The mental health of campaigners

If policy makers knew just how hard it was being involved in mental
health they wouldn't treat us like dicks.

Anyway, it's often unrecognised how mental ill health relates to people
who campaign. I think there may be more mentally ill campaigners because
their experiences of life made them want to do something. Most people
who never experience a distressful moment in life significant enough to
campaign about don't bother. There are also a lot of passionate
campaigners and, if they're anything like me, their heart bleeds on a
daily basis. The unhappiness they feel isn't understood on measures
based on how other people experience depression.

Campaigner-type propel don't just get through life on the smugness of
doing something worthwhile. Most of them get used to it and are left
with nothing but the dogged struggle onwards towards something that
doesn't even feel like it's worth fighting for anymore. Rocky Balboa in
the penultimate round is a mental image I think many campaigners could
identify with, where being knocked out or winning didn't really matter
as long as the struggle was over.

These passions interplay with anger but nager is oft pathologised. It's
one of the great abilities of antipsychotics: to steal away anger. The
anger can be channeled into the energy to survive, but it can also
become to root of so much sorrow.

Support networks are vital for emotional support and professionally,
however there are many I've seen who struggle alone. I remember meeting
an angry man outside Westminister. He was paranoid, had spent most of
his life alone, was victimised by the younger campaigners and his heart
had grown cold from all the inner and outer pains. He still stood there
fighting for peace on a daily basis, rejected by society and respected
only by crazy people like me.

If anyone knew that I was in tears as I write this....I'm glad. I really
needed to cry.