Speaking Out and Surviving
Hey there my lovely blog readers :) I hope this blog post finds you well and enjoying a relaxing or exciting weekend in just the way you want to.
Today I'm going to deviate a little from my 'more traditional' style of blog posts that centre around rambling accounts of monthly exploits. This is because I would like to take the opportunity to write to you about mental health, which is a subject those of you well acquainted with my blog (or me) will know is close to my heart and never far from my tongue.
For me it is always important to talk about mental health as it is still a topic within our society that has far too close a link with secrecy and shame, on both a personal and public level. But considering that today is World Mental Health Day it seems even more important to use this time to increase awareness, understanding and respect of mental health and mental health issues. Especially since as much as mental health issues are gaining more recognition the actual fact of mental health - which we all have- and how to look after it, is still lagging.
Normally these days that are designated important or significant by governments, world leaders, greeting card companies, or whoever really decides that we need a 'National Coffee Drinking Day', 'National Cupcake Week', or 'World wide yodelling appreciation day' (Okay so I may have made that last one up....But I kind of think it should exist!) pass over my head and miss the realm of my consciousness or apathy unless they make into the news or are connected with a particular issue.
However World Mental Health Day, Black History Month, Mothering Sunday, and even National Best Friend Day represent more than an excuse to host lots of events and create a variety of Twitter hashtags. The fact that we even have a World Mental Health Day shows that this is an issue that needs to be brought into the limelight as it is universal and this day provides an opportunity to share, encourage, be supported, increase awareness and fight misconceptions on a personal and public level to create change and promote respect. These are all things which I aim to do on a general day to day basis and are important to try and do as often as possible.
I am aware even now I have started to drift into 'preachy oracle mode' and I am far from qualified to give advice or tell anyone how to live their lives as I am still journeying my own path with Mental Health issues and everyone's experiences with their mental health are as different as they are numerous. So bare with me if I make mistakes, or don't have all the answers (because no one really does!) but it's important to talk about these things and to foster understanding even if we don't fully understand what we're going through ourselves, and conversation gives us more of a chance to learn and develop. Silence is probably one of the most damaging, isolating, and hard-to-shake of elements of suffering from a mental health issue. So speaking about it even though you can't really find the words, or use too many (like me) or feel like you're using the 'wrong one's' is as crucial as it is difficult.
Anyways now that I've rambled about the importance of talking about mental health for a bit (I definitely think my writing style is more stream of consciousness than ordered concise observations but hey you can just pretend it's me chatting with you) I'm going to dedicate a little bit of space to talk about where I'm at in my personal journey with mental health before I go on to offer some more universal observations.
So, if you've been following my blog since its conception or if you've braved the copious Internet history of it in retrospect, you'll know that my first 'Serious' blog post was posted around this time last year for World Mental Health Day 2014 (you can refresh your memory or encounter it for the first time here). That was, and still is, the blog post I struggled most with writing and clicking the 'post' button on because it was the most personal thing I'd written about an issue which had been private and entrusted to only a small circle of people since I'd suffered from depression back in 2009. But you know what I'm so glad I did! It has been the most liberating (and still terrifying) experience to be able to be honest with my friends and family, and myself to an extent, about who I am, what my life involves and what I've been through.
I won't lie to you that telling just one person in confidence is hard and I think that telling the Internet is not exactly a step that most people will usually reach until they've undergone mental health issues for quite a while because it requires a level of confidence to open yourself up to that level of scrutiny from strangers. But I've found that sharing my story with other people in those initial moments with close friends, or now to strangers as part of Mental Health Matters Society, has allowed me to accept myself rather than shame myself and also learn through talking to other people about coping methods etc.
I don't think I could have proceeded through my last 2 years of University- where I've made some of my closest friends- without being honest about what living with depression involves for me, even now I feel like I'm through the worst of it (the self-harming, excessive suicidal thoughts and almost attempts, bulimia, sleep deprivation, listlessness, and lack of engagement with the people and world around me- just to name a few of my personal symptoms) I'm still living with the side-effects of suffering from a mental illness and their knowledge of this means I can be open about when I need my space and able to pick up the phone when I need a hug.
Even whilst mental health issues should receive equal amount of care and attention as physical health issues their treatment and recovery needs is vastly different. You can 'fix' a broken leg, you can't 'fix' someone's way of thinking and declare them 'depression-free' as even as the major symptoms fade there is a way of thinking about the world and yourself that has been the prerogative for along time and the ripple effects of that usually continue to last even as they minimise. I've found at least. This can be frustrating as once my mind started to recover and I set my sights on 'getting over' (which is of course impossible) that stage of my life, I wanted every aspect and reminder of who I was like then to be gone without acknowledging that suffering in that way had changed me and not all of those changes were bad so I couldn't just get from Recovering to Healthy and expect to be the same person as pre-depression. I've found that a lot of my recovery post-intense depression period has involved not fighting or punishing myself for still having low days or running into negative self thinking patterns or being afraid that either of these signal a return to Before, but developing a coping net, being mentally kind to myself and letting these dark days pass however painful they may be as I know that they are a lot less frequent and I have the tenacity to not let them devour me.
