Mental Illness Does Not Define Who I am

When I posted a blog about mental health discrimination and stigma about six months back, I'll admit that my experience with it was pretty limited. I'd experienced the odd sideways glance, some people were extra sensitive to my feelings, I was occasionally told to 'man up' or 'cheer up', but I never experienced what I believed was out right discrimination.

That's why, when I recently applied for a position in a summer camp in Canada for next year, I had no worries that my mental health issues would in any way impact my application. Having briefly touched down there last year whilst waiting for a transfer flight, I've since wanted to visit so I was pretty quick to fill out the application form through Camp America, so that I could do so whilst earning money to travel.

About a month ago, I received a reply (italicised below) which, in the short form, said that the company was unable to take my application further based on the information about my mental health that I had disclosed in my application.

"Based upon the information that you have provided, we may not be able to move further with your application this year. I know this news is disheartening but please allow me to explain the reason behind this decision.

Firstly let me state that Camp Canada in no way discriminates against anyone with mental health problems. However, in the past, the camps that we work with have taken on counsellors who have had a recent history of anxiety or other emotional problems and there have been some incidents that have caused the Canadian/American government to change their policies on the cultural exchange visa. Therefore, our camps are changing their application rules.

This means that camps in Canada will not hire applicants who have suffered from any mental or emotional disorders within the past two years. This is because this experience is also a job, and you would be responsible for the welfare of children throughout the day. Though the experience is fun and fulfilling, it is also tough. You will be in an unfamiliar environment and away from everything you know. Camp directors want to make sure their staff are capable of dealing with this and can keep the children safe."

The application asked me if I had ever had mental health issues. I answered the question honestly, making it clear that I had previously been diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorder but that I was physically and mentally fit to travel and work at the time. I was slightly concerned about disclosing the information, but I felt safer being truthful, and believed that it wouldn't be an issue.

When I read the response, I was obviously a bit upset that my application wasn't being taken any further. I completely understand the company's need for a policy, but the fact that I was being labelled as someone who was incapable of dealing with change, or unable to take responsibility for children's welfare based on an illness I was deemed to have recovered from upset me all the more. It made me feel foolish for ever being honest and annoyed at myself for ever being unwell. Things I really shouldn't have to feel.

The tone of the email upset me even more. I am fully aware that the experience is also a job. I am fully aware of the responsibilities and fully aware that it isn't something to be taken lightly. It annoys me that based on this experience, I'm unlikely to want to apply for this again, even when I have passed the two year mark. Why should I want to when I'm going to doubt myself and not feel trusted throughout the whole thing?

I don't believe that I'm incapable of looking after children, seeing as I've done so for much of my life with brothers and a sister all younger than me. If the company had asked, they would know that I studied abroad for a month last year whilst I was suffering with mental health issues, and that I coped considerably well in the situation. If I had any doubts about my ability to cope with the programme, I wouldn't have even considered filling out an application. I know my limits.

Personally, I think that having depression has made me a stronger and perhaps a healthier person. It's provided me with the skills to empathise and care for all types of people, and to deal with high pressured situations - situations, incidentally, that I'm sure I would face as a camp counsellor at a summer camp. Mental health discrimination was always something I feared facing before I came out of my mental health closet, but I never imagined my mental health issues would come back to haunt me when it came to the work place, especially when I was through the worst of my illness.

My mental health history really doesn't change who I am as a person. I am a 21-year-old woman who had depression, not a depressed woman. And, even though it doesn't sound like it, there's a big difference between the two. My mental health does not make up all of me. I am much, much more than an illness, and this summer camp is going to miss out on all of who I really am. I am not going to let an illness define me, and I'm not going to let anyone else define me in that way either.

The Grey Area

Tesco now has 98 varieties of coffee. It's completely true; I was there just yesterday wandering around the aisle, when it hit me how much damn coffee there is in that place. I'm kind of ashamed to admit I went home and looked up how many varieties there were. How are you supposed to choose between Colombian Coffee beans, Illy Espresso Coffee Beans, Decaff, Nescafe or all the other varieties I've forgotten to mention? There was too much choice to wrap my head around. In this crazy world where  Tesco now has 98 varieties of coffee, it seems ridiculous to me that my choice about my sexuality seems so limited.

We've all heard the stereotypes attached to being bisexual; indecisive, confused, wanting your cake and eating it too, gay or lesbian in transition, the list goes on and on. If you identify as bisexual, it's likely that you've encountered these clichés at some point. I know that I certainly have.

Being gay or lesbian sometimes has its difficulties attached to it, but it can be more of a hardship to be bisexual, in a world where you are either this or that, everything is black or white and there is no middle ground or grey area to settle in. When you aren't one way or the other, but sitting on the fence, life can be problematic with issues that homosexuals and heterosexuals simply do not encounter.

Like everyone who has a sexuality, I didn't choose to be bisexual. None of us choose whom we are attracted to, and none of us have any control over our attraction. It baffles me when people tell me that I am simply in a limbo and that I can't choose which gender I am more attracted to, because it has never been a choice for me. Honestly, I like both genders equally. I am certain that I'm not in transition to come out as a lesbian, and that I haven't been experimenting for all these years. For some, it may be true that a transition or phase is occurring, but for most who identify as bisexual and maintain that identity, it is not, and, for me at least, it's boring, annoying and pretty insulting to have these lines of reasoning thrown my way over and over again.

