Guveclover Fri Aug 05, 2011 2:23 am
I felt rather sorry for Melanie and I wholeheartedly agree that the treatment she suffered at the hands of some on TL was shameful - particulary given the way they pussyfoot and fawn around others.
This woman was very clearly ill and she did say that she was considering taking her own life. I said it before and I'll say it again here, mental illness is unseen illness. It is illness which is very often not seen as being "real" and not given any credibility yet it can be hugely debilitating and also life threatening if not treated properly. My father spent his career in the field of mental health nursing and he would often tell me this. People who are mentally ill not only pose a threat to themselves but to others too.
It was incredibly ignorant, insensitive and irresponsible for some of them over on TL to have treated someone who was so very clearly ill in the way they did.
Granted, I found some of Melanie's posts disturbing to read but they did not make me feel sick. When I read them it was plain to see that she was a woman with huge mental problems who needed professional help. As you say Strawbs, she did not need to be told to pull herself together and relish every day that she was alive because others are terminally ill and don't get to choose. Messages like that don't mean anything to people who are mentally ill. They do not have the same persepctive on reality that those of us who are lucky enough to be mentally well have. They live their lives in what seems like a dark abyss from which they feel they have no escape. They just don't see things the way others who are mentally well do, and they can't help that. This woman could have taken her own life at any point. For all we know, she might even have gone and done it, although I sincerely hope she hasn't and has instead received the help she quite clearly so badly needed to get well again.
What I do find gut wrenching is the self absorbed, obsessive drivel that JennyWrites posts on TL. I find it all utterly sick-making to read. I find it sick-making to read that she is so obsequious to her askim, his religion, family, friends and neighbours (all of them strangers to her!) when at the same time being so downright disparaging and disrespectful about her own parents. I also find it utterly sick-making to read that she places her own selfish needs and wants, and those of her visa-hunting Turkish askim, above her own vulnerable, trusting, innocent, impressionable, dependent 5 year old daughter.
That's what makes me sick. What do you think of that Woody?