David

A post about mental health and ‘attention seeking’.

Today, I’m going tell you a little story about someone I knew once called ‘David’.

All the years I was growing up, my mum’s best friend ‘Beryl’ was around.

Or ‘Aunty Beryl’ as we were encouraged to call her, in that what now seems quite a quaint, retro way.

Beryl and her husband had no children.

Her mother had suffered with mental health problems and Beryl’s childhood had been spent managing nervous breakdowns and mood swings, as well as living in Children’s Homes and with other relatives.

This was why as an adult, she actively chose to have no kids. The idea of any bestowing that genetic legacy upon someone or inflicting those painful memories on to a child, was to her, too risky.

Beryl had three brothers.

David was both the youngest boy, and youngest in the family.

Her baby brother.

Of all the siblings, Beryl loved David the most. Their bond was strongest. She had protected him from the worst of their mothers ‘episodes’.

I, of course, knew them as adults. I was a child myself at the time. I would see David and his two young sons. He was lovely, everyone liked him. A friendly, sandy-haired handy man type, always doing odd jobs for people. A great father and husband.

Until.

He started suffering with mental health issues.

I don’t know what the trigger was, only that he grew more depressed and irrational.

Beryl tried with him, would be there, talk to her little brother as she had always done.

But one day, for her, he crossed a line.

David tried to kill himself in front of his kids.

I think it was a high building he tried to throw himself from. For whatever reason it didn’t go *to plan*.

I don’t know everything. I would have been about 12 and heard the story in hushed whispers from adults.

But that was it after that.

Beryl never ever spoke to him again.

“You don’t do that to your kids.”

She told my mum and others.

“I can’t support him any more.”

Even though I was a kid myself at the time, I could never make my peace with that.

I found it extremely harsh and surprising.

That my kind ‘Aunty Beryl’ disowned her own little brother whom she’d been close to their entire lives, because of his inability to keep a lid on his failing mental health.

Issues their own mother had experienced.

Issues he’d not only been subjected to the brunt of, but also probably inherited.

And in later life, Beryl was carer for that mother.

The same mother who had found it hard to care for her all those years ago. It didn’t seem right to me that she got the care and understanding, and David didn’t.

I would watch this mild mannered old lady sipping tea and nibbling digestives, and I’d speculate on that childhood.

On how one person’s mental health issues can splinter and fracture an entire family with its impact.

There are many stories like this.

I read a post on Facebook the other day.

A man had been posting about how suicidal he felt.

“I’m sorry.”

He said, the day after.

“I wasn’t just attention seeking. I did genuinely feel low.”

And it made me reflect.

What is *just* attention seeking?

Why is it taboo to seek attention?

What is ‘attention’ exactly?

Someone giving you time, care, love?

A listening ear?

Reassurance?

Why is it bad to seek that if you need it?

They are soul food.

So.

Give yourself permission to do it.

Say what you need.

Is it a tangible thing - time, space, real life face to face human interaction?

Attention is worthy of you.

You are worthy of it.

Not everyone will ‘get it’ or be able to give it.

But anyone who chooses to think badly of you for seeking it, for wishing to replenish the rich river of life that is you, needs to work on themselves.

Yes, really.

Seek attention if you need it.

And

Attend to others if you feel able.