Anyways after that rambling bit, basically since my post a year ago I've had a lot more days where I have felt helpless and felt the pull to cope in ways that had tempted me in my depression period such as the self-harming, bulimia and mental-flagellation. These have stemmed from bereavements, break-ups, bad essay results and a fear that I am not good enough, amongst other things. And do you know what this really shocked me as I had been lulled into thinking I was over my mental health problems, and I think this shows more than ever that we all have to be vigilant at looking after our mental well being, whether we've experienced mental health issues or not. But this time when this thinking struck I was more able to cope with it than the first time round as I had some sense of being used to my mental patterns, through counselling discussions, and exercise a degree of restraint as well as alert others to my situation so I didn't feel like I was handling it all on my one,
So I went back to counselling at university and was more ready to accept help as I had unleashed a side of me that didn't want to give in, this was beneficial to me and it provided an outsider perspective to the situation which I hadn't realised I needed. I also finally after all those years managed to curb my desire to self-harm, even though I hadn't exercised that desire in years it had been present, which although the personal circumstances relating to it weren't ones I wanted or would want to repeat the wake up call they provided was much-needed and its subsequent effect absolute. I think in the past year I've experienced some of the highest and lowest points in my mental health, from feeling like my life was falling apart, questioning everything I thought I knew about myself, and wanting to quit university to finding a confidence and new personality traits, and friends that I never knew I had, I sit here writing this feeling like I have no idea what is ahead for me in the year to come, but also knowing for the first time in a long time that I can face whatever does.
I guess that the abridged (I know your thinking this is horrendously long but trust me when I start talking about mental health I can go on forever) update on my mental health journey of the last year. And I apologise if they sound boastful, I've just tried to be as honest as possible, please tell me if you think I've I'm beating my own drum to much and dissociated from real life!
I'd just like to leave you with a few thoughts that I think are important to remember about mental health, even when your brain is telling you the exact opposite.
1. You Are Not Alone: This doesn't necessarily always make you feel better to know that you are only one of many with mental health issues, especially when your pain and experience is so unique and personal. It's one of the statements I kind of most ignored when it was told to me for just that reason. But it is powerful as it's not meant to devalue your experience or shame you into knowing others have it worse than you. It is a reminder that even when you are at your most isolated there are people who will support you and also that you are not somehow strange from suffering a mental health problem, no matter how sensationalised the media can represent it.
2. It's okay to not be okay: Don't beat yourself up when you feel bad. Mental health issues, and the recovery from them, fluctuate. You will have days when you feel like you want to see friends and others when you want to hide away from the world. That's okay, you are not abnormal for doing that. Try and acknowledge the validity of your emotions and needs even when they seem irrational. You are not your illness and can't predict when you will feel a certain way, and that's okay.
3. Always Keep Fighting: Our symptoms and needs of mental health issues are as varied as our survival mechanisms. And this is perhaps the maxim which was the hardest for me to believe when I had my depression blinkers on as I just wanted to give in and couldn't really see a way out of my current predicament even if I'd wanted to. That DOES NOT MAKE YOU WEAK to find it hard to keep going on. I think from my experience of depression and the many friends I have made with mental health issues, is that all human beings have an immense reserve of strength that they can utilise, and don't really know they have - I certainly didn't. However or whatever your fight against mental health issues and their stigma looks like, if it's small or in the public eye the most important thing is to keep fighting for the next good moment, celebrate small victories and don't punish yourself when you make a mistake, just keep going. You can get there. Maybe not as soon as you'd like but you will. And to remember to keep fighting even when you think the fight is over, and fight for and with others to create a world where mental health is not only talked about but respected.
So whilst it seems wrong to wish you a 'happy' World Mental Health Day I think the sentiment is right as I do hope that all of you will experience happiness even in the times when you feel like you can't remember what that is because you are all amazing individuals and even if it's something small that makes you smile for a second that can be the something that keeps you going. And the message I want to tell you today is that what I've learned from the past year that what you achieve day by day by just surviving is a massive achievement. We all take different routes and methods to survive but what's important is that we are all surviving even if we're struggling, and that's something I strive to never underestimate.
I'll write again soon.
As ever all my love and fictional hugs,
Megan (Still surviving!)
