Tag: depression

What Dark Clouds Can Do

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If you live in the UK you can’t have failed to notice that our summer time isn’t doing so great at the moment. As I’m writing we’ve endured battering winds and almost constant rain all day, and it doesn’t look like tomorrow is going to be any better. Why am I giving you a weather update? Because for me, and for many others out there the weather can have a huge impact on their mental health. I know that for years now I’ve always found everything a little harder when the weather is bleak and miserable.

My depression is something I’ve lived and worked through since I was in my teens. I’ve written about it a lot and I’ve spent a fair amount of time trying to reach out and help others get through the tough times. When I talk about the weather it doesn’t mean that when it’s warm and sunny I don’t get depressed, but there’s the choice to try and take a little walk and go outside, or even just open a window if that’s too much. Also, it’s known that sunshine is incredibly good for people with depression and the chemicals in your brain.

When it’s raining, windy and cold it’s easy to let the darkness overcome you. When you are struggling to get out of bed in the morning, it’s dark and howling a person who isn’t depressed isn’t that keen on getting up, when you have depression it can feel impossible. With the changes in weather it can be exhausting for someone with a mental illness, I know it is for me.

While it doesn’t mean that this weekend I’ll be on a huge low (because they come and go depending on a lot of things) it does mean that if someone you love is a little off or struggling a little more it might not be you, it might be as simple as a change in the weather making things a little more difficult. Having a mental illness isn’t easy, but educating people and having them understand makes it a lot more bearable.

 

Work and Mental Health

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I’ve now been working for a month a month of huge change for me. Now, I have been anxious about leaving university and joining the ‘real world’ for months. Terrified of the impact it would have on my mental health as well as trying to adjust like a ‘normal person’. I’ve been very open and honest about my mental health online, because I want to share my story and to encourage others. In my interviews to work with Exonar I spoke about the blog, the mental health work and campaigning I’ve done because I’m proud of it. I’ve never hidden it but I don’t about it. I also know that my colleagues occasionally read my blog, they’ve told me which was both nerve wracking and exciting. Luckily I work with wonderful and understanding people, they’re read and don’t treat me any different.

Of course, I’ll always be honest, there have been days in the past month where I’ve worried that I was starting to slip. My anxiety has been kicking in again and the depression will grab me some days and make me really struggle, but I’ve been living with those kinds of days since I was 15 years old and I know that most of the time they pass sooner or later. It doesn’t mean that the lows are nicer to deal with or that the anxiety attacks don’t make me feel like I can’t breathe but I’m doing it, I’m dealing with it the best I can. I got to work, I get stuff done and try and concentrate until it passes. I think the hardest thing is when I’m tired, because I know tiredness is one of the things that makes my depression really hard to deal with, but I’m learning, working and trying to find my feet. The tiredness is something we’re all dealing with, it’s more irritating than not that it makes me more irritable and prone to low mood.

All in all, I’m trying. I know that I have to live with this and with the support of Ali, my family and knowing that I have people I can rely on at work fills me with hope. This illness may never go away but like hell am I going to let it control my life.

 

 

Image from Healthyplace.com

 

 

Overwhelmed.

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Mental illness doesn’t disappear, even when your life is on the up.  Tomorrow is a big day, tomorrow I put some bags and my hamsters in a car go to my parents and start the next part of my life. I’ll pick up my new car (!!) and then in the morning go to my new job that I’ll hopefully have for a long time to come. Everything is on the up, life’s getting better and better but I still find myself at times suffocated by my anxiety and feeling like I can’t breathe. I’m excited and terrified at the same time but it feels like everything is going so fast and I need to hold on to something. I guess this is normal, it’s a normal thing for someone who’s having this much change happening in their life to feel. I do have a bonus, I’m moving closer to my family and as of next weekend I’ll have Ali back by my side. I know everything will be ok and this is just a phase in my life but either way, my anxiety is kicking up a notch and I’m going to make sure I can live with it and not let it take over my life.

