*Please note I have no surgical, medical or allied health qualifications to make any recommendations, judgments or opinions on treatment you have received, now receiving or plan to receive.
This is a piece I don't want to talk about. I've said this too many times for my own good. I can recall the times I've also heard others mumble the same thing. Situations can affect me so profoundly at times that my vocabulary is surprisingly inadequate to describe the depths to which my hopes and plans have fallen. Recently I watched as a TV camera burrowed into the faces of a farming family as the interviewer graphically described the drought conditions affecting this family. Then interviewer asked the farmer, "How do you feel about this?" As he looked into the eyes of the interviewer, tears rolled down his dusty rugged face. And he didn't say a word. His silence was all the eloquence that asinine question deserved. Yet, talk about it with a 'friend' with whom he felt safe, he would have to, if he is to get through this crisis.
Mental health is currently gaining a higher profile than it has ever had. Why? I think it's because more people realise it isn't the so-called 'character weakness' it once was thought to be. In my last two positions before retirement I was plowing new ground both in what we did and how we did it. Some staff, mostly younger ones, thought it all very exciting. I felt threatened I would be seen a failure if our efforts didn't meet what I knew were management and government-funded expectations. Weekly discussions with people I trust prevented my mind splitting into little bits. Keeping discussions on-going helped keep the main thing, the main thing. I think the hardest thing about 'talking about things I don't want to talk about' is starting the conversation. I worried about the risk of doing this but nervously decided there was a bigger risk if I didn't.
I realise this is a short piece but then I did say I didn't want to talk about it.