Tag: Mental Health

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!

 

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Mental Health Awareness Week 2016 on chloemetzger.com

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This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, as my regular readers know I’m really big on promoting awareness, sharing my own experiences with mental health and just generally getting mental health in every day conversation. Whether we like it or not there’s still a stigma attached to mental health issues and it’s not the way it should be BUT with weeks like this we can end the stigma sooner rather than later.

This week I’ve decided to relate all my posts to raising awareness of mental health. I’ve got posts planned around my experience, opinions, books related to mental health, motivation – it’s all going to be going on over here! As always I’d love to hear for you in the comments, on Twitter. I’ve found that when I’m really not doing well Twitter is one of the places I can talk to people to understand and generally be in a better mood.

I also want to do an honest mood update each day, because sometimes I can go a few weeks of feeling fine and then it’ll go downhill, it’s the ways of having Depression. For today I’ve been really sleep deprived so my mood hasn’t been the best, I’m at a really overwhelming point in my life and everything’s changing so I think that’s to be expected.

I can’t wait to write this week and raise as much awareness as possible! As always leave comments and questions below!

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.

Stress and Our Bodies!

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Now this isn’t the first time I’ve written about stress on this blog and I was pretty hesitant to write tonight with the fear of seeming like I’m moaning or one of those people who just drones on about how stressful their life is. BUT. I’ve realised lately, particularly through the lovely Twitter community that unless we talk about these things they won’t get better.

I’ve been reading again lately about mindfulness and CBT (which I’ve already been taught to do and helps me along). All I’ve heard lately from my peers is how stressed, exhausted and teary eyed we’ve all been because of the upcoming deadlines. A lot of people I know have been getting sick, not sleeping, random bouts of tears or having panic attacks. It got me thinking about stress and how much it can have an impact on people’s bodies and why we still won’t talk about it and just accept it as part of our daily lives.

Once again I’ve been tucked up in bed and had a sleepless night because my body has reacted badly to academic stress. This is roughly the third time I’ve been this poorly. The first was the year I was sitting my GCSE’s I was very poorly all year from a combination of my undiagnosed depression and stress from my classes and bullying. The second time was the run up to the big deadlines for my BTEC and A Levels. During my final (and most important) exam I spent the night up with sickness and a bad headache, and the proceeded to throw up in my exam…not my best moment. This time, of course it’s related to being in third year, and like my final year of school I’ve been poorly for most of the academic year.

I’m never usually this poorly when it comes to other types of stress. Working two jobs? Awesome. Keeping my house good at the same time? Done. But submitting essays and assignments is a whole different level of stress, even though I enjoy it and when I’m done I’m so proud. I’m getting better at trying to manage how the stress and how it affects my body but I do have a condition that’s hard to manage. It’s been proven that anxiety and IBS go hand in hand, which isn’t good news to me as my diagnoses is only a month old and I’m learning a lot fast in a highly stressful time in my life.

I guess what I’m trying to say (and I am writing this on only a few hours sleep) is that we need to realise that stress is a trigger for a lot of health problems and we need to recognise it. Over the summer I’m planning to look into mindfulness as a way to try and tackle my anxiety and therefore my IBS as well as carrying on to consider my diet, which plays a HUGE part in IBS.

I’m also trying to remember that the last 2 times I got sick and worried and cried a lot over my perfectionism in relation to grades (which may I add is only put on by myself, no one else puts pressure on me at all) it all turned out ok. I got really good results in my GCSE’s and my A Levels. I’m just trying to remind myself through all this that it’s been ok in the past and that I’m doing the best I can physically and mentally do right now and I guess that’s all I can do.

 

As always I’d love to hear from you guys, how to do react to stress? Do you have any tips for me? Leave a comment below!

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.

KU Talent Awards 2016

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Tonight I attended my third KU Talent Awards! After being shortlisted for Rising Star in my first year, winning Overcoming Adversity to Achieve and being shortlisted for Second Year of the Year in my second year and now shortlisted for the Future Leader award, it’s been a great celebration throughout my undergrad. The nomination for this year’s award is for my work raising awareness and working with mental health, generally trying to make the world a better place. I’m home earlier than anticipated and I didn’t manage to collect an award this year, but I’m proud of myself.

