Mental Health and Me

Hello all and welcome to the first March instalment of Observations of Fictional Girl,

I hope this post finds you well and enjoying a degree of relaxation this Monday evening. 


As per usual here is the weekly update on my goings on of this week.


Last Sunday was lovely with a long coffee catch with Emily and a Dominos after a tiring shift at work. These little moments make life so good :)


If i could live my whole life eating Red Velvet Cake I would be happy.
FOOD IS THE BEST

Last Monday feels a long while ago now but the highlight of it was meeting up with my friend Jess for a coffee and catch up. I love these friend 'dates' and it had felt like far too long ago since the last one and we made the most of the time together by combining our love for conversation with our love for food when we went to Nosh.


White Hot Chocolate and a Chocolate Brownie

Wednesday was another food highlight as me and Nicola went to try out a new Gelato place that had opened in town, it was amazing. I already have plans with several other friends to go back there after how much I've raved at them about it.



Gelato times


It made me VERY HAPPY

The salted caramel hot chocolate was amazing too :)

The rest of the week has been spent with my usual busy mix of exercise, society meetings, work, reading, gatherings with friend, more coffee meet ups and some how I've finally made it to the weekend and can flop at last (read as just do a bit less). I love everything I get up to and feel blessed by the variety of activities I have to fill my days with but by Thursday I will admit I was fraying a bit by all I was trying to fit in and I was severely questioning my newly adopted mantra of 'It's better to be busy than bored' as I was so tired that I started to feel pretty ill. But luckily some sleep and a lovely Friday helped as well as friends who remind me to make time for myself in amongst everything, even if that involves impromptu wine drinking on a Sunday night. 


This has a big part of what my blog post is about this week dear readers. I have been tantalising you for several weeks now with the promise of another blog post about Mental Health and the wait is over.


Those lovely souls among you who have been reading or have looked through the back catalogue of my blog posts with remember the blog post I did back in October called 'A Bit of Backstory' (which you can refresh your memory of here). This post was more serious than those which had preceded it and detailed a bit about my personal journey with mental health issues for the occasion of World Mental Health Day. I'd like to revisit that topic, if you will bear with me readers to flesh it out a bit more, update you on my progress and share some more thoughts about an issue with which I have so much passion and time for.


In my last blog post I mentioned that from the age of 14 I started became steadily depressed leading to self-harming and moderate bulimia and a recovery that has taken place over the past 6 years to get me back to a place where I feel stronger. However I did not mention what had lead me to that point, a position in my life where I had very little regard for myself or anything really contained within this world. 


That is perhaps slightly explained by the fact that even now I don't totally understand this myself as there were triggers but no big revelatory moments. Although discussions with counsellors over the year do, and I agree, link this to an increased sense of mortality when when of my classmates died in the summer prior to my 4th year of high school, I wasn't particularly close to him but it still shocked me to my core. This was coupled with a sense of hopelessness, being unable to see any good in the world, increased melancholy and turning this negativity brutally inwards. I didn't initially understand that any of this was not an issue but kind of took it as a younger form of grieving. 

It's hard to write about this time in my life because on the one hand it seems like it happened to someone else entirely and on the other the memories are still too raw to vocalise. Yet I hope, and from my own experience know, that through sharing a deeper insight into my experiences others can realise that they are not alone and also that depression is not a everlasting curse no matter how it feels when you're going through it.

I am aware that this hindsight can sound overly optimistic and seem disconnected from anyone experiencing depression (I will admit I did tune out a lot of this similar rhetoric from my friends at the time but now value it so much!), especially since it is an illness that comes in so many different forms and my experience will never completely correlate with everyone else's, yet I as one of my wonderful Harry Potter inspirations Albus Dumbledore said "Happiness can be found even within the darkest of times if one remembers to turn on the light" and I pray that this story of mine-this ongoing difficult beautiful struggle- will be a light, a glimpse of hope to that dark time that a large amount of the population do experience at some point in their lives. 


This has struck me a lot recently when I contemplate the fact that a large amount of my friendship group have experienced mental health issues at this stage in their lives whether it be mild depression or anxiety or struggles with self-harm which reinforces how common a health issue mental health problems are. These are also things which people we interact with everyday experience and realistically everyone I interact with knows one person with mental health issues because they know me. Mental health problems need a voice because they exist mainly, as a silent issue, that are not recognised equally in society or the health service and by being silent they cannot be helped.

Over the months after October 2010 when I started self harming I withdrew further into myself, hiding what I was doing from virtually everyone around me and hating myself steadily more and more with the passing months. Not knowing how or wanting to stop, constantly thinking of ways to end my life and coming close on several occasions. I can't convey to you adequately with words what I experienced that year and how ingrained a negative self-view became whilst simultaneously being disinterested in life yet maintaining a front of happiness on the outside. 

That's another think I think with mental health issues, there is no rule book necessarily for people to recognise the signs of someone who is suffering from then as those who are depressed for example don't give up smiling entirely. So it is important to just maintain an awareness, a conversation with those close to you that you can pick up to a degree whether a bad day is just a bad day or even just so they know that you are willing to talk about anything.

