Making of a Mental Health Video

For a long time I have been wanting to do more for spreading awareness of mental health.

I have been retweeting stuff on twitter, but I felt this was not enough. So my idea to do a video came to me one night while wide awake in bed. The original idea was just to have captions to music, but after discussing it with @raspberrytalk we both agreed that actually talking about mental health would be better.

I was going to do the talking on the video, but I then thought it would be more impactful if we had both sides - mine as the carer and @raspberrytalk as the caree.

We neither of us dreamed this would take us on such an emotional journey - some feelings that had been buried come up to the surface while doing the video. But most of all, doing this video reminded us of what a good team we really are.
During the editing process it almost felt like old times when we used edit wedding videos together. Just a pity we don't have a decent camera any more :(

 

WE NEED TO TALK MORE ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH AND STOP THE STIGMA
 

@mindchairty
@stampstigma
@timetochange
@recoverycastle
@carersuk

Special thanks to
 our Family
Carers Connected
@raspberrytalk 

Answers

Next week should hopefully be not so busy, at the moment only a doctors appointment for me next week. @raspberrytalk is seeing neuro-psychiatrist tomorrow lets hope he helps, 2-3 years on and we still have no proper answers except that my husband has:

Cluster B PERSONALITY DISORDER .

Antisocial personality disorder: characterised by an ignorance of the entitlements of others, the absence of empathy, and (generally) a pattern of consistent criminal activity.

Borderline personality disorder: extreme ‘black and white’ thinking and long term unstable emotions – particularly when involving relationships, identity and behaviour. These feeling can lead to both self-harm and impulsive behaviour.

Histrionic personality disorder: attention seeking behaviour that often includes inappropriate seductive conduct and superficial or inflated emotions.

Narcissistic personality disorder: characterised by the consistent need for praise and admiration and a belief that they are special and ‘entitled’. Extreme jealously, arrogance and a lack of empathy are also usually present.

knowing my husband has cluster B explains his mental health but what about his physical health which has declined more and more over the last few years. it is so frustrating for both myself and @raspberrytalk also the so called medical professional's seem to look over his physical health and put it all down to his mental health or they just say its in your head. They are missing the fact that my husband is in pain everyday, can't walk most days and also some days he can't get out of bed because he's so fatigued. I could go on but I won't because I would be here all day. we just want answers. is it so hard for these so called medical professionals to help or even do test that have not been done.........

21st October 2014

so my husband saw a neuro-psychiatrist on 19th September 2014, who only focused his attention on my husbands seizures and kept saying you need to keep a diary of them and write how you felt and how you thought other people around you felt...................I tried telling the so-called specialist that there is no pattern to my husbands seizures. He totally ignored anything I was saying, anything @raspberrytalk said as well. I feel so frustrated for myself and @raspberrytalk............still no real help or answers.

next week @raspberrytalk has yet another appointment to see a  psychiatrist, we chased this up with the doctors to find out why and apparently the neurologist we saw a while back said my husband is very depressed really I wonder why..............

Importance of Supportive people

 

Those of you that are regular readers of my blog know that a that i wrote about the importance of support http://carersvent.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-importance-of-support.html

In this blog entry I am going to be talking about the need to have only supportive people  in your life when you are a carer. My husbands family have been so supportive and i know if i need to talk I can go to them. there are also a lot of carers groups on Facebook, the people on these groups are so supportive and they never judge me either. I am thankful that these groups are out there and i am thankful to my husbands family, don’t know where I would be without all of you.

  

I recently spoke to a member of my family and they said i make everything about me. to cut a very long story short this person has not actively kept in touch with me over the years. Also when i have told them about what i am going through they have replied with sorry to hear that but we all have our problems………..you would think they would ask if there is anything they can help me with or just let me know i have their support. this has not been the case and when i spoke to them earlier this week i ended up telling them to F off out of my life if they think i am selfish.

I know some of you will say “but they’re family”, but as someone who is a carer I need to surround myself with supportive people and not negative people. I don’t have the energy to deal with negative people or people that are just not supportive.

 

Special Thanks to

@raspberrytalk

@recoverycastle

@carersconnected

@carersuk

All my husbands family