You discover a new band through one song that catches your ear. You begin to like the music and search for more. Then you realise the band have been posting music videos for the past 5 year on YouTube. You never saw them, didn't expect a large fan base and realise what you have been missing out on. You see them on tv, see interviews and other people posting about them on social media, but you never noticed!
We walk around ignorant to things we don't know anything about and don't see things around us until we are educated about it. It happens in mental health too. The difference is that I see things around me that I don't want to. I notice lots of things that are personal to my own traumas or experiences. It's something that is so automatic you never realise what your brain is doing. A few of my own examples would be;
- I see domestic abuse everywhere! On the tv, in magazines and have a keen eye for a woman that may be suffering. In public I spot certain signs, flinching, withdrawal and a domineering partner. Before It let happened to me I never saw any signs and never took any notice to events such as this anywhere. I can't notice signs of been abused in men, but I think that's because it's something I've never experienced.
- When I worked in childcare I was hyper sensitive to children and their families when they were going through a separation, loss of a sibling and all other kinds of family traumas. It upset me and made me want to shield the child. It is part of my diagnosis that makes me protect the ones that are closest to me and/or vulnerable. It used to play on my mind all the time, hoping they would be OK. Hoping they never have to feel the way I did. I see the devastation of this everywhere. But also have done some research and noticed that people from a home with both their biological mum and dad, don't understand the devastation or how being the one in the middle feels. If it hadn't happened to me.... I wouldn't know the signs.
- Literally every woman on my news feed is pregnant. Don't get me wrong I am happy for them. But since being told of my infertility I am noticing it more! Television, out shopping, on social media and in the family are all places I see new life coming. Until it was something I couldn't have, I noticed but never paid as much attention to these things as I do now. I compare woman like cars, when I see some not so excellent parents I literally climb on my big horse and become frustrated. I'm lucky that my family and friends on Facebook all deserve their wonderful children. But others I see, have worked with and I know of distantly from school days etc and on Jeremy Kyle rile me. Why would you give your child haribbo for breakfast? I'm all for convenience but give them a bloody cereal bar! I then say to myself .. If I could be a mum I wouldn't be seen dead doing that!
- social anxiety makes me really aware of who looks and talks to myself, family and my husband. I am always waiting to pounce if I need to protect. Before the psychosis took hold, I have never felt this way. One day my brain just decided I needed to protect people. I see trouble and threats everywhere! Some are rational and others not so much.
- mental health in general is hard to see around you because it's inside. Until I was diagnosed and it was explained those closest to me just thought I was being an idiot. I can spot a poorly person in crisis a mile away now. But until I experienced crisis I never picked up on it. Until it happens to you or you witness it in a loved one, you will walk around not seeing. I never looked for mental health or noticed it around me anywhere.
There are more. Our brain stores traumas, feelings and experiences and make us more sensitive to seeing it around us everyday. It can cause increase in anxiety in mental health, if it is personal to you or your family. It makes you ache on the inside so much it sometimes becomes overwhelming. But next time someone says to you I never noticed, they are not being insensitive - they just don't understand the way YOU see things. But they will be seeing their type of car on every road on Britain. Until we are educated in experiences, events, traumas or indeed objects. They are of no interest to us. Self preservation is the only way I deal with it, I shut things off when I am well to stop anxiety and extreme emotion and to keep out of trouble with my anger. The brain stores more than you will ever know and a lot of the time it can hurt you when it comes to the surface.
Let's stop being ignorant and instead educate ourselves!