So it’s that time of the year again where Mental Health Awareness Week stuff starts popping up on facebook, twitter and the news.
It’s great. It’s worthwhile. And it gets us talking about mental health. It’s finally being spoken about much more openly. People share their struggles but most importantly their successes.
I wrote about my own mental health just over 12 months ago here in the saga of my mental health.
Having read it again it’s still relevant now. The only problem being that despite what I said, I didn’t follow it through. The timings of the initial calls and then the meetings just didn’t fit in as I was working 25 miles away at the time. So I made a million excuses and didn’t help myself.
Then from September last year to March this year was horrid. We were in the midst of buying our first house, Mr D got promoted, J’s behaviour was horrendous and I was having some work issues. I was miserable, I was low but I was also anxious.
The tipping point for me was having an anxiety attack at work whilst trying to deal with arsehole landlords. For anyone who has them regularly, I feel for you. I felt completely out of control. I was sweating. I couldnt concentrate. My heart was beating out of my chest. It eventually calmed down but that set something off then and I couldn’t sleep that night as it was still fluttering. Whilst I haven’t had another one since, I’ve felt them building up and it’s been shit.
So enough was enough. And in February I went back to the doctors and self referred for CBT.
You can read more about what else was going on and that process in this blog here.
2 months down the line and I’m doing much better. My anxiety scores are now inline with everyday anxiety. I’ve learnt that I worry about everything, even when there’s nothing I can do about it. When I first started CBT I wrote a list of everything that was stressing me out (as per the February blog above). I then wrote next to each problem whether there was anything eithin my control that I could do to change the problem. Where there was nothing I just accepted it. Where there was, I thought of a solution and acted on it. And even something as simple as that worked for me.
We’ve been doing a lot of work on hypothetical worry which is exactly as it sounds. When i start to worry about sonething I reign myself in and ask if this is a worry rhat I can control or whether I’m second guessing what someone else will say, think or do. Ive realised I spent too much time worrying about the “what ifs” rather than the actual problem. And when I take the what ifs away, the problem isn’t actually thar big of a problem after all.
I know full well I will have my blips, but when I do I’ll either revisit the resources I’ve been given or pick up the phone and ask for more help. I don’t have to fight everything on my own, I don’t have to internalise everything and I owe it to myself to be the best I can be.
I also know that my own issues are relatively mild compared to how badly it affects others. Everybody is different and no-one is better or worse than anyone else where mental health is concerned. They say ot takes a village and I firmly believe that if we all started supporting each other a lot better than we do, we’d all be better off.
So, if you have mental health issues and are getting help I applaud you. You keep on going.
If you have mental health issues but are worried about being judged or getting the right treatment, take that leap because I promise you it’ll be the best thing you’ll ever do for yourself.
If you want to know how big and broad mental health is then take a look at Mind’s A-Z of mental health here because 1 in 4 people in the UK will suffer from a mental health problem each year. When you consider the UK has a population currently of 65 million people that’s a whopping 16.25 million people every year who struggle with their own mind.
So if you are struggling and don’t know where to start check out these websitea or go and speak to your GP:
#mentalhealth
#itsoktonotbeok
The Forever Drop Out 