Song of the Post: Tiger Feet - Mud (a recent upbeat favourite of mine)
Today I'm going to deviate a little from my 'more traditional' style of blog posts that centre around rambling accounts of monthly exploits. This is because I would like to take the opportunity to write to you about mental health, which is a subject those of you well acquainted with my blog (or me) will know is close to my heart and never far from my tongue.
For me it is always important to talk about mental health as it is still a topic within our society that has far too close a link with secrecy and shame, on both a personal and public level. But considering that today is World Mental Health Day it seems even more important to use this time to increase awareness, understanding and respect of mental health and mental health issues. Especially since as much as mental health issues are gaining more recognition the actual fact of mental health - which we all have- and how to look after it, is still lagging.
Normally these days that are designated important or significant by governments, world leaders, greeting card companies, or whoever really decides that we need a 'National Coffee Drinking Day', 'National Cupcake Week', or 'World wide yodelling appreciation day' (Okay so I may have made that last one up....But I kind of think it should exist!) pass over my head and miss the realm of my consciousness or apathy unless they make into the news or are connected with a particular issue.
However World Mental Health Day, Black History Month, Mothering Sunday, and even National Best Friend Day represent more than an excuse to host lots of events and create a variety of Twitter hashtags. The fact that we even have a World Mental Health Day shows that this is an issue that needs to be brought into the limelight as it is universal and this day provides an opportunity to share, encourage, be supported, increase awareness and fight misconceptions on a personal and public level to create change and promote respect. These are all things which I aim to do on a general day to day basis and are important to try and do as often as possible.
I am aware even now I have started to drift into 'preachy oracle mode' and I am far from qualified to give advice or tell anyone how to live their lives as I am still journeying my own path with Mental Health issues and everyone's experiences with their mental health are as different as they are numerous. So bare with me if I make mistakes, or don't have all the answers (because no one really does!) but it's important to talk about these things and to foster understanding even if we don't fully understand what we're going through ourselves, and conversation gives us more of a chance to learn and develop. Silence is probably one of the most damaging, isolating, and hard-to-shake of elements of suffering from a mental health issue. So speaking about it even though you can't really find the words, or use too many (like me) or feel like you're using the 'wrong one's' is as crucial as it is difficult.
Anyways now that I've rambled about the importance of talking about mental health for a bit (I definitely think my writing style is more stream of consciousness than ordered concise observations but hey you can just pretend it's me chatting with you) I'm going to dedicate a little bit of space to talk about where I'm at in my personal journey with mental health before I go on to offer some more universal observations.
So, if you've been following my blog since its conception or if you've braved the copious Internet history of it in retrospect, you'll know that my first 'Serious' blog post was posted around this time last year for World Mental Health Day 2014 (you can refresh your memory or encounter it for the first time here). That was, and still is, the blog post I struggled most with writing and clicking the 'post' button on because it was the most personal thing I'd written about an issue which had been private and entrusted to only a small circle of people since I'd suffered from depression back in 2009. But you know what I'm so glad I did! It has been the most liberating (and still terrifying) experience to be able to be honest with my friends and family, and myself to an extent, about who I am, what my life involves and what I've been through.
I won't lie to you that telling just one person in confidence is hard and I think that telling the Internet is not exactly a step that most people will usually reach until they've undergone mental health issues for quite a while because it requires a level of confidence to open yourself up to that level of scrutiny from strangers. But I've found that sharing my story with other people in those initial moments with close friends, or now to strangers as part of Mental Health Matters Society, has allowed me to accept myself rather than shame myself and also learn through talking to other people about coping methods etc.
I don't think I could have proceeded through my last 2 years of University- where I've made some of my closest friends- without being honest about what living with depression involves for me, even now I feel like I'm through the worst of it (the self-harming, excessive suicidal thoughts and almost attempts, bulimia, sleep deprivation, listlessness, and lack of engagement with the people and world around me- just to name a few of my personal symptoms) I'm still living with the side-effects of suffering from a mental illness and their knowledge of this means I can be open about when I need my space and able to pick up the phone when I need a hug.
Even whilst mental health issues should receive equal amount of care and attention as physical health issues their treatment and recovery needs is vastly different. You can 'fix' a broken leg, you can't 'fix' someone's way of thinking and declare them 'depression-free' as even as the major symptoms fade there is a way of thinking about the world and yourself that has been the prerogative for along time and the ripple effects of that usually continue to last even as they minimise. I've found at least. This can be frustrating as once my mind started to recover and I set my sights on 'getting over' (which is of course impossible) that stage of my life, I wanted every aspect and reminder of who I was like then to be gone without acknowledging that suffering in that way had changed me and not all of those changes were bad so I couldn't just get from Recovering to Healthy and expect to be the same person as pre-depression. I've found that a lot of my recovery post-intense depression period has involved not fighting or punishing myself for still having low days or running into negative self thinking patterns or being afraid that either of these signal a return to Before, but developing a coping net, being mentally kind to myself and letting these dark days pass however painful they may be as I know that they are a lot less frequent and I have the tenacity to not let them devour me.
