Trigger warning- detail about suicidal thoughts and sexual assault.
Hi,
I am writing this out without any forethought or any editing after, because I suppose it is simply just a journal entry, a spewing out of my current thoughts onto the internet where one day they might help someone else.
Disclaimer, I’m very mentally unwell right now so I apologise if this is rambley or confusing in anyway.
Also, I am currently still not blogging and am taking a break from social media, as I am trying to withdraw from having contact with society as much as possible so that I my illnesses can not be triggered because of how severely ill I am right now.
It’s so weird writing this and knowing that when you read this I might be speaking to you from beyond the grave. Woooooo. I’m behind you. Boo.
No, I’m not really, I’m far too busy doing Ouija board tricks for caffeinated drinks and sugary snacks, or being the cool ghost that scares the teenagers that venture into my graveyard at night.
However you can also hire me to make your walls bleed or play with your kids toys, I take payment in caffeine and sugar, thank you.
If you don’t know me already, I am Pixie Vannucci and I am classed as a severely disabled person. I am disabled by mental illness. I have co morbid borderline personality disorder, adjustment disorder, and non epileptic attack disorder. For the last couple of years I have been advocating for destigmatisation and better understanding of complex and stigmatised mental illnesses, as well as against appropriating and faking of mental illness.
Appropriating and faking of mental illness is a very big problem which comes from this untrue narrative that our society puts out that everybody suffers with and struggles with their metal health all the time and in equal ways.
In fact the entire reason that I am writing this post is to hopefully stop faking and appropriation of mental illness, or at least make people understand mental health is actually not the same as mental illness and/or disability related to mental illness.
In 2018 I lost my job because my employer refused to give me disability adjustments because, “everyone struggles with mental health, so we cant give you special treatment.”
I have since been put in disability inappropriate accommodation for the same reason. And I am going to very likely die in this disability inappropriate accommodation for the same reason.
I have stress related seizures which can be triggered by different things, but the big two are noise and visual stimulation. I have been put in a flat with noisy neighbours above me and next door to me. I have been forced to have seizures for four years because my neighbours right to be anti social is apparently greater than my right not to have seizures. If I fall during one of these seizures I could smash my head open or break my neck etc and die.
For almost the same amount of time it has been triggering my suicidal episodes. I am a two time suicide survivor and my last attempt was about three months before they moved me into this flat. A flat they knew had antisocial behaviour including lots of noise, where they knew I would need rat poison and where there are plenty of places for me to hang myself that actually don’t need to be there, and wouldn’t be there if they had given me disability appropriate accommodation.
However non of that really matters anymore as the noise is now triggering the thoughts that don’t feel like mine, which can control me. These thoughts tell me to do things such as set myself on fire, cut my throat and jump in front of lorries. I am not telling you these things to upset you or shock you. I am telling you so that you understand the seriousness of my situation.
The people who can help me wont. This is my housing association, the police, and the local council. In fact they are actually really very dangerously ablest and just threaten to have me sectioned which really wouldn’t help me, when I ask for help with moving out of this flat and making it safe for me while I wait to move. Let me be very clear on this, being sectioned because I am disabled and have no disability equality is in itself disability inequality, I should have the same rights as a physically disabled person to life a safe, free and independent life, and sectioning me because I have no equality rights as a mentally disabled person really is just going to want to make me die more, like the fact that the police can just hit me “for my own good”does. Also being in hospital is not just bad for people with bpd, being constantly surrounded by other sick people isn’t going to help me, and if they decide I am still a danger to myself so they need to watch me all the time so therefore watch me shower and shit, as someone who has survived rape and sexual assaults several times, that probably just going to cause me to come straight out of hospital and make another attempt on my life.
What I desperately need right now, right at this very moment is not just to be alone in my own flat and rest, but to have peace and quiet and know that there is no danger of my neighbours upstairs or next door making noise, and as they have been approached about the noise several times the only thing that is going to stop them is them being moved out right now.
Then I need to be moved from this flat into disability appropriate accommodation as soon as possible so that I can start to get myself well enough for therapies.
Every time my neighbours next door or upstairs make noise now even for a second that is enough to trigger one or multiple episodes straight away because of the stress living here for four years has caused me.
I am very scared, and I truly believe that I am going to die because of this flat and soon.
So, I have made a very hard decision. I have always been afraid of people seeing my dead body. I don’t know why I just have. Despite that I am giving any anti suicide or mental “health” charity, except mind because they really do push stigma and encourage people to fake and appropriate, permission to show my body if I die by suicide, seizure or accident in this flat, which I believe due to the nature of the violent suicidal urges I have will be in an awful state to show the state of my body to campaign against people who ARE NOT MENTALLY ILL OR DISABLED BY MENTAL ILLNESS appropriating and faking mental illness for any reason but especially to get them special treatment.
