Partygate…

Brexit…

Now, I don’t know about you, but if I don’t hear these words ever again it will be too soon.

(And don’t get me started on ‘I thought it was a work event…’).

It gets to a point where the point gets forgotten – we’re that bloody sick of hearing about it that we just wish they’d stop bangin’ on about it. 

Let’s face it, regardless of the issue in question, nobody likes to be beaten over the head with it again, and again, and again.

Blame it on the 24-hour news, social media click-bait world that we live in. A world in which we’re bombarded with the same story from a thousand angles, each offering a new and ever-more spurious angle to said story, burrowing into our ears like tinnitus.

All of which is to say, I get it.

I get why people may be sick of hearing about mental health. Sick of people bangin’ on about it. Sick of people like me.

And yet…

I just keep bangin’ on about it.

And I’m going to continue to keep bangin’ on about it.

• For as long as the rates of mental health problems and suicides continue to rise…
• For as long as up to 75% of people with mental health problems in England many not get the treatment they need…
• For as long as suicide is the leading cause of death for men under 50…

…I’ll keep bangin’ on about it. 

As a sufferer of depression I had no voice. In a literal sense, depression stripped away my ability to communicate and express myself; and in a broader sense, I was driven by a deep instinct to socially withdraw and to hibernate. 

It’s hard to function in society when you no longer feel of it; when you are no longer you, and you’re despairing and ashamed of what you have become. 

My voice today is the voice of those who suffer now as I did then.

One voice in a growing chorus of people that want to raise others up from the despair of depression, because we know how lonely, desperate, and brutal that place is. A chorus of voices of people who wish that not a single other soul should know that despair, and who do what we can to help those, like us, who know the all-consuming darkness of the black lights.

We bang on about it for them.

If that bothers or annoys you, I get that.

But I’m not talking to you.

Block me, delete me, mute me, by all means.

But please understand, I don’t speak for – or to – you, but for those for whom my words can puncture the darkness and shine a glimmer of light and hope.

It CAN get better.

And if, one day in the future, the darkness descends upon you, or any of your loved ones, I’ll keep bangin’ on it about for you too.