So I'm a little late given its Friday already here in the UK but I felt I should post something, somewhere.
Mental Health is a subject that makes a lot of people awkward and if you are like me you hate talking to people about how you are feeling/opening up to say you are struggling and just putting on a brave face but it needs to be talked about.
I had clinical depression the hit while I was at university, and I was a mess. I didn’t leave my flat other than to collect post/food deliveries for a whole month and just avoided everyone. My flat was a tip and I didn't even know where to start in cleaning it because it had got that bad, there were mouldy plates piling up and it was gross, and not something I am proud of in the slightest. Months before this when signs started to show, I basically cut most of my own hair off, and although one of friends spotted the signs then and asked I had brushed it off.
It was actually one of my university tutors that helped me break out of the cycle after sending me a concerned email, asking me to come and see her. I so wanted to decline and just continue on how I was going but realised I need to do something after getting the news one of my friends had died having been in a coma for the last month after an accident. I had been friends with him through school and university, having worked on the university magazine with him and he had helped me become a better writer during that time. The two things combined told me I needed to do something about the situation I was in.
Admitting that I had a problem and needed help was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. I broke down in front of my university tutor in a glass-walled classroom (not my finest moment) and she immediately called the doctors on campus for an emergency appointment. It was a couple of hours to kill and I took all my will power not to run back to my flat to safety in the meantime.
During a couple of hours, I called my mum... that was by far one of the worst things id had to do that day, admitting to my mum who I consider to also be one of my best friends that I was in trouble needed help and what had been going on. Yikes. Just Yikes. She wanted to come up immediately, but given that was two hours away I said no.
Queue the doctor's appointment, breaking down in front of the doctor an emergency prescription of antidepressants to start immediately along with a wonderful line I will never forget. ‘I don't know how we haven’t found you at the bottom of a bottle or in a ditch somewhere.’. She couldn’t believe I had got this far for so long without seeking help. Luckily for everyone, I’ve seen how suicide affects people and I never want to put my friends and family through that pain no matter how bad things get, so I was still alive.
Trying to get things back on track while starting antidepressants was horrendous for the first couple of weeks, I had really bad side effects to the point where I was having to use the walks to walk because I was so dizzy/no balance etc that I was just falling over if I didn’t. I was really ill those first couples of weeks, my mum came up and cleared my flat up while I was laying down because of the whole world was spinning and given how small a flat is at university it 2 days to clean it up which just shows how bad it was.
I am now of antidepressants but did take them for over 3 years before coming off them and although I don't think it will be the last time I will be depressed at least I know how to try and help myself next time.
Looking back I know I should have talked about it sooner but the stigma around and the worry about how others would perceive me, while also believing that I hadn't been through enough to be like this lead to me bottling it up and its exactly why the stigma of talking about mental health needs to be broken! It’s so important. If I hadn’t have had those things to snap me out of it I dread to think what would have happened in the end.