All these clichés and exaggerated myths make being bisexual a very confusing and irritating experience. Do I really need to correct people who ask whether I'm "a bit more lesbian than I am straight?" When I was single, did I need to lay my sexuality on the table if I was flirting with someone, or was it unfair of me to keep quiet? Do I still have to explain to some people that I'm still bisexual, despite the fact I am in a relationship with a man now? It's actually quite annoying and it has gotten to the stage where I feel I should just keep quiet about it.

It feels as if it's just downright difficult and awkward being bisexual. You'd think the opposite; you  have the freedom to choose from  a pool two times larger than heterosexuals and homosexuals can choose from, you can have both gay and straight nights out and you can openly enjoy relationships with partners from both genders. And you can do all this while showing the world how open minded you are in your approach to sexuality. Great stuff!

Of course, I'm being sarcastic. All these cliches and ideas about what bisexuality should be/is, coupled with my own ideas about what my sexuality is about makes it feel like I'm trying to look left and right at the same time. It's expected considering the nature of what bisexuality entails, but it makes it feel as if being bisexual is almost impossible. With no etiquette or rule book on bisexuality, it is difficult to know what it should be about.

It's a grey area of sexuality.  It's not this or that. It's not black or white. It's slap bang in the middle, the area between the black and white of monosexual orientations. So tell me this; how on earth do you begin to fit in when you aren't in one camp or the other?

Bisexual identity is both complex and contradictory. There are few, if any, people who identify as bisexual that I know that fit into the societal description of bisexuality. Still, as is the case with lesbian and gay representation, as more individuals speak openly about attraction to both genders and more bisexual role models appear, the term may become more well-understood. Now, who wants some cake? Any flavour you like.

 

Thanks for your discrimination and stigma

Each and every one of us and each and every one of you reading this post has mental health. It's a fact that we often forget, and it is a fact that we should endeavour to remember.

There's a one in eight chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer in your average woman's life. There's a one in ten chance of developing depression in any one person's life. One in four people have mental health issues and, yet, we're far more open to discussing one topic more than the other. You don't need to be a genius to work out which one it is.

Despite the fact that attitudes are different towards other health issues, and that attitudes towards issues such as sexuality, culture, ethnicity, gender and disabilities are changing, discrimination against people who are suffering with mental health problems are still very widespread. A survey carried out investigating these issues showed that one in ten face discrimination and stigma every single day. 28% of people surveyed waited over a year to tell their families about their mental illnesses and 8.5% of people still haven't told their families. When we think about it, that's a hell of a lot of people.

When we discuss the stigma that surrounds mental health, all we're really discussing is the fear that surrounds the stigma of mental health. People suffer in silence and they don't open up about their mental health because they're scared of what others might say or do to them. It's all about the fear of possibility.

Obviously, I don't really need to say that stigma is bad, but it is. Stigma only adds to the problems that people face when they have a mental illness. Avoidance of the very thing that upsets or distresses you based on your anxieties of other people and what they may or may not think is really not very different to any other social anxiety or OCD behaviour. 58% of people say that the stigma is worse than the illness itself. Stigma has increasingly become a part of the illness of mental health and that's pretty crap.

I used to be one of those people that feared opening up about my issues, because I was so scared that I would be discriminated against, and treated differently for my mental health issues. Unfortunately, in my case, I was right to be fearful. I was told to "man up" a lot of the time. I was told I didn't need the medication that was necessary for my wellbeing at the time. I was told to cheer up, and that things would look better in the morning (of course, it never did.) People treated me like a china doll the minute they found out I had depression and anxiety disorder, being extra sensitive about what they were saying around me for fear they would upset me further, and constantly watching me out of the corners of their eyes, It was really annoying and obviously, none of it helped. All the people who said those things and treated me differently hurt me in more ways than they could possibly know at the time. Now I see that they were, and maybe still are narrow minded and foolish. But, instead of being angry about it, and instead of feeling sad about it, I should thank them.

Now I look back on when I first came out of my mental health closet I realise that the stigma surrounding mental health that bred the way I was treated actually did me a favour in the long run. The attitude towards me after I came out made me feel pretty defeatist in the short term, (ironically really because everyone was trying to do the exact opposite.) But, in the long run, it spurred me on to get well. People telling me to cheer up, to snap out of it and to stop being so miserable made me realise that, firstly, I didn't need those people in my life and that, secondly, I shouldn't let a bunch of narrow minded and scared people made me feel worse about myself. Your fear of my illness made me realise how much I wanted to stop being ill and made me remove the negative aspects (i.e. you) from my life.

The stigma surrounding mental health is crap and it needs to change. We all know that it does. Why should people with mental health issues be treated any differently because they are struggling with an invisible illness rather than one that can be plainly seen? If we could rewrite the history of the world to make people see mental and physical health combined, then our world would probably be in a much better state mentally.

So thank you to all those people who told me to cheer up and concentrate on what matters or I would never amount to anything, because I'm currently typing this in The Times Newspaper offices in London where I'm on work experience, whilst also revising for an interview for a Masters Course at Cardiff University next week. Thank you to those who said I didn't need the medication because you were right. I probably won't need it very soon. Thank you to all those people who treated me like I was made of glass because I now feel like I'm made of steel and I feel much better for it. But mostly, thank you for spurring me on to get better with your prejudices and fear. I owe you all one.