Mental Health Awareness Week -Sunday Seven: How YOU can help support someone with a mental illness

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Here’s my final Mental Health Awareness Week post, enjoy!

Be there 

The most important part of my support system was knowing that people were there for me. It didn’t matter if I spoke to them or not, knowing I could pick up the phone and just have someone be there meant the world.

Ask what would help them 

A lot of people say to me that they don’t know how to help someone who has a mental illness. The easiest way to help someone it ask them what they need, sometimes they might just need someone around or a quiet evening to the cinema or something. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.

Understand that sometimes people just need to be alone 

On the other hand, sometimes a part of the illness means that you just want to be alone. When I was really struggling I locked myself away from friends because I didn’t want them to see me and I just felt exhausted all the times. It isn’t you, it’s just a part of the illness.

Stand up against stigma

Hear someone making a ‘crazy’ joke? See a stereotype of someone with a mental health condition? Or how about the costumes of a ‘mental patient’ that pop up at halloween? Standing up against these portrayals is one way to help.  Also being an ally to those with a mental health condition by supporting rights and in the media is a way to help.

Don’t treat them differently

There’s nothing worse than being treated differently once you tell people you have an illness. We’re still the same people we were before we told you, you don’t need to tiptoe around us or change our relationship because of it.

Keeping inviting them to things! 

This is my pet hate, even if I’ve been on a low or I’ve not accepted the invite before, you never know when will be the day I feel well enough to say yes! There are tough days, but that’s not every day, this kind of goes with the above.

Remember that no matter what, they’re still them inside. 

Don’t forget that, if nothing else.

Image from Pinterest.

 

 

Mental Health Awareness Week : Where I am now?

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I’m a very open person when it comes to talking about mental health, I’ll share my ups and my downs and have been online for 3 years now in the hope that it will help others to talk. It’s been raised more than once whether I worry if being so open will hinder my chances of getting a job, something I’ve written about before. I’m a firm believer of using your past to enhance your present and not being ashamed of who you are. I write about mental health often because I refuse to be ashamed of this part of me and I know that it’s just one part of me! I’m so much more than one diagnoses, I’m a daughter, sister, partner, friend, writer, blogger, musician, book reader, former horse rider, world traveller, the list goes on.

I also think it’s important to take stock of how far I’ve come every now and again, because I’m thankful for the opportunities I’ve had. While I’ve been at uni I’ve learnt to deal with depression and anxiety, I’ve learnt methods to stop the thoughts before they get too much. I’ve had jobs that I’ve fallen in love with and have made me genuinely happy and excited to go to work, something I hope to continue. When I started university I wasn’t sure of myself, had very low self confidence and was so, so anxious. I remember trying to go out drinking in a club for the first time and being paralysed with fear, I came home and cried begging to be normal for once. Then in second year I went the opposite way, all my new friends went out a lot and go drunk, I hadn’t had a close group of friends like this so I did that too, even though I was going off of the effects alcohol. It took a long time but now I feel comfortable with myself enough to just tell people I don’t drink  to get drunk, it doesn’t make me happy in the slightest and the people who matter accept this.

When I look at the girl I was on my first day to who I am now I’m impressed with myself. I’ve overcome a lot to get where I am today and that doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes have days where I’m low and struggling or nights where I can’t sleep because my mind is going 100 mph. With my sessions with my mentor, blogging, living I’ve learnt and am still learning ways to just live alongside my illness, just like anyone else with an illness would. For three years now I’ve tried to notice what makes it better, what makes it worse and when I just need to step back and breathe for a minute.

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3 years ago the thought of having to get busses and possibly getting lost was enough to send me into a panic attack, this was one of my ways to feel better, sending silly selfies to Ali to make me less anxious. Now I don’t even think twice about busses. 

