Tackling My Mental Health: Anxiety, Depression & The Best Worst Year Of My Life

I first posted this on Vocal about 2 months ago but thought I might as well repost it here. Here's the link for the original if you're looking for more articles on similar topics. https://psyche.media/tackling-my-mental-health?_ga=2.32594494.1853401801.1524217330-143671639.1518982404 

2017 was a strange year for me. It should have been the worst year of my life. At points I thought it might be my last, yet it somehow managed to turn into one of the best years of my life.

I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression in 2014 after putting off my concerns for years thanks to a toxic relationship. I started talking to my closest friends and family about it, but for the most part kept it to myself for fear of being ostracized. It was like a permanent monkey on my back that I had to hide from everyone. But knowing my enemy made it easier to fight. I got a new job and a new girlfriend, and moved to Edinburgh.

Things seemed pretty sweet.

Then in March 2017, everything started to unravel. My girlfriend, who had helped me so much in my battles & I helped in hers, essentially broke up with me in stages. We tried an open relationship—I didn't really try, probably because I could sense what was coming—before she left me. Less than a month later, she was with someone else; someone she met in the dying days of our relationship.

Naturally, I wasn't in the best of places at this stage. Whilst I did have an incredible network of friends who could help me, they were now 40 miles away. I appreciate that it's hardly comparable to someone who has moved country and they were only about an hour away, but this was my first time experiencing a low so far from them, and I was wary of opening up to my Edinburgh friends to the same extent as my closest friends. A black cloud was gathering and everything was getting darker and darker.

In May I saw on social media that an old friend had lost her boyfriend and the father of her young child. Not knowing the circumstances, I offered my condolences. Her reply sent a chill running through me.

"Thanks so much. Hope you're holding up well please reach out for help if you need it because this could have maybe been prevented x"

I had had suicidal thoughts before, but they had been fleeting. I'd never considered the ramifications of it in any great detail before this. I had also thought naïvely thought that if I could have a family of my own, I'd be alright. There'd always be something or someone to fight for. For the first time, I realised that there was no magic-wand that could solve the problems in my head.

At the end of May, I visited one of my closest friends in Malaga, then my sister in Brussels. The time away did me good, up until my last night in Belgium. I said goodbye to my sister and she headed for the metro. As soon as she had gone, I felt some inexplicable force weighing me down, sucking the light from around me like a black hole. I went back to the hotel and tried to distract myself, but to no avail. I was agitated. I was beyond reason. Bad thoughts were swirling around my head, getting louder and louder with each passing moment. Two conversations prevented me from doing anything stupid that night; one with my ex-girlfriend, the other with my grieving friend. For that I'll always be grateful to them. It was one bad night, but it was a horrendously long and dark night.

When I returned home, I began to open up about my mental health. Not because I thought it would help anyone, just as a release for how I was feeling. The fear of being ostracized still loomed, but not as much as the fear of another night like that one in Brussels. I was met with such warmth and kindness that I felt like an ignoramus for keeping it all bottled up inside for so long. I found it just as helpful as any therapy session I'd been to in the past (In no way am I trying to undermine the benefits of therapy as a treatment, I just found it worked better in my case) and I found it easier to handle the black clouds when they gathered. My friends spoke to me about their struggles with similar issues. People I hadn't spoken to in years reached out to me, thanking me for doing something I thought was nothing.

I made a point of spending as much time with my closest friends and family as I possibly could. The summer of 2017 was probably the happiest I had been since I left high school. I identified things in my life I was unhappy with and started work on changing them. I'm still working on them today. 

I started off 2017 thinking of starting a family, thinking it would help save me. I ended it with a bigger and closer family than I ever dreamed of. A family I always had and who turned the worst year of my life into one of the best. A family who helped me save myself.

My Mental Health Diary: Go Compare

From 15th April 2018.

The last wee while I've found myself guilty of comparing my life to other people's.

It's an easy place to end up in. Even from childhood when we see someone with something shiny and cool we want a shot of it for ourselves. Only difference is that instead of wanting a shot of a toy or a ball or something it's usually aspects of their life. In my case when I'm not in the best place there's a hint of childish bitterness attached to the envy.

"How come they have that and I don't?"
"How is it fair that I have to deal with (X,Y,Z) but they don't?"
"How did they get that opportunity when I was overlooked?"

I hate it when I catch myself doing this because I know it's a dick thing ro do and it's utterly pointless. We're all individuals walking our own paths and yeah some paths are rockier than others. Some start off rocky but level out whilst others start level but deteriorate as time goes.

You can't ever truly see where someone else's path has been or has taken them unless you truly know that person. You won't know what struggles they've overcome or battles they fight in secret unless they open up to you. And in that case the last thing they need is an almost stranger acting like a jealous dick.

Fuck it and fight it. 🖤

My Mental Health Diary: Slip

From 10th April.

Once again I've slipped.

I apologise for going about it but depression and anxiety really are a relentless pair of bastards. Even once you've slipped they hide and sneak up on you. Sometimes they hit you with the melancholy and irritability that people associate with these pricks.
Other times they hit you with this horrible apathy towards everything and anything and you just do nothing. It's not that what you have to do isn't important, you just can't see the point in doing it. You can't see your accomplishments as being valid because they haven't made a big difference to the world. It's an awful part of dealing with the bastard that it can pull you to this place where nothing matters.

I'm in that place just now but don't plan on staying. I've spent too long there in the past and lost so much time and so many opportunities. I'm not going to let that happen again. I may have slipped but I'm getting back up.

Fuck it and fight it 🖤

My Mental Health Diary: Oxymoron

From 18th January 2018.

The first fortnight of this year has been weird.

I've spent a lot of time with some close friends and family and been surrounded by love and positivity. I've been down but not negative, which I know sounds like an oxymoron.
I've been able to accept that there are times when I'll be down for no obvious reason and that the best way to deal with that is with positivity. Because things will get better. The negative moments, the down days, they're just temporary. Shite, yes, but temporary.

Sooner or later things will pick up. I'm lucky enough to be surrounded with amazing people who help to fill my life with warmth and positivity. Who save me from falling back into that hole. Who remind me that life has it's ups and downs. If you fall down you have to hit the ground before you can get back up.

Fall down 7 times, get up 8.

Fuck it and fight it.
Martin x