Are you a chicken or an egg person?

 

Sometimes I can look at what I’m going through, the physical pain, the isolation, and the lack of challenge in my life and accept it all and look forward to the rest of my life with some confidence. These are the good days when I feel there is a light at the end of the tunnel and my mind is clear. Other days, all these things seem overwhelming and I can’t focus on anything. So, for too many years I blamed the perceived negatives in my life as the cause of my mental illness. I would think, ‘if it wasn’t for this or that, I would be happy’. I know better now. For me, it’s not what is happening in my life but how I perceive it. It’s like the question, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Time has taught me that my depression prevents me from seeing beyond, what I regard, as the negatives in my life. It is the depression that comes first and dictates my negativity. Of course, for some people, it is the opposite. The negative things in their life are piled, one upon another, till the burden becomes too much and triggers a breakdown. This is particularly true of men who try to brave it out and don’t talk about what is happening in their lives. My experience at AMC is that men often arrive too late to avoid the mental crash but not too late to deal with the aftermath. Whether you are a chicken or egg person, it’s good to talk.