Mental Health Awareness Week

For the last few years whenever it's been mental health awareness week or whatever, I've thought "shall I write something about my mental health? Nah, why should I, it's just a bit attention seeking, what's the point?" My youngest sister Sarah has been quite open about her struggles with anxiety and eating disorders and has had 3 articles published in "The Mighty" and I know she isn't doing it for attention, she just enjoys a bit of writing and explaining things people might find hard to understand. And I think people appreciate her honesty and her attempt to erase the stigma around that kind of stuff. So I thought I'd give it a go.

(It was quite difficult to choose a picture of me that would go well with this post)

When I was 28 and I had just had Percy I was in that newborn blur of weird hormones and extreme sleep deprivation that was making me go a bit crazy. I remember the midwife coming round and I was in tears and she said "do you think you have post natal depression?" and I said "no" because I knew that I didn't. I had all the symptoms of depression: feeling overwhelmed and helpless and tired and unhappy, but I knew that if I just had one nights good sleep I would be fine. It's not that much help because I wouldn't get that for months, but I knew that my head was fine, and that people could help me practically and then I would be ok. I only knew all that because I had depression from the ages of about 14 to 23 and for some of that time (the student days) I was so happy with life, not at all stressed, but I still had some days of feeling total despair, a weird kind of anger and self hatred. Then the next day I'd be totally happy and loving life again.

In 2016 I did a whole 1 hour, one woman comedy show about my struggles at school, which was quite therapeutic. But, I didn't mention my biggest struggle - depression because it's not really funny.

In some ways this is easy to talk about because all my issues are in the past. But in some ways that's what made them hard because it started while I was a teenager, and I didn't have the communication skills or the confidence or the networks to be able to get help. I'm not friends with many teenagers or people who own teenagers, but if you're one of them this might be helpful. If I had depression now obviously it would be hard especially while being a mum, that responsibility would make it difficult, but I hope I would have some coping mechanism and the resourcefulness to get help.

So Year 10 is kind of a bad time for everyone right? I'm not sure what exactly caused it but I started getting these weird down feelings that I didn't know what to with. I later realised that I probably had bipolar disorder, but at the time I didn't know what was going on and if I was making it up or, what to say to people when I felt like that. So I just started being really weird and going off on my own at lunch times and stuff and then my friends kind of broke friends with me, I think because they didn't get it.

Eventually I realised that something was wrong and tried to get help. I don't know if this was just me or all teenagers, but the absolute worst thing I could think of was being vulnerable. Being in trouble wasn't high on my list of things I wanted but it was much higher than being vulnerable, so I went about stuff in weird ways.  So I decided I needed to see a doctor, but I didn't chat to my parents about it, no that would be weird and awkward, I just snuck out of school one lunch time because getting caught sneaking out of school would be way better than having an awkward chat about depression. It took me 4 attempts over 18 months to finally get prescribed some anti-depressants which in the end really did help.

Attempt 1- The doctors was closed and I think well maybe that was what was meant to be.

Attempt 2 - I asked the receptionist how old you have to be to go to the doctors on your own, they said 16. I was 15. I decided to wait until then.

Attempt 3 - I'm sure theres some lovely middle aged man doctors, but this one was not understanding, and just said things like "teenagers" and "hormones" at me.

Attempt 4- A nice woman doctor finally acknowledges that I actually seem to have a problem and prescribes anti-depressants.

The following 3 months after that I felt loads better than I'd felt for years, but slowly it began to get worse again, I think maybe the effects wear off. But it at least gave me enough head space to think I do want to be better. Every 3 months I have to get a repeat prescription, so I have to invent reasons to get to the doctors. I would often forget to take the tablets in the morning so I hid some in an empty lipstick in my school bag to take if I remembered later in the day. I also started counselling which was the other side of Coventry, 2 bus rides away and quite difficult to make up explanations for every fortnight.

Although I did have the internet, this was early 2000s, I didn't have a phone or computer with internet in my own room and I didn't know how to delete search history. (I still don't.) So basically the internet community which I hope is a massive help to people now, was no help to me then.

After maybe 9 months of taking the anti-depressants the doctor encouraged me to try and come off them. I started taking the tablets every other day but that didn't go well for me, the crazy down days became much more frequent. During one of these days I had a psychology exam which I had revised for the night before when I felt fine. I started off answering the question ok, but then my brain was just exploding so I wrote a load of crap in messier and messier handwriting. The teacher confronted me about it and I mumbled something about dyslexia.  The point I'm trying to make for parents is there could be more to what comes across as a moody teenager.

After a bad day I felt really guilty and embarrassed for some of the stuff I did on a bad day, my boyfriend at the time definitely saw horrible stuff than anyone else did.

Eventually my parents found out when I accidentally left my repeat prescription in my pocket and put it in the wash. They guessed I was on the pill, I'm not sure if they were happy or not that it wasn't. We had a short conversation about it and it was never mentioned again.

It gradually got better as I became a student, although there were still regular crazy days even though in general I was really happy. I had the occasional high too, not in a good way, I guess it's sort of like being a funny crazy kind of drunk but it doesn't feel nice because you feel a bit out of control and a bit embarrassed. I had one week like that when I was away with Rev (a choir) I had hardly any sleep because we were sleeping on the floor, and there was absolutely no time alone. I ended up having a whole week being high and I even had a hallucination at one point. I went again the next year and people commented on how I seemed "calmer" and "more mature".

I had a bit more counselling in the year that I graduated and that was a lot more constructive because I was at an age where I could analyse my past and accept help, and I actually was well enough to want to be well. I couldn't change what had gone on in the past, but now that I wasn't in any kind of education it was up to me to make life work. It's hard to say exactly, but I would say that year when I turned 23 was the last year that I had depression. Now it seems like a weird distant memory that I'm not sure is real because I never really talked about it much. But it was real and I'm so glad that it's not my life anymore.

Thanks for reading. x