You see, going tonight was about more than just trying to win an award to match the other, it was bigger. I’ve been anxious about it for the week, there are a lot of people at these events and there’s a lot of networking and on to of that I have to wear something ‘nice’. You guys know I’ve struggled a lot in the past year with my depression and anxiety and after my spine accident I lost a lot of confidence, so this years event was a big challenge. I did struggle tonight to sit, smile and engage in conversations when my brain was screaming RUUUUNNN AWWWWAAAAAAYYYYY, but I managed with my Mum by my side.

I’m not upset that I didn’t win, because I heard the story of the girl who did and she was an incredible person who really deserved the award for all of her hard work. Everyone has their time to shine, and mine was last year, which was truly one of the best nights of my life and I’m so lucky that my Mum got to share it with me. We don’t get to do as much just the two of us any more so I’m forever grateful when we get to hang out, because she really is my best friend.

I might not have won, but I got shortlisted and I fought my Anxiety and Depression once again and didn’t let it stop me, and that’s prize enough.

Back to the Routine

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When you’re in a depressed cycle, getting back into routine after a string of bad days can feel like a mammoth task. This morning I wanted to go back to bed as soon as I woke up, I didn’t want to face going to uni, being around people and facing up to my responsibilities now I’m back from being sick. Urgh. My mentor said she was really proud of me for trying to get back into the swing of things, even though I felt so overwhelmed this morning and just wanted to pull the duvet over my head and cry. From being sick and my body being so exhausted I’d fallen into my depression again and it wanted to pull me down and strangle me.

For someone who doesn’t know much about living with depression and anxiety it might seem like I’m being melodramatic or a giant cliché and I hate that. I hate that there is this sense that I have to defend myself when I’m feeling back enough, so I’ve stopped. I’ve decided to be honest with people and then just see how things go because, frankly, I’m exhausted. I can’t use my energy trying to make myself feel better because other people don’t or don’t want to understand. I’m lucky that I have got a lot of people around me who do support me when I’m struggling, but that doesn’t stop me feeling alone sometimes.

It’s going to be harder to keep routine now that most of my classes have ended and it might not be as strict, but being down has reminded me how important it is. I know that I have some big challenges for me in terms of my illness coming up, I’m going to have to deal with a lot of uncertainty and a lot of change. Am I scared? Absolutely. It’s like my own personal nightmare, leaving somewhere I’ve laid down roots, become the person I wanted to be and feel safe. No one here knows the old me and the way I used to be, the thought of returning to a town where a lot of people know the old me is terrifying, because I don’t want to go back to being that sad and terrified young girl I was. So I’m trying to learn now, get a toolbox of things that make me feel better and the knowledge I need to be able to fight my fears head on and getting back into routine is just the start.

 

 

Stressed, Depressed, but well dressed?

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When I was in Brighton a few weeks ago I saw a jumper with the slogan ‘Stressed, Depressed but well dressed’ across the front. I’ve seen these shirts before and they’ve become popular, before this it was the slogan ‘more issues than Vogue’. I’ve always felt conflicted with these shirts. For me, someone who does have issues and does get severely stressed and depressed because of my illness, it can be funny to wear these shirts, it’s me laughing at myself. With that in mind though, there is a bigger issue.

There’s been a lot of talk about making mental illness fashionable and there’s definitely been a surge of people claiming they’re ‘super anxious’ or ‘feel really depressed’ or that someone is ‘so OCD’ because they like things clean. These are things I can’t stand because these illnesses are so complex and damn hard to live with. A few years back there was controversy when two t-shirt were released by Urban Outfitters.

Now, I’m all for raising awareness and the ‘stressed but well dressed’ shirt isn’t outright offensive like the Urban Outfitters ones, but it is problematic. For people who have little information and are the type to throw around these words around and claim illnesses that can, if we’re being frank, kill people. People do die of these illnesses.

So do I think I’m going to buy one of these shirts? Probably not. While I can laugh at myself and say yes this is so me on some of my bad days, it’s not usually the reality. I can tell you that when you’re super stressed you don’t want to get dressed, particularly well dressed. Right now I am really sick with stress, so much so it landed me in hospital. Everything is an effort, getting out of bed, putting on clothes and as for makeup? You can forget it, unless I really have to I can’t be bothered. I think designers have to be mindful of what it’s really like for real people. You wouldn’t make a shirt about cancer because people know just how horrible it can be and how ill people get, and mental illness should be treated the same.