This week is #mentalhealthawarenessweek, and after seeing lots of people bravely opening up about their mental health struggles across social media, I wanted to write something.
I want to use this platform to do a shout out to everyone who has found lockdown incredibly difficult, and whose mental health has suffered, and tell you: You are not alone.
About six months ago, life just got a bit too much to deal with.
After two crappy reflux babies that never slept, years of severe sleep deprivation, and losing a career I loved due to going on maternity leave, I genuinely thought I was a resilient and confident person who could deal with everything life threw at me… But life had other ideas.
Last year, for the first time in my life I started taking antidepressants as well as doing talking therapy.
I phoned my doctor looking for some help sleeping, and she asked about how things were going. She listened, asked more questions and in the end prescribed me citalopram for depression and anxiety.
It’s the first time I’ve spoken about it in public other than a few throwaway comments in a blog post, because somewhat surprisingly for a blogger I guess, I am not much of an oversharer and I don’t tend to talk much about my private life. Saying that, I’m not ashamed, and it’s definitely the right week to be talking about it – so here I am.
The drugs have contributed to me putting on about a stone in weight (which I won’t lie, sucks) but there is no doubt in my mind that they help so much with day to day anxiety and coping with… well, everything *gestures vaguely*.
Please, if this sounds familiar, speak to your doctor.
You don’t even need to meet with them; phone appointments can be done from home.
Don’t wait for things to reach breaking point.
Don’t worry about what people will think, or keep it to yourself because you don’t want to be a nuisance.
Don’t assume that because things aren’t always dreadful, and life could always be worse, and because you can still make jokes and laugh and slap on a smile that it doesn’t matter; that it’s just a blip and that it will sort itself out if you just hold tight and bear it.
Don’t see admittance as a sign of weakness, but of strength. Of taking control, because you can.
When I first told my friends, I was astounded at the number who had first hand experience of depression and anxiety. People I had never expected to suffer, people who always seemed so calm and stable, and put together. And now I am one of them, and it’s OK.
You are definitely not alone.
By the way , the title picture isn’t entirely unrelated; the day before this I went out in the evening, and having not done so for a long long time I forgot to take my daily pill. The next day was bloody horrendous, so it may not look like it particularly, but this is me, barely holding it together. It’s never that easy to tell.
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I went to the doctor to talk about pain relief and burst into tears. It wasn’t my usual doctor, but their on site paramedic and I ended up telling him about my daughter and my grandson, which caused her severe depression with psychotic episides, severe social anxiety and her her husband and newborn living with us just as I had had a knee replacement. Hubby and son in law were both at work all day. I could barely move and found myself looking after a new born thar cried all the time (until he was diagnosed as having Cow’s Milk Protein Intolerance) as my daughter couldn’t be in the room when he cried, she just ran. She was dreaming of and seeing dead babies when awake. She was a mess and I just had to cope until they went home 10 months later when they finally got her meds right. I can pinpoint the exact moment it the depression and anxiety hit her, when my grandson was a few weeks old.
The man I saw at the doctors was amazing, he diagnosed my own depression straight away, something I hadn’t been able to admit to myself and said it was understandable considering all I went through when my grandson was born. Along with the pain and that, even though I love my grandson to bits we still had him half the week to give his parents a break. Prescribed me antidepressants and stronger painkillers and anti inflammatories.
This was literally a couple of weeks before the first lockdown, I dread to think where my mental health would have spiralled to during if he hadn’t seen it when I fell apart.
I still have some bad days, the pain in my hip doesn’t help and comments from those who don’t understand that having osteoarthritis causes more pain than I would wish on anyone from some doesn’t help.
My grandson was diagnosed with ASD officially when he was about 6, but we guessed he was from about the ago of 2 and he could be very hard work, even now when we know most of his triggers they had hit out of nowhere and I find them hard to deal with, without getting upset myself. We still have him half the week, thankfully most weekends pass without incident.
But now, I am trying to stop masking my pain – I’m very good at it and if I am having a bad mental health day I will admit it .. and the menopause isn’t helping … but I’m better than I was 6 years ago and when I get my new hip, I think that will help a lot, pain in your hip, lower back and groin, sometimes all at the same time are not good for your head.
Mental health needs to be taken more seriously and given more money for resources, that was evident when my daughter fell apart. It was very hit and miss … some idiot from the crisis team actually said to her ‘you do know babies cry, right?’ Hubby showed him the door. Thankfully she now has an amazing GP and I have a wonderful paramedic, much better than my GP.
Will stop waffling now and wipe away my tears.
Much love to you Diane. You’re a lovely grandma!