What I know, and what I want others to know, is that having a mental health condition doesn’t make you any less of a person. Actually, I think what I’ve had to go through has made me a better and stronger person. The hours in A & E when I was a kid checking the bullies hadn’t broken my bones, the sneers from other kids because I was ‘fat, ‘ugly’, a ‘slut’ or ‘couldn’t sing'(none of which were true but to a 15 year old it hurts), the kids who would find my blogs leave comments and then try and embarrass me in class, the fact it was better for my health for me to study from home, the fights, the bruises, everything else they tried to do,  ALL OF IT. People ask if I wish it had never happened, I’ve gotten to the  point now where I think if that hadn’t happened I wouldn’t be the strong, smart, independent woman I am today. If this didn’t happen it might not have triggered my illness, sure but I choose to look at the positives. Being honest and open about my life and experiences has meant that I’ve met incredible people, made amazing friends, won awards, it’s all about what you do with a shitty situation when you’re well enough.

I had rough times, times where I couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel and I wondered what was the point. I never want to feel that way again and that’s what drives me. I also want other people not to feel alone and if my blog can show one person that your diagnoses isn’t your life then I’ve done what I wanted to do. Mental illnesses are annoying but they don’t mean that you can’t have a life, it might have to pause for a while but that’s ok, when you’re ready you can take baby steps to put it all back together again.  Right now I’m feeling ok, a little anxious because I don’t know what the future holds but I just remind myself nearly all 3rd years feel that way. All I know is that I’m going back to Basingstoke a different girl to the one who left, one who’s 100% stronger and more kick ass.

Feeling your heart beating – Exercise and Mental Health

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If you’d have told me 5 years ago that I would fall in love with the gym and it would become a kind of therapy I would have laughed at you. I was the clumsy kid who was awful at sports even from the first year of school…I look like a chicken when I run. I also get red, sweaty and gross whenever I do any sort of exercise and so when I tried to go to the gym at my college and beautiful skinny girls were draped over machines posing rather than working out I decided that maybe I wasn’t meant to  do sport, that’s cool. In fact I was more than fine with that fact.

Fast forward to when I found horse riding, I’d been told exercise was really helpful for people with depression but, let me tell you, in my darkest times I just saw myself as a chubby teenager with dodgy knees, you don’t like yourself and you don’t want to be around other people. I basically could go to the school gym, then the college gym, full of kids who couldn’t stand me and the thought of exercising in front of them sent me into a tear filled panic attack at 16. I looked into sports in the first year of university and found nothing that interested me, honestly I think I was so anxious about everything I didn’t let myself even think  about joining a team. By second year I felt more comfortable, signed up for horse riding and fell in love. I worked hard, only ever missing one lesson because I was sick and would always come away feeling lighter. That was a solid 30 minutes of the week where my troubles disappeared I had to work on my body, the horse’s body and making them work together. This was my first taste of exercise making me feel mentally and physically better in a long time.

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When I broke my spine and knew I probably wouldn’t be riding again it broke my heart. Not only had I lost the connection with the horses and my hobby, I’d lost a way to make my mental health better. I was scared, on a lot of painkillers and not ashamed to admit that I did slip back into depression after the accident for a long time. I’d gone from feeling like Jessie the Cowgirl, ready to try jumping and hack across Richmond park in the near future to the news that riding wasn’t going to happen. I still don’t know. It wasn’t until I was fit enough to start going to group physiotherapy in the rehabilitation gym that I found another way to get the hormones pumping and kick my negative thoughts back into gear.

In physio gym no one cares what you look like, everyone has their own struggles and a lot of us had pain while working out. Everything was very slow and most people were 15 years older than me and above. I could try and get into some kind of groove again under the watchful eye of a physiotherapist so my spine didn’t freak out, that was all the way back in November. Now I try and go to the gym weekly, I have the best gym buddy and although I’m still not very fast I’m getting there step by step. I left the gym after a session today with the biggest smile, in part because of my dazzling company and the other because I was covered in sweat and happy that my body had gotten a workout (my back can only sometimes manage a light walk but today, thankfully, was not one of those days.

