I used to
write, I used to talk about myself, my feelings and the things that troubled me
the most. When I stopped writing, I lost my outlet, I stopped making sense of
everything. When you learn something about yourself - a condition, you do all
you can in your power to fix it and control it. I did. Sometimes, we run out of
ideas and ways of fixing it, because you have tried almost everything. Life can
be cruel, you want to be better but nothing is working for you.
I spend
about 90% of each day worrying. Small and minor things become out of control
and over the top. Physically each day I am exhausted, I ache all over, my IBS
pains me regularly and I lack energy. It would seem easy to just take it easy,
have naps or rest, but my brain does not lack energy, it’s the opposite and
wont allow relaxation. My brain is constant, ticking, working into overdrive,
stressing and thinking up new problems. Avoiding going out, socialising and
doing things is easy, because leading up to any event there is a period of
weeks of worrying about it. There is no reasoning with an anxious mind. You are
battling yourself every single day, wondering what the next meltdown will be.
Constant feelings of guilt, feeling bad about absolutely everything. Feeling
like you have wronged everyone and like everyone is angry or disappointed in
you. I know its all silly, but its uncontrollable. Its something I have to deal
with everyday and its lonely as it feels like nobody understands any of it.
A mental
health illness, is one of the loneliest conditions you can have. Nobody can
physically see it, and nobody can understand it. Its not straight forward, its
different for every single sufferer. Nobody can get in and diagnose your brain
with scans, your suddenly a trial of 'Lets try this medication and see if it
works'. There are no certainties. Your not treated as if your poorly or ill,
except a mental health illness is the same as any other condition such as
diabetes, your vulnerable and your battling and you are limited. If you
couldn’t go to work because your blood sugars were all over the place, that
would be okay, but if your anxiety or depression was making it literally
impossible to get out of bed because your feelings and brain was all over the
place that wouldn’t be treated the same. A mental health illness is a
disability, it inhabits your body and brain like a disease and takes over, yet
since its birth its been stereotyped, misunderstood and treated as an inferior.
Mental health illnesses have been mocked, made a joke off, and typecast, even
this Halloween people dress up as mental health patients and 'physcopaths' as a
form of a scary character, I have seen decorations including a hanging ghoul.
Mental health is not a joke, if you have been unfortunate enough to have known
someone or suffered yourself you will know that the only joke around mental
health is the fact that people are still so uninformed that they don’t
understand it at-all.
You are not in control of your mental health illness.
People think you can turn it off, or you just need to cheer up, so many times
I've been told to just stop feeling sad, or to stop worrying, as if I am
choosing to suffer with the way my brain is feeling. People think your just
putting it on, they think your being difficult, but what's difficult is when
all you want to do is wake up in the morning with a free mind and go to sleep
at night with peace, and a brain free of problems.
People think 'well your on medication so you should be
fine' - Personally I have been on at-least 8 different types of
medication since I was 17, One of those was successful, but after two years it
stopped working, it lost its use. I have had CBT and counselling. I have read
so many self-help books, I practice hypnotherapy, and I exercise and not one of
those has stopped my brain being in constant overdrive. You can never judge
someone's condition, everyone is
different, we are all complex and complicated creatures, and we cannot all go
down the same paths.
If your
reading this and you don’t suffer from a mental health problem and never have,
then your lucky, very lucky but you will know someone who does. You need to
start being informed, because if you don’t then you will one day, or it might
just be you who develops one. It’s the most common thing in our world, yet the
least understood. 1 in 4 of us have a
mental health problem. If you’re a family unit of 4, then someone in that unit
will have some sort of condition.
Depression. 2.6 in 100 people in just England
suffer. Depression isn't straight forward. It's not just something you get
after something bad happening, depression can be clinical which means your
brain doesn’t produce enough serotonin, and not correctly anyway. You can be
rich, happy, in love, everything going well for you, but you still get clinical
depression.
Loss of
interest, suicidal thoughts and feelings, emptiness, persistent sadness, aches,
pains and cramps and IBS, Restless, irritable, insomnia, fatigue, feelings of
guilt, pessimism, and many more are all symptoms.
Seasonal
affective disorder, prenatal depression, post natal depression, dysthymia are
other conditions in this category.
Anxiety. 4.7 in 100 people. Panic, fear,
uneasiness, difficulty sleeping, nervousness, palpitations, cannot relax,
physical distress, numbness, tingling feeling in hands, muscle tension,
dizziness, nausea, dry mouth and many more are feelings and symptoms.
Panic
disorder, panic attacks and social and also generalized anxiety disorder also
come into this category.
Mixed anxiety and depression. A major 9.7 in
100 people.
The most
common, and from what I suffer from personally.
Similar
symptoms to anxiety but with depression symptoms also.
Low self
esteem, feeling hopeless, feeling worthless, expecting the worst, crying
easily, enhanced sensory state, constant
fear and worry, tiredness, lack of energy, feeling irritable, troubles
concentrating, memory impairment, disturbed sleep.
Phobias. 2.6 in 100 people.
Sweating,
trembling, hot flushes and chills, panic attacks, choking sensation, rapid
heartbeat, pain and tightness in chest, butterflies in tummy. A fear nobody
else understands and it is not something you can get over or stop, for some
it’s the fear of even leaving the house.
OCD. 1.3 in 100 people. Known as obsessive
compulsive disorder.
It can be
any kind of obsession, for some it’s the fear of germs, some spend their entire
days cleaning and suffering from phobia symptoms, its exhausting for the
sufferer and debilitating.
Panic Disorder. 1.2 in 100 people. Panic attack
symptoms are similar to phobia symptoms, with overwhelming feelings of anxiety.
PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). 3 in 100
people
Re-experiencing
the memory of trauma through intrusive distressing recollections of the event,
flashbacks and nightmares.
Emotional
numbness and avoidance of places people and activities, especially those which
remind the sufferer of the trauma.
Increased
arousal such as difficulty sleeping and concentrating. Feeling jumpy, easily
angered and irritable. Some sufferers experience physically pain, such as
soldiers who have lost legs, go through the physical pain of losing the leg
again.
Eating disorders. 1.6 in 100 people. We have
always heard a lot about eating disorders in recent media, and it is one people
recognise more so, there are branches coming off this category and again there
is no straight forward diagnosis. There is bulimia, anorexia and many more.
Suicidal thoughts. 17 in 100 people.
Self Harm. 3 in 100 people.
Personality Disorders. 3-5 in 100 people.
Bipolar Disorder. 1-3 in 100 people.
Schizophrenia. 1-3 in 100 people.
Some
people are unfortunate to have combinations such as anxiety, depression and
OCD. Mental health types can all be connected. There are more types of mental
health illness' then there is types of cancer, and these are just statistics
from England alone, from people who have come forward to be diagnosed, there
are thousands more people who suffer in silence and have never been diagnosed
with what they are suffering with.
This time
of year sadly is the time of year that many commit suicide and its common in
men. There is no stigma, but sadly I don’t think that a lot of progress gets
made in recognising this. Look after each-other, check in on each-other, and
try to educate yourself, don't let people suffer alone, support them, listen to
them, understand them. It's not something that’s going away and it cannot be
ignored, we need to talk more, be honest more often and show more care to
everyone. The world is a cruel place but we can make it easier with love and
understanding.