What I mean by this is things like time off work but also an issue that is going to contribute to my death. People who need to move home for any reason including physical disability (and listen I do believe people with physical disabilities need to be made a rehousing priority too but based on their real circumstances, real disability and real symptoms) saying they are suffering with poor mental health and are suicidal due to their housing situation WHEN THEY AREN’T. Listen, if they seriously are suicidal its fine for them to tell the truth. The purpose of this post is because I want to help the genuinely suicidal. But its not fine for them to lie to make themselves a priority.
I keep being told that there are people with physical disability who are suicidal because they need appropriate accommodation which if they are telling the truth they do need rehousing, however if they are saying this to be made a priority then its not ok because they are being made a priority not just above other physically disabled people who are telling the truth and not lying to get special treatment, but above people like me whose disability causes them to be suicidal and who have tried to take their own life in the past, that are stuck in unsuitable accommodation that is triggering their suicidal or life threatening episodes.
Society has said its fine for the well to appropriate mental illness to gain whatever they want and its not.
I’m sick of seeing this being encouraged by both people who use it for social media “clout” and mental health “campaigners” who say things like its ok to not be ok. Listen I get the sentiment they’re trying to push but as a person severely disabled by mental illness I can tell you that it is not ok to not be ok. Yes you are allowed to not be ok if you are really not ok, but it is not ok for you to not be ok. You should have access to help and support and unfortunately you wont get it because everyone who is ok is talking about how they aren’t ok and taking up resources the people who genuinely aren’t ok need to be ok, while also drowning out our voices and excluding us from the conversation around mental health, wellbeing, illness, and disability simply because we are actually ill and disabled.
People disabled by mental illness like me are not only losing our jobs because we are disabled, we are losing our lives.
I truly hope that I do come out of this alive, and I am fighting to, I promise.
But if I do die, I want my advocacy work to live on, because its never been just about me. In fact it would be easier for me to live my life keeping my disabilities a secret and fighting privately, but I chose not to do that along time ago, for all the people who have already lost their lives needlessly due to inequality, police brutality, poor medical services and faking and appropriation, and who will in the future if nobody does something to change things.
If I leave any message for the world I want it to be that misunderstanding, stigma, inequality, and faking and appropriating mental illness KILLS.
And honestly I think people have become so detached from the reality of suicide, I mean we cant even say the word on social media, let alone talk about its causes and effects, that they no longer understand it’s a real thing unless they have actually been personally touched by it. People have to find their loved ones bodies in terrible states after suicide and those of us who know what its truly like to be suicidal often attempt suicide in places and ways where our loved ones will never have to see us afterwards.
I think the world is full of compassionateless selfish people who are well and know they are well but just love the benefits saying they are stressed, anxious and even suicidal gets them.
And I think they need to see the reality of their actions.
I think they need to see the reality of what a body looks like after someone takes their own live, someone who asked for help because they were genuinely mentally ill and got told they couldn’t have special treatment because a well person was saying they felt suicidal to jump a queue or get time off work etc. Because it is not special treatment if we need it to help us manage or survive our disability. Saying it is, is like saying people who get to use wheel chairs are getting special treatment because you get tired walking and therefore demanding a wheel chair when there is nothing wrong with you and leaving an immobile person to literally starve to death in their own home because you took the last wheelchair.
You can see the evidence that I have managed to get of the noise nuisance, some of which I have already submitted and/or tried to submit to my landlord but have been told “its not good enough because Im filming it on my phone” but which a couple of random strangers have been able to name songs from, on youtube so it cant be that bad, but guess what if it is and they know that the cause of that is in fact my mobile phone there is a volume button on their computer that they can use to off set the lowness of the recording because its being recorded on a phone which they clearly know gives a lower recording than other devices made specifically to record.
Other than that I will be fighting my battle privately now until one of three things happens, they move me, they move my neighbours for my safety, or I lose my battle with my several disabilities.
I hope to write again in the future. I hope to see you all and talk to you in the future. But please know if I don’t that your support meant a lot to me. And there are still people out there like me who need it desperately.
Pix x
P.S- If I survive this and you are a mental illness or suicide prevention charity please get in touch with me. I have been in and out of out patient and in patient care for my mental health since I was 14 or 15, thats 20 years, and I know other people in the same situation, I can tell you exactly what is wrong with our mental health systems/s. I can also tell you exactly what is wrong with our disability rights towards the mentally ill when it comes to housing and work etc. And I can tell you all about the stigma and disinformation, and lack of education that also leads to unnecessary suffering and death.
It is time we helped increase the volume of the voices of those who truly suffer with mental illness and disability caused by mental illness above those who don’t as we can not only bring about real and meaningful changes for the mentally ill and disabled but those who truly are also suffering with mental health and well being issues.
The psychotic girls guide to surviving the human apocalypse 