My ambition to get out there and talk about mental health is now open… This is a few weeks in the making, but years to actually get to the point where I needed to talk about my mental health. I’ve lived some stuff, but then honestly, after even a couple of decades on earth, let alone more than that, who hasn’t? I have told this fact to someone of my acquaintance a thousand times but it would seem to make no difference to their fear of feeling. Might not have been exactly an acquaintance (a tad closer than that and there’s a more than strong chance they will feature in the future of this), and a thousand times, sometimes that was a conversation conducted in my head when said person properly listened and took account of what I was saying, rather than ignoring me. But that’s a story for another time.

If you are dismissive of the impact of life on the living of it, then you are welcome to go away, but I’d much rather you stayed. If you have lived some stuff and not experienced bad mental health, by some luck of biology, personality, psychology or goodness knows what else, then consider yourself fortunate to have lived without your mind turning on it and telling you not to bother with the whole show at all. I’d prefer to have not experienced all that, but on the other hand, as with all life stuff, I’d be a different person, and the upshot of talking about my mental health is that I’m growing to like that person.

If you’ve stumbled across this because you are feeling, frankly, shit, and want to know there are other people who feel like that, or because you’re worried about someone who you think might be feeling shit, then I’d like to help in some small way. Chances of anyone stumbling across this for some time after posting are slim given it’s going to take a while to get my voice out there, but something you’ll learn (probably) from further reading is that I’m a hopelessly romantic optimist. Plus my counsellor is convinced I’m going to become a world-famous writer, and I wouldn’t want to disappoint her. Perhaps not world-famous. But I guess you have to aim for something…

So we’ll see what happens, and I look forward to meeting people along the way.