It's been awhile. A long while. I have gone through a lot these past months but I am here to tell it and that is all that matters.
Mental health is a terrible thing, no one explains to you just how much it will affect your life until you're going through it. So I am going to tell you my experience of it.
Anxiety and depression can come on at any time, whenever you expect it the least. For me, mental health is always something that I have struggled with but always put it off and just assumed theres "something wrong with me, I just overthink too much".
But at the beginning of this year I started to realise that everything is just too much, I was doing university work, 30 hours a week within a job, helping to care for my family and just trying to juggle life. It was not working for me. I would cry at least every single day. It was no way to live. But with anxiety and depression, you do not want to "bother" anyone with whats going on in your life. I've always been the type of person to push my own problems to the back of my head and just think about other people. Overtime at work? I'll do it, need help? I'll do it. That was pretty much my life.
So after a few months of this and the crying, I could tell it was starting to affect my parents and my family around me because I was just a sad person to be around. This led me to the doctors to talk solutions. No one wants to rely on tablets to make them happy and as a 20 year old, this knocked me ill, completely hated it. But that was the only way that I could see some sort of light at the end of this dark tunnel. The doctor then told me about counselling and the idea of telling anyone my problems made me cringe too. But I went ahead with it and rang the counselling service which told me there would be a waiting list for 8 weeks. 8 weeks for anyone with mental health is a life time, another 8 weeks with feeling like absolute crap adds a lot more pressure onto you.
I waited it out and in the mean time I still had to deal with work and university. I did not want to have to tell the people I spend my time with in those environments, about my life and what I was going through. Instead, I cut my hours hoping this would take stress off me. I was wrong.
As time went on, life changes and family problems made me feel lower than before. I was getting to the point of dreading work and talking to other people because I knew I'd just cry.
Nothing is worth making your health worse so that was it, the end of work. I had to leave, I had to hand my notice in. Work were very understanding about this which made me think "why didn't I do this earlier? What was I worried about?" Within one week, this lifted my mood completely.
Just as I thought, maybe this is going to be ok, maybe I'm going to be ok. Me and my younger sister, were part of the Manchester Attack which was at the Ariana Grande concert.
We were on our way out of the building when the bomb went off. We completely broke down and ran for our lives, my sister fell on her way out which made me panic and pull her. Being the older sister, I feel as if I am the protector. I could not let anything happen to my sister. We were two hours from home, panicking, crying and worried about what was happening and what had just happened. My nephew had just been born and the thought of never seeing him again had me in bits but we had to think positive. We had to stay positive and realise how lucky we were that we got out fine. This did not help what is going on in your mind. The constant thoughts about what had happened and the what ifs were endless. Not a day goes by that I don't think about the individuals that died within the attack. I will never forget it.
When we did get home, my parents arranged for me and my sister to chat with therapists to talk about our experience and basically just let us know that we were not alone within this.
As time goes on you start to realise just how lucky you are to be alive and around people who love you which made a lot of difference. That was when I knew that its ok to talk about what I've been through, no one has the same life and the experiences we go through are what shape us into the person we are today. I realised I should not be ashamed of my health and what I've been through and what I'm going through. I know that taking tablets to help me be happy, is what I need for now.
Mental health is not something you should be ashamed of but it will affect your whole life. It makes you want to quit at life but you can't (maybe you can for a few days) but we can't let it win. It is a struggle and I know I will never be completely myself again but I know my experiences are what have made me who I am and when I'm having a bad day, I will not be ashamed of that. I know that my mental health will never be "normal" and I will always feel the way I do but I know I am able to cope with that.
The fact I am able to talk about it today says a lot about how far I have came. Hopefully, I can get back into the swing of posting again.
Ciao for now...
