So today is world mental health day, and all day I’ve been seeing people’s posts about facing mental health struggles and admire each and every person who has opened up about their own struggles, and even those who haven’t opened up for whatever reason is stopping you, I admire you too for being able to carry on as normal despite your inner turmoil.
My own mental health journey has spanned many years of my life, at least 22 years that I’m aware of, my battle with self harm started when I was around the age of 14, and I would often daydream about methods of suicide and ways to hurt myself because I was just so unhappy with who I was. I was also struggling with anxiety and depression for all those years, I don’t think I ever really liked who I was or at least I don’t remember liking myself anyway.
Even though I’ve battled with my mental health for around 22 years, it hasn’t all been doom and gloom, I’ve had years where I felt great and everything was fab, and I’ve also had years where things weren’t so great and I really struggled.
The past 2 years I have to admit have genuinely been the worst and the hardest time of my life, and no particular one thing seemed to trigger off the spiral, it seemed to be a culmination of a few things that sent my mental health into a rapid downward spiral. It was a few months before I admitted to people the true extent of my low mood and the fact that it extended a little bit further than just a low mood. There were 2 days in particular that spring to mind, one day where I was able to admit to someone that I was actually feeling suicidal, and the next day when it took a huge amount of strength not to head for the motorway bridge rather than through the staff door into work. I realised that I was genuinely terrified of my own mind and what it might be capable of, I was scaring myself in a big way.
The following day I was signed off work and started on medication, it was the beginning of a long 9 month battle with Mental Health Services in order to get an official diagnosis, to be directed to the correct services and to be offered the help that I so desperately needed.
I was finally diagnosed in January of this year with Borderline Personality Disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression. Initially the diagnosis terrified me as I read a lot of negative information about BPD and I was devastated about this but 9 months on and I’m finally coming to terms with my diagnosis and realising that although it is part of me, it does not and will not define me.
It’s been a long two years, my body bears so many scars from a battle I fought so hard to win, I spent months being supervised 24/7 because I was a suicide risk, I overdosed, I self harmed, I don’t think an hour went by without me thinking about how to kill myself. I had the worst mental breakdown I’ve ever had and even I’m not sure how I managed to survive it if I’m completely honest, but I’m so grateful that I did survive it.
I’m now 6 months into an intensive therapy course that will probably last up to 2 years and although things are getting better, I do still have dark moments and dark days where the urge to hurt myself kicks in or the desire not to be here returns. Thankfully I’m now learning skills to enable me to deal with these moments. I have finally come to terms with the fact that I’ll probably take medication to help stabilise my moods for the rest of my life and that these struggles will probably never go away completely, there will probably be relapses in future but at least now I’m equipped with better skills to help myself when these situations arise.
I’m also considering a new career path in mental health, and taking baby steps towards this goal. A bad day doesn’t have to mean a bad life.
No comments:
Post a Comment