I have spent as far as I can remember struggling with anxiety, depression & ADHD. I don’t know what decent sleep is, I don’t know what it feels like not to worry, I have mood swings like nobodies business & when I feel down, my god do I feel fucking down.

It’s mental health awareness week, so I thought I’d give a reflection on how my mental health has been in the past, & some of my lower points, for no other reason then because it is good to be honest about what goes on with us, & I don’t want people to suffer alone.

I think I was around 17 years old when I first started going to the doctors about mental health issues (not knowing much about mental health at the time) without realising I had problems. Initially, I just remember going to GP’s moaning about the fact that I can’t sleep. Now I don’t always remember every single thing that happens in my past at the exact times or in the right order but I can declare for a fact, that I do not remember the last time I knew how to sleep successfully.

In fact, I remember being a kid & my Dad saying to me one night “to get to sleep you just need to clear your mind and stop thinking about everything” & it was literally the most impossible task for me to get my head around. It was a few years later that I finally had the word ‘anxiety’ given to me, oh & depression, & ADHD… so it made sense why my brain just physically is incapable of shutting off & letting me sleep.

I think I sleep on average, about 5 hours a night, a lot of the time it’s broken sleep. The only times I really sleep through the night for 6-8 hours is if I’ve literally not slept well at all for about 4 days & so my body passes out a bit. But we all know that is not healthy.

I’m not healthy. My body physically seems to be fine every time I have tests done (other than hypothyroidism obviously), but mentally I am so so unwell.

I’ll be honest, my mental health I sometimes look at like the sea. It seems calm, & peaceful at times, but out of nowhere these waves started crashing in, sometimes the waves are tiny & bearable, & other times they are clashing in hard & fast & if I don’t run out quick enough they’ll drown me…

I haven’t always dealt with my mental health in the best ways either, I became addicted to smoking at 16. (I vape mostly now but sadly still cave in to cigarettes when I’m having a very bad day, or I’m drunk/hungover). I got careless, & I also had a big period of my 20’s when I did get quite selfish. I was so wrapped up in how I felt about things that I didn’t really care about anyone else or how what I did would affect them. Having a condition like vaginismus as well made me such an angry person, that once again my brain controlled me enough to give me a horrible condition that was going to affect every relationship I’d ever have with a man.

I’m not proud of how I behaved sometimes (& my God does my anxiety like to constantly remind me) nor am I proud of the fact that I was an on-off self harmed for many years, I wasn’t very good at it, which made me more depressed, but you don’t have to have scars to know that what you’re doing to your body is harmful & you need help. But it made me feel better.

I haven’t self harmed in over a year now. I’m not going to say I will never do it again, because whenever I say never somehow things happen, so I just would simply say I don’t wish to do it again.

My health has improved slightly in recent months, I think doing a lot of writing & blogging has helped with that. I’m becoming a bit more confident in myself (a lot of my depression & anxiety stems from how I perceive myself as ugly & irritating) & I hope that in the future I will be able to progress & be okay.

I’ve said this before I’m pretty sure, but I don’t hate myself for having mental health problems. My mental health issues have been with me for so long that I don’t really know how to be me without them. But there’s going to come a point in my life (hopefully) where I will overcome these issues & they won’t have so much control.

More than anything though, I am grateful that we have things like mental health awareness week. & it is slowly but surely becoming something people talk about openly more & more.

There is still some way to go though,

I still get scared or embarrassed to talk to people about my mental health issues or things I’ve been through, because sadly there are still those out there who have misconceptions about mental health or do not understand. But I’d like to think that we are progressing to more understanding.

It is okay to talk about how you feel. If your friends or family just ‘don’t get you’, see your doctor or see about counselling/CBT. But as I say this, it’s important we acknowledge the next part don’t let other people’s mental health stories dictate how you should treat your own. The thing about mental health is, there are so many different people that have it affect them in different ways. & there is a variety of treatment out there.. but just because your friend took anti-depressants doesn’t mean you should take anti-depressants, you might benefit more from behavioural therapy, or counselling (there’s a big difference between CBT & counselling, I’ve had both), only you know what you are going to feel most comfortable with. Accept advice but the only person who is ever going to really get how you’re feeling is YOU.

Take everything you can, one step at a time.

xxx