Feeling my heart beating reminds me I’m going to be ok, just like the Sylvia Plath quote – ‘I am, I am, I am’. Sometimes you just need reminding that your head doesn’t control everything, because on a day here or there it can feel like that. I know that for some reading this, they might not be in a place where they feel they can exercise, getting out of bed is difficult enough and I understand, I’m not here to be preachy, just to say I was like you and keep going. Exercise isn’t going to have this result for everyone and it’s not the only thing I use to keep myself going, it’s’ a combination of talking, writing, exercise, being creative and working… keeping busy.

What helps you guys? Do you exercise or spend time doing something else? Let me know!

 

Be sure to check out my other posts for Mental Health Awareness Week on the home page!

Todays mood update: Tired and a little overwhelmed this afternoon due to a flat visit but right now I’m feeling pretty chilled out and happy, the gym session obviously worked!

Mental Health Awareness Week: The Medication Debate

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Medication is a huge debate whether you have a mental illness or not. It’s something that definitely needs to be spoken about more, in fact I think it’s one of the biggest reasons that people are reluctant to talk about mental illness. There are some people that are of the opinion that those who take medication are taking the ‘easy way out’ or mean that people don’t want to try, as someone with experience neither of these are true. The other extreme belief is that all medication turns you into a zombie, someone who can’t think or do anything for themselves, again an image of simply giving up.

From my own personal experience and the experience of every single person I’ve spoken to about medication it is definitely NOT the easiest solution. While it’s right to say that medication is not for everyone  and some people don’t want to take them, that’s fine. For me I’d tried so many other things counselling being the main route, trying to sleep properly, nothing was working. I was emotionally and physically exhausted when a doctor asked me if I just wanted to try and see how it goes, because I looked completely at the end of my teather. That was the first time and I freaked out about the stigma surrounding them and I just quit, I was done. Then a while later I got at a low stage again and decided to give it a go, the side effects were horrendous. I didn’t sleep for three days, I felt sick all the time, I was sick, I called my doctor to ask if this was normal (it was my first experience of insomnia) who said give it a few more days and see. Luckily this time I carried on, after a few adjustments, reviews and such I eventually settled.

There are a lot of horror stories and it’s rare for someone to go on medication and it be right for them instantly. There’s usually a lot of adjustments, a lot of change. A lot of people ask me why, why put this in your body? For a long time I struggled, who was I, why did my stupid body need these tablets? I really beat myself up constantly. I didn’t want to be someone who relied on medication to function, I didn’t feel normal. That said I could see changed after about a month, it’s hard to describe online, hell it’s even hard to describe in person. It’s like for a long time I was walking around with this fog in my head, everything I did felt wrong, heavy and even when I was happy there was something in me that constantly tugged at my happiness. When the medication worked I wasn’t fixed, but the fog cleared and I could finally think and see things clearer. After I took my medication I started to go back to who I was before the depression took hold of me and I started trusting myself again.

It took a long time but my mentor reminded me of this quote:

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I wasn’t scared of the medication, it helped me after years of just feeling like I was drowning I had some calmness. No one would ever dream of telling a diabetic not to take insulin because of the fact ‘it changes their body’ well, yeah that’s the point. While there are some negative aspects of medication and again, it’s not for everyone BUT it can help. Who has the right to dictate whether or not someone should take something if it does make them feel better, if it enables them to tackle the day or makes the tough days a little bit easier.

It’s the same for me with anything medical, if it’s not your body then you can’t really dictate anything. I truly believe that unless you’ve been through something you can’t judge someone else. Stigma related to taking a medication that makes you well doesn’t really make any sense to me. Like I said, it’s not the easy way out, a quick fix or anything like that without going to see a mentor once a week for a long time my medication wouldn’t have been very effective. People need to work through their problems or the root cause of their depression, sometimes medication makes it a little clearer and a little easier to talk about.

