thought. Seriously mental illness? You think you can trick me that easily? I am not going to do that.

I cried until I was numb. I cried until half of me felt already dead, and the other half wanted to die.

"You're getting yourself worked up over nothing".

 But it doesn't feel like nothing. It feels real.

I don’t know what Saturday night was. A breakdown? An episode of depression? A relapse?

All I know is that it will take a while to shake off and fully get over. I still feel emotionally and physically drained. I still feel like a lesser, emptier me. And I still feel like people don’t like me. However, I’m being more realistic about it. Everyone doesn’t hate me, because not everyone in the world has met me. But, everyone may possible hate me if they ever do meet me. I’m challenging these destructive thoughts one step at a time. 

I still feel an overwhelming sense of sadness. I still feel too preoccupied with the stream of negative thoughts only I can hear to really pay heed to anything going on around me. 

I stepped out in front of a car this morning. Not intentionally. I was just so withdrawn and so consumed by my mind that I didn't think to look. I was lucky I didn't get hurt. 

This was the worst low I can remember in the past two years. But it differs from how I used to feel in a time before medication and support. It differs because despite what my mind told me, I didn't want to die. I didn't want to hurt myself to make the feelings stop. Hell, it was hard ignoring those thoughts, convincing myself not to act on them. But I did it. 

Despite Saturday night, I'm still winning the battle against my mental illness. 

What Connecting for Life really means

The morning Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Junior Minister for Health Kathleen Lynch launched a new national suicide prevention strategy – Connecting for Life.

The document has been welcomed by mental health organisations and campaigners across the country. And it does contain a lot of positive rhetoric. But what does it really mean for those of us who are fighting against stigma, working in the mental health sector, or us with our own history of mental illness, self harm and suicide? 

The strategy acknowledges the effectiveness of stigma reducing initiatives, such as Please Talk and the work of See Change, since the Reach Out report.

The next 5 years need a renewed focus on those vulnerable groups – young men, LGBT community, Travellers – and it’s recognised that a lot of work still needs to be done to address mental health in a proactive way with these groups. And the strategy aims to do this on a community level – with increased focus on training entire communities in SafeTALK, and the importance of the connections with family, friends and communities being emphasised. 

But there is no specific reference to one area that I am particularly worried about; the farming community (middle aged men are mentioned yes and people who work in isolation, but the farming community is particularly struggling with the affects of suicide, loneliness and isolation, and I would have liked to seen a stronger emphasis on them and specific measures to be taken to help a group that can be very much of the 'What will the neighbours think?').