Help a friend

Yep - it's another blatant steal from Facebook :

Let's see how many of those where people I know are suffering :

Crohn's - aye. He's a great guy too, been invaluable to us over the past I dunno years I've known him. He hides the constant pain well.
PTSD - someone I know saw something which made him very quiet for a little while after he joined us. But we listened, we helped, we let him talk through it. We treated him like one of the gang. And I think we helped him lift this. If you know someone who you think is suffering from PTSD, don't push - just listen. Pushing can make this problem much worse if the person suffering is not yet ready to come to terms with it.

Anxiety - a very dear friend is suffering from crippling anxiety at the moment. Huge hugs.
Bipolar - this is part of my curse. I'm up, I'm down. I'll get stuck in the down and not know how to get back out of that pit. The only thing I can say here is - enjoy the upside and remember in the downside that you have people who care about you. They want to help you out, they just may not know how.

Depression - this is the massive crippling thing of the modern age. It can be chemical, it can be situational. But - it locks you in to a negative frame of mind that is self reinforcing. What helps me out immeasurably is helping others. It's what I live for. I get a buzz from helping others, even if it's just seeing them smile. And that boost can help me crack my own depressive phases.

Diabetes - I know people with this. People at school had this, one of them nearly killed himself several times due to alcohol induced comas. It's a fairly manageable condition but don't recoil or otherwise embarass the victim when you see them having to take the medication. They're embarassed too, they don't need your negative reaction to make them worse. Support them instead

Cancer - I've had a close relative die from this and it was the inspiration for the Pink Hat cricket thing I did 2 seasons ago. It's not a good way to go. But - it's getting more survivable, even if the side effects are not what you'd wish on anybody.

Again. Support the person suffering. Help them own their illness/condition. It's when the condition owns them that they have a problem, helping them understand it will help them get back in control of it. Sometimes that's just being there and listening to what people have to say.

Let them express it in their own words. And then keep their confidence. That's primarily what this blog is for, it lets me express my own conditions/problems/successes (and the rest) in my own words. I know I have a few regular readers, although I don't know exactly how many. It's only a few but the fact that you take time out to read my random witterings also helps me in my own battles.

(Yep - there's a few patterns that appear in the hit counters and when I see them it's "Oh wow" and a big smile breaks out)

Arthritis - hugs to Purplepixie, I can imagine how much pain you have from a) my occasional joint problems and b) how much of a statue I'd be after first practice of the year !

For me, there's a few things tugging my mental condition back. Since I went back on the vitamin tablets last week, my mood has improved and my skin seems better able to get started on repairs. But I still am prone to inflicting even more damage on it which sets back both the healing and my own mental state. It still feels like I'm locked in, discouraging me from leaving the house. I wear dark clothes because of unsightly marks in embarassing places. The mercy is that on the outside, it's just itchy. There's no pain from the bad bits. Plenty of pain from damaged joints but none on the outside.

There's a whole host of other internal problems that people are struggling to deal with. Situations cause depression as much as medical conditions. And stress on that level can then lead to medical conditions that reinforce the depression. People deserve your support. Sometimes they don't know how to ask. Sometimes the best thing to do is just be a friend and be available to listen when they need to talk. But they would all appreciate :

Although sometimes when I offer a hug, I get the impression that the mental reaction is "AIEEE RUN !"