This blog post has probably got to a point now where it seems a bit rambling and I think it is because I am used to sharing this story in coffee shop conversations with friends, or random scribbles in my journal rather than a declaratory statement. So I apologise if this all sounds confusing.

Years have passed since the second wave of depression hit my life hard and since then so much has happened. It has been a uphill struggle of making choices that keep me alive, changing the way I look at myself and taking each day as it comes. Counselling was a godsend for me as without it I would not have learned my trigger signs, understood the nuances of my depression and had a space to just say what I needed to. It works for some people and for others it doesn't but I think it's always good to try and see, to have someone who has experience with dealing with mental health issues rather than dealing with it all by yourself. But for me this was coupled with the amazing support and blessings of my friends and family who were always there to chat at ridiculous hours of the night, let me rage and cry to the degrees I needed to and were pillars that kept me standing until my much valued tenacity came in and I decided this was not going to dictate my life.

No-one I think can deal, or at least effectively deal with mental health issues unless they have that balance of support and desire within themselves to get better.

It was only last year that I finally kicked the desire to self-harm once and for all. There is a misconception that once you stop that you're "cured" but since I was discharged from counselling in 2012 I have had to work even harder to maintain a desire to live life to the full, to resist temptations of old habits and to try and turn out that voice in my brain that still likes to point out all my flaws. I also think that depression is something you learn to control not ever kick completely, it's a day to day refusal to give into temptations, to understand low moods and take time to treat yourself compassionately and then the gaps between "bad days" get bigger and bigger until you feel more stable in your recovery. 


Bought myself some lovely reduced Iris' to cheer me up last week :)

I still don't consider myself to be fully depression free and this was the reason that prompted me to get back into counselling last September. I was getting anxious and having more low moods than I had had in a while despite being generally happy and conversations with my amazing mum reminded me that especially if you have had mental health issues in the past it is so important and not something to be ashamed of to have a 'mental health check up' and talk to someone before a real problem starts. I am so grateful I did this as I had my penultimate counselling session at my university's counselling session today and I know I would not be feeling as capable as I do now without taking that first step to admit I needed a bit of help to get me back to a stronger place. 

Especially with all that has happened in the past 6 months this space to talk, be introspective and have advice has been invaluable. It has also been a time in my life where I have felt so much freer by openly admitting to my friends, both new people I met, complete strangers and old chums that I suffer from mental issues. This act of confession has been so freeing. I don't have to hide when I'm having a bad day because they understand why. Also my experiences with mental health issues has been such a defining and life-changing part of my life that it feels odd not to acknowledge them to people, as they make me the woman that I am today.


Me as part of MHM Society's #Let'sTalk campaign. I do believe
that talking about mental heath issues goes a long way to helping them.

People still do find it hard to understand, I think, when I say that I would not trade in my experiences with depression, self-harm and attempted suicide, they can't understand why I wouldn't to erase that suffering. Yes I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone but it has changed the person I am, taught me what I value in life, what I can cope with and to treasure even the smallest portions of happiness. I am not my mental health problems but they are part of me. 

So why have I shared this sprawling on going segment of my life with you all? Mainly to continue to raise awareness for the hidden mental health issues that are present in society, to encourage you all that you're not alone, to break down stigma and encourage dialogue and  to give a bit of hope. As well as for me to say that I, Megan Myer, am scarred woman but I survived and living a life acknowledging my "brokenness" has been more freeing than I can ever have imagined.

I love the chance to do more to raise awareness by getting involved with my university's Mental Health Matters society, to attend talks, to petition governments and to develop more of a personal understanding of the many branches of Mental Health. As it is something we all have to be aware of, to not ignore anxiety, eating disorders or low moods because we don't ignore broken legs or fevers and they are of equal importance and debilitating capabilities.

I feel at a point my life now where I am more capable than I can remember being, I understand (and love!) myself and smile everyday. This is something I treasure and don't ever take for granted because it is so amazing and I don't say it to rub it in that I'm better but to give hope that there are better days to come, you just have to make yourself want to get to them.

So I guess what I want to say is have compassion to those around you who suffer from mental health issues but don't treat them as stigmatised because it's more common than you think and to talk about this more because words can change the world. If enough of us speak up we can make a difference and if enough of us take the time to be there for people by having  chatting over coffee with friends or whatever we can bond together to support rather than silence. But make that time to look after yourself too, be aware we all have a mental health and you need to be compassionate and quiet sometimes.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to read my thoughts on what I consider to be a crucially important subject. I hope you will make the time to check up on yourself and be there for others too, as well as doing your bit to break down barriers, stigma and raise awareness.

I wish you all the best for the rest of your week and will see you again soon for another wordy instalment of this blog.


Until then all my fictional love,

M x

Songs of the post: I Am Who I Am - Lee Ryan (a hidden gem from my iTunes) and Seasons of Love (from the musical Rent) (I had forgotten how much I love this one!)

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