Anyways after that rambling bit, basically since my post a year ago I've had a lot more days where I have felt helpless and felt the pull to cope in ways that had tempted me in my depression period such as the self-harming, bulimia and mental-flagellation. These have stemmed from bereavements, break-ups, bad essay results and a fear that I am not good enough, amongst other things. And do you know what this really shocked me as I had been lulled into thinking I was over my mental health problems, and I think this shows more than ever that we all have to be vigilant at looking after our mental well being, whether we've experienced mental health issues or not. But this time when this thinking struck I was more able to cope with it than the first time round as I had some sense of being used to my mental patterns, through counselling discussions, and exercise a degree of restraint as well as alert others to my situation so I didn't feel like I was handling it all on my one,
So I went back to counselling at university and was more ready to accept help as I had unleashed a side of me that didn't want to give in, this was beneficial to me and it provided an outsider perspective to the situation which I hadn't realised I needed. I also finally after all those years managed to curb my desire to self-harm, even though I hadn't exercised that desire in years it had been present, which although the personal circumstances relating to it weren't ones I wanted or would want to repeat the wake up call they provided was much-needed and its subsequent effect absolute. I think in the past year I've experienced some of the highest and lowest points in my mental health, from feeling like my life was falling apart, questioning everything I thought I knew about myself, and wanting to quit university to finding a confidence and new personality traits, and friends that I never knew I had, I sit here writing this feeling like I have no idea what is ahead for me in the year to come, but also knowing for the first time in a long time that I can face whatever does.
I guess that the abridged (I know your thinking this is horrendously long but trust me when I start talking about mental health I can go on forever) update on my mental health journey of the last year. And I apologise if they sound boastful, I've just tried to be as honest as possible, please tell me if you think I've I'm beating my own drum to much and dissociated from real life!
I'd just like to leave you with a few thoughts that I think are important to remember about mental health, even when your brain is telling you the exact opposite.
1. You Are Not Alone: This doesn't necessarily always make you feel better to know that you are only one of many with mental health issues, especially when your pain and experience is so unique and personal. It's one of the statements I kind of most ignored when it was told to me for just that reason. But it is powerful as it's not meant to devalue your experience or shame you into knowing others have it worse than you. It is a reminder that even when you are at your most isolated there are people who will support you and also that you are not somehow strange from suffering a mental health problem, no matter how sensationalised the media can represent it.
2. It's okay to not be okay: Don't beat yourself up when you feel bad. Mental health issues, and the recovery from them, fluctuate. You will have days when you feel like you want to see friends and others when you want to hide away from the world. That's okay, you are not abnormal for doing that. Try and acknowledge the validity of your emotions and needs even when they seem irrational. You are not your illness and can't predict when you will feel a certain way, and that's okay.
3. Always Keep Fighting: Our symptoms and needs of mental health issues are as varied as our survival mechanisms. And this is perhaps the maxim which was the hardest for me to believe when I had my depression blinkers on as I just wanted to give in and couldn't really see a way out of my current predicament even if I'd wanted to. That DOES NOT MAKE YOU WEAK to find it hard to keep going on. I think from my experience of depression and the many friends I have made with mental health issues, is that all human beings have an immense reserve of strength that they can utilise, and don't really know they have - I certainly didn't. However or whatever your fight against mental health issues and their stigma looks like, if it's small or in the public eye the most important thing is to keep fighting for the next good moment, celebrate small victories and don't punish yourself when you make a mistake, just keep going. You can get there. Maybe not as soon as you'd like but you will. And to remember to keep fighting even when you think the fight is over, and fight for and with others to create a world where mental health is not only talked about but respected.
So whilst it seems wrong to wish you a 'happy' World Mental Health Day I think the sentiment is right as I do hope that all of you will experience happiness even in the times when you feel like you can't remember what that is because you are all amazing individuals and even if it's something small that makes you smile for a second that can be the something that keeps you going. And the message I want to tell you today is that what I've learned from the past year that what you achieve day by day by just surviving is a massive achievement. We all take different routes and methods to survive but what's important is that we are all surviving even if we're struggling, and that's something I strive to never underestimate.
I'll write again soon.
As ever all my love and fictional hugs,
Megan (Still surviving!)
Song of the Post: Tiger Feet - Mud (a recent upbeat favourite of mine)
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