I refuse to be ashamed of treatment for a health condition, neither should you.

 

As always let me know your comments, questions and just generally chat below!

 

Today’s MH Update: Felt a little overwhelmed today and did have a bit of a crumble BUT now feeling very positive and happier!

 

Images from Pinterest

Book Review: Sane New World: Taming the Mind – Ruby Wax

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As this week is Depression Awareness Week I decided to add this weeks book review into the theme and have picked Ruby Wax’s first book about Mental Health and Mindfulness. The choice behind this was because Ruby was coming to visit my university and I wanted to know more about her views on Mental Health. Unfortunately I couldn’t go to the talk because I just had too much work to get on with and finish BUT I did manage to work my way through Ruby’s first book.I will say before I start this is not what I would class as a memoir, although there are snippets into Wax’s life it more of a big jumble of personal opinion, science and illustrations . Not what I expected, but not bad either.

Although Ruby Wax is a known entertainer she also studied the brain at Oxford University in an attempt to better understand her own mind and the problems she has. Through the book wax tries to simplify the complex nature of the brain into something that anyone with an interest can understand. Apart from the diagrams and scientific names for all parts of the brain, Wax also tries to engage with the practice of Mindfulness and how it can be used in our busy everyday lives. It is because of this that the four sections of the book don’t seem to fit as well as they possibly could have, while I admire Wax for trying to speak about these incredibly complex scientific matters, it does at time feel like too much information that isn’t resolved. For example the second half of the book is focused on Mindfulness and techniques, exercises and stories of the use, leaving the science pretty much forgotten (in my case at least). It almost felt as if this would have worked much better as two books, or even one much bigger book because both seem like they need more time and space to be fully understood.

I think the way to describe her opinion and how it is portrayed is very marmite, you either love it or hate it. Unfortunately I was not a fan of some of Wax’s opinions, I feel like she could come across as slightly rude or even ignorant of other people. There is a heavy presence of wanting to prove herself to people in her past, and while there is nothing wrong with that the sections about her mother in particular seem to be misplaced in the book, almost as if it was a haha look at how far I’ve come. While Wax is incredibly honest about her experiences, it can leave people feeling slightly negative, there are some instances where Wax has tried to make jokes and in the process can come across as quite mean or rude to whole scores of people. This is one of the main problems with the book, it appears that Wax still has a great deal to learn about the people behind the statistics and the lives of others. She may be incredibly open about her own experiences but it comes across that she only see’s others as the numbers and reports she saw at Oxford, rather than the people behind them.

I will say though that the exercises that are in the book are great and a good way to start looking into Mindfulness. It’s definitely something that I want to look into further after reading Wax’s suggestions, thoughts and experiences. That said, I did find her very dismissive of the practice of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), something I myself use. Again Wax quotes statistics to back up her point, but this was another instance where I felt that she didn’t see it through the eyes of someone who does get a great deal of help from CBT.

Overall I gave Wax’s first book 3 stars (***), while I appreciate the topic and the fact that it opened conversations it felt really all over the place as a book. It was almost as if Wax couldn’t decide whether she wanted the book to be science based, opinion based or technique based and so all three have been kind of thrown together in a few hundred pages. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy reading, I did, but I found the narrative and some of the comments to really put me off of reading and so it took me a long time to sit and get myself through it.

As always I’d love to hear your comments, what do you think of this book, of CBT? Leave me a message down below!

 

 

Depression Awareness Week: What You Don’t See

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This week it’s Depression Awareness Week, and of course I’ll take any opportunity I can to get involved and spread more awareness about the mental health condition I’ve been living with for about six years. Of course, for this blog, writing about Mental Health is nothing new, I frequently write about my own experiences, struggles and triumphs so that other people can see that they’re not alone, because that’s what I felt for a really long time.

