WARNING – THIS POST CONTAINS POTENTIALLY DISTURBING AND UPSETTING DETAILS
So in 2017 why are people still so afriad to discuss their mental health issues. It’s not about being crazy, or suicidal or just depression. Mental health is anxiety, panic attacks, eating disorders, body dysmorphia, post traumatic stress, grief. You see they aren’t difficult words to say and they don’t have stigma attached to them individually but cluster them together under the term mental health and suddenly people don’t want to talk. For fear of judgment, rejection, being ridiculed and sometimes not even realising they suffer from a mental health condition and have just learnt tot live with these feelings. Made adjustments to their lives to cope, choose to hide away but face what they need. Nobody should have to live this way – that is not life it is a prison sentance!
Now you may be sitting there wondering who I am to be talking about mental health but thats just the issue we do not always know the battles others have faced or continue to face in their life so we should not judge anyone before we truly know them and their difficulties.
So let’s start as far back as I can remember – primary school. So I was bigger than some of the girls in my class but it didnt stop me doing anything. I had an active childhood and healthy diet but I was different. The bullying started most likely around age 8, just your usual playground name calling. Moving up to secondary school – it wasnt long before some of the girls started name calling I dont rememebr destinctly but i’m certain it started from the first year and it only got worse as the time went on.
Sadly as I got older and less able to cope with my emotions and a family history of mental health, I turned to self harming, it started with cutting, then physically hurting myself – breaking fingers/toes, punching walls, even hitting my head off a wall at one time. This developed into making myself sick – this continued for a number of years. Hiding the physical and blaming what I could on sporting injuries. Seeing myslef hurting and hurting myself weirdly made me feel better – A RELEASE an escape just temporarily but something was better than nothing. My thoughts were getting increasingly harder to handle and I had had suicidal thoughts but i’d never thought about following anything through. I knew I needed to escape and my opportunity came with university. I couldnt leave quick enough, I knew staying was not going to end well for me – infact it would have been the death of me, literally, I was at breaking point.
Time for a fresh start, nobody knew me, I could reinvent myself, be who I wanted to be not what people thought I was. It worked – I found new friends and enjoyed every day, that city stole a piece of my heart for saving me. It wasn’t plain sailing by any means, in my first year and first semester I suffered from insomnia terribly, not for the first time but not to this extent it was. I didnt sleep, regardless of what I tried sleep just did not come and being sleep deprived with a long time to think is not healthy and I just wanted an escape I wanted to feel normal and all I could think about was cutting myself. It had been about 12 months I think since i’d last cut myself and I held out for 3 days and nights, until I just couldn’t. It was all I could think about, it just wouldn’t leave, every second thought was filled with the thought of how good it feels, so I did, I gave in, I broke up a razor and that first cut was mixed feelings – happieness, sad, guilt, freedom and release. Oh the release I felt was like the first time again. Seeing the blood roll down my arm was wrongly joyous. I felt numb, it’s like the blood symbolises all the pain leaving the body. Since that night though, I have never done it since. Over 11 years - now that’s not to say it hasn’t crossed my mind and it certainly is not to say I haven’t abused my body in a different way.
So as previosuly mentioned I spent a period of about 2 years being quite unwell. It resulted in drastic weight loss and I can now see from this I abused/punished my body again. After getting better – becuase the weight loss was not my choice and I had no control over it, I was petrified of gaining the weight back. So I did what I could to control this, Monday-Firday I would rstrict my calorie intake to around 1000–1200 calories/day and of a weekend I would usually consume 2–3 meals entirely. I was weighing myself twice a day (morining and night) and if the numbers didnt match my perception of what was acceptable, I would starve myself the following days until the numbers returne to where they should be. I will discuss this in more detail in my wieght loss entry. This pattern continued for a number of years. It is simply another way of having control.
Sadly, what has become apparent since my weight loss is my overwhelming anxiety. So most people on first meeting me may see me as outgoing, bubbly, larger than life character – sadly this is not really true. In a new environemnt around new people - I would quite happily sink in to the corner and go unnoticed. With my job, where meeting large groups of new people comes every 4 months, i dont get that luxury. So I put on a face and brave the worst. I get palpitations, cold sweats, I go clammy. I wont sleep properly the night before, I will feel sick from nerves/anxiety, I will shake from the fear. Thi was not me before - I didnt really care about peoples opinions I would waltz in to new environments and just be who I was, not anymore. Maybe part of that has come with maturity and some has certainly come since the weight loss.
I also now struggle with the fear of being accepted. Before it never really played a part but now it very much encompasses my very being. Every situation, every new meet “am I good enough” whihc ll boils down to self respect – something I have had very little of for many years for a number of reasons. But with the gym it’s starting to change. I am realising that I am enough! I do not need others approval to be who I am and do what I choose. I do not do things whihc will offend others and I am respectful to all, therefore why should I worry about someone else. Be it someone I know and worse of all someone I don’t. What impact do they have in my life – NIL.So why do I allow the what if’s, but’s and maybes to dictate so much of my thought processes.
