In honour of world mental health day recently, I want to do a post which is dedicated to that. This post exposes my deepest, darkest part of myself which I probably don’t think anyone knows the exact extent of what I was going through. And I’m doing this in the hope that it will save you or at least help you save someone else and spread some awareness.
When I was 19 I was absolutely loving life. I used to go out, drink, I smoked weed everyday, dabbled with other drugs. That all came to an end when one night, I was with my friend having my usual joint. Out of nowhere I had a panic attack. I never really knew what they were but I just knew somehow that it must have been a panic attack. I remember feeling really scared and not really sure what was going on. The next day I didn’t really think much to it. I think I did decide not to smoke weed again, but that didn’t last long. A week or so later, again I had a joint after work at home on my own. I suddenly felt the same feelings and sensations of a panic attack again. I thought I was dying and really didn’t know what was wrong with me. I couldn’t think straight, strange thoughts were going through my head and I just felt like something terrible was happening to me and it was so scary. I called an ambulance and the woman on the phone was absolutely wonderful and stayed on the phone to me until the ambulance came. They arrived and were amazing. It was quite obvious from the smell that I had smoked a joint, but regardless they were lovely to me, no judgements. Unfortunately my heart rate was so high from the panic and it wouldn’t come down. I had to go in the ambulance to the hospital and have some tests to check everything was okay. My heart rate came down eventually and I could go home. That wasn’t the end of it though.
Although I stopped smoking weed from that day and have never had a joint since, what I was left with was anxiety and panic disorder, which would later on lead to depression. To be honest, I didn’t discuss it a lot as I felt like I was weird, wasn’t sure if I was going insane and was afraid that people would judge me or I was embarrassed that I would have a panic attack in front of people. I would often have panic attacks at work brought on by the fact that I was panicking about panicking. It got to a point where I stopped going to work, couldn’t do certain social activities that felt too much like a ‘group’ situation (one of my triggers), I was a shell of my former bubbly, confident self. It brought me into depression as obviously all of this was having a toll on me and I felt so worthless and useless. I had many GP visits and was on medication such as sertraline or citalopram. The waiting list for therapy on the NHS was too long and I felt desperate, so I started having private therapy and CBT. My therapist was lovely, she was such an understanding lady and she helped me a lot.
For about a year I was quite stable, in the sense that I didn’t have a panic attack. I would still avoid social activities that were a trigger to me and my confidence was literally zero. I honestly hated myself. I couldn’t figure out why I was feeling the way I was feeling. I knew the anxiety was all in my head and I found it so frustrating because I knew in reality there was nothing to be anxious about. I grew into deep, deep self pity and self loathe. Myself and my fiancé moved houses and I loved it and was so excited. A couple of days in, we were watching tv one night and having a couple of drinks in our new place and my fiancé Bert went to bed. I can’t explain what happened but I remember something just switching in my head. Looking back, I think it was a very sudden state of panic and anxiety which startled me as I hadn’t felt that in a long time. I’ve never dealt very well with change and moving house is probably what caused it. I went and woke Bert and told him I was having a panic attack. It was all a bit of a blur, but I remember calling 111 and telling them I didn’t feel safe. I remember getting massively uncomfortable thoughts about harming myself or other people and getting myself in more and more of a heightened state of panic. It just felt like one panic after the other. The scary thoughts were just coming thick and fast and I didn’t know what to do.
I would say the next few months were the worst months of my life. My anxiety and depression were just horrible. I couldn’t cope with the messed up tangle in my head and I didn’t know where to start. I was so unhappy, I felt like there was no escape. The only escape I had was when I was asleep and sleeping was difficult because I was in such a constant state of panic and I found it so hard to relax. My anxiety was so out of control, I couldn’t even watch some tv programs anymore. I’ve always loved the walking dead but I had to stop watching it because it was giving me panic attacks! No joke, I had to have 2 days off work when Glen’s eye popped out of his head (if you know, you know). It’s ridiculous but it’s true. I just felt so weird all the time. So depersonalised, so abnormal and so hopeless. I got to a point where I was having suicidal thoughts and starting to contemplate it, which again would make me panic that I was having these thoughts, then the more I would panic, the more irrational my thoughts would become. I didn’t want to die, but I just didn’t want to live this way anymore. I wanted to get better and to be normal.
I decided I needed to get help as I couldn’t do this anymore. I went back to the GP and just cried and cried and was literally clutching my head in my hands as my mind was whirring, I said to her I just can’t cope anymore. She put me back on citalopram which I promised myself I would take religiously everyday- I wasn’t very good at remembering to take them everyday previously. She also put me on Propranolol which is a beta blocker. These help to stop so much adrenaline going round your body, which in turn help to relieve the physical symptoms of anxiety. The less physical symptoms you have, the less mental you will have as they are linked. Of course these aren’t a long term fix- but they certainly helped give me some relief whilst I started to begin getting myself in a better place. The GP also referred me to Time To Talk- again, the waiting list for one to one therapy was long and I wasn’t prepared to wait. I had a couple of consultations with private therapists and found a lady I absolutely love talking with. She’s so level headed and empathetic and as soon as I had my first meeting with her, I remember coming away feeling just a tiny bit of hope, which I hadn’t felt in what felt like a very long time. Of course, doing all of this wasn’t plain sailing. There were times where I would feel okay for a couple of weeks so wasn’t sure wether I actually needed therapy; only for me to be back at square one again and cursing myself for letting myself get to a bad place again. What I didn’t realise was that I needed to talk and face my anxiety, not try and push it away.
Over the course of the next year, I was having regular therapy sessions, I started a new job which I was much happier at, I learnt to love myself and I found help in God. There have been times over the last year and a bit that I have felt like I’ve made no progress. If I was to draw my progress on a chart, it would not be one smooth line going diagonally up, it would be very jagged with lots of ups and downs but it would be going in the right direction. I have learnt that facing my anxiety and allowing myself to feel these feelings and not push away thoughts are the key to overcoming them. I’ve always learnt that they do not last forever. I feel hope again and I feel happiness. I feel like I was dragged through a hedge backwards and stamped on by anxiety, depression, panic, hatred and everything negative, but I have got through it. I can honestly genuinely say that I am strong. Yes, I still have anxiety. But It lives alongside my happiness, my love and my confidence. It is also a lot smaller. It makes me so so sad to think I was at a point where I really was starting to contemplate that it would be much easier if I wasn’t here. And so many people make the decision to take their own lives because they cannot cope anymore. They are so tired of fighting and just don’t want to do it anymore. But suicide and self hatred is NOT the answer. There IS help and there IS hope. You can learn to manage mental health illnesses and there is thousands of other people that are going through the same things as you. No matter how weird your symptoms or thoughts are, believe me, someone else has thought it too. Just take that first step. Go to your GP. Talk to a trusted family member or friend. See a therapist. It is SO important to look after our minds and take time for self care. So please, if you are suffering, even at the complete end of your tether, there is a way. I promise you.
Lots of love,
Yasmine x
No comments
Post a Comment