Every single person reading this blog knows or had known someone with a mental illness, in the UK 1 in 4 people have a diagnosed mental illness, and those are the people willing to talk about it. It can be a really huge and scary thing to think about, let alone talk about. It took me a really long time after my diagnoses at 18 to be able to say the words ‘I have Depression’ out loud. For some reason, somewhere along the line mental illness was percieved as a person being weak, which is definitely not the case.

This year along with #sicknotweak, people have been sharing their stories of what you don’t see. We’re at a point in time where we share our lives online all the time BUT we often forget that these are edited. It’s rare for someone to share a picture of themselves at their lowest points, we create something that people want to look at, and most of the time that isn’t pain or suffering. SO, as a social media addict I thought it would be good to share 10 of my experiences of what isn’t seen when dealing with my illness.

What You Don’t See… is my mind going into overdrive while I’m trying to sleep and I’m tossing and turning.

What You Don’t See… is the days when I can’t get out of bed, because even having a shower is a mammoth task.

What You Don’t See… Tears, all the bloody tears sometimes for no reason, sometimes for a list of reasons.

What You Don’t See… The exhaustion is real, especially in low points.

What You Don’t See… Is the lack of motivation before going to the gym and taking those selfies.

What You Don’t See… My life when I’m physically sick and can’t take my medication for a few days…not pretty.

What You Don’t See… is the struggle to write day to day when my head is buzzing.

What You Don’t See… when I have an anxiety attack about things that I cannot control.

What You Don’t See… is the scenarios that my brain creates to induce me into another panic attack/ anxiety attack, over situations that will probably never happen.

What You Don’t See… what I don’t want you to see.

Who’s going to hire me? -Embracing your past

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I didn’t expect to be laying in my  wide awake at 4am this morning, followed by wandering aimlessly around my flat. To say my sleep pattern is messed up at the moment is an understatement, my days and nights kind of blur together if I don’t have anything to leave the flat for, I’m in a constant state of write, study, read and possibly eat at some point. I found myself thinking and worrying this morning about getting a job at stupid o’clock in the morning. What if they read about the problems I’ve had this year and don’t want me? What if they do secretly discriminate against me because of my mental health? What if was a prominent theme of the torture my sleepless brain put me through. But, it’s not because I’m dramatic.

I’ve been filling in a few job applications here and there, currently only for roles that I really want and could see myself working in and then there is the box that asks if you have a disability. While I myself don’t like being called disabled because it’s a crappy label, I know that to get help I need to tick it, lately though I’ve found myself  not wanting to tick that box, to hide a part of myself and my past out of fear more than anything. Like many other third years, I’m scared of the unknown and I know that the odds aren’t in my favor. Talking to Ali about it tonight he reminded me that there is so much proof that I can do so much more than a label, and I already have done so much more.

I’ve never been embarrassed or ashamed, and I’m not but I do know there is still a lot of people who are uneducated about my condition, but I’ve managed to educate people through telling my story before. With that in mind, why should I be scared of doing that again? When I saw this quote on Pinterest it made me take a breath, because what’s the point in trying to hide a part of my life or the hardships I’ve faced in the past? There is none. If anything that takes away from what would make me a great employee. I work hard, I persevere. Yes there may be times where my illness kicks my ass and I need a day to get myself better but I’m not a quitter. I got through my final year at university with a healing spine, a ‘broken’ mind and sickness and I think I’ve still done pretty damn great and have never let it affect my two jobs.

Why am I writing this? It’s not to brag. It’s because I know that sometimes you need to see someone else lay everything out. All the good times and all the shit times too and just remember that actually, you may not be ‘normal’, whatever the hell that means, but it doesn’t mean you don’t have a story to tell. To some people I’m an ‘inspirational’ person, which I’ll take but to me it’s just my everyday life, carrying on no matter what because I will not let a label or a box define me. I am so much more than that.