I write this as I precariously balance a bag of sweetcorn on my injured knee and wonder if it’s a good idea to write this blog. Tomorrow is World Mental Health Day and the theme this year is workplace wellbeing.
The reason why I’m uncertain about this piece is I’m not sure how well this will be received. It’s taken a lot for me to recognise that a few years ago I was ill. Quite ill in fact. Six years later, I’m still coming to terms with it. Why? Because it’s hard. Because I’m not sure if I ever hit rock bottom. Because I lost two jobs and I didn’t handle it well. Because I nearly lost a third job in a row. Because I’m sure anxiety played a huge part and it makes me frustrated. Because I’m scared. Because anxiety and depression is now a part of me and it worries me. Because writing this down has suddenly made this very real but to lose the stigma of mental health, it has to be talked about.
Which is exactly what I am doing now.
We all know that mental health conditions can strike anybody. Like any illness, it doesn’t discriminate. You could have the world at your feet, all the money in the world and still suffer. I know there is no shame, but I feel it. I feel weak, pathetic that a simple task is riddled with over wrought fear.
I lost my ability to communicate. I couldn’t make friends. I tried so hard. I just couldn’t connect to anyone. I was lost in an unknown city. I couldn’t just ask colleagues if they wanted to go for a drink in the pub. What if they find out who I really am and then dislike me. I couldn’t even say good morning to people at work. At one point I pretended I was wearing Harry Potter’s invisibly cloak in the hope I would seamlessly walk from one room to another without being noticed. Paradoxically, I would cry because I wasn’t being noticed and the loneliness shrank me.
At my height, I was unable to write a sentence at work without over analysing every. single. word. and. check. all. my. grammar. and. do. it. again. and. again. I wouldn’t check it once, twice or even three times. Countless of times. I would sit there at my screen, paralysed. Then there was the panic of actually sending the email to someone. How would they respond? Does it make me look stupid. Do they think I’m not up to the job. Will they find out that actually I’m crap.
Then I lost my job.
It confirmed that I was, indeed, crap. A failure. I was told budget cuts was the reason why I no longer had a job but what I heard was ‘you’re no good’. Whether it was meant that way is by the by. I felt I was no good.
The second time was worse and it was then I had to walk away from an industry that I was climbing. I wasn’t enjoying it but I didn’t want to leave. It was destroying me and I didn’t know how to make it better. I couldn’t talk to anyone. I didn’t trust anyone. The little faith that I had in my ability was shattered so much that it became grains of sand running through my hands. I had nothing to offer the word apart from being nice. I didn’t want to be nice. I wanted a successful career.
Six years later, life is very much a different story. I didn’t lose my third job. Someone saw potential and gave me a chance even though I was really struggling. At one stage I just surrendered to life. I couldn’t kick back anymore and slowly, but surely I reentered the world and then I saw people giving me opportunities. Reading ‘Reason’s To Stay Alive’ by Matt Haig turned my world and made me realise I wasn’t strange. That I wasn’t some awful unlikeable freak. It wasn’t me. It was anxiety. All this time, I was screaming inside that this not the real me. I wanted one person, any person, to see though my anxiety and see me.
I know that exercise one of the ways to beat anxiety and depression. Six years ago, I bought a bike so I could cycling to the train station and then ended up doing the BHF London to Brighton Night Ride two years in a row. I’ve hiked to Everest Base Camp then I discovered a London running group called GoodGym about 18 months ago. This year have three half marathons under my belt and rode from London to Suffolk during the night.
The premise of GoodGym in a simple one. You run and do good within your local community. I cannot tell you how much these kind-hearted runners has helped me at the same time as volunteering for other people. It doesn’t matter who you are or if you can run far. If you can spare a couple of hours every week and are willing, you’re in. Every week you run to a community project, do a task which can be painting fences for a housing association, weed a allotment, make beds for the homeless during the winter and run back.
Just being part of something positive where people are not judging you on your looks or care if you have makeup on or care if your grammar is up to scratch has affected me in more ways than one.
As for the sweetcorn, I ran a half marathon yesterday and came off a bit worse for wear. My legs are stiff and a niggly knee issue has come back to haunt me. The half took me though a dark period for a few miles, but every step is one step closer to the finish and you dig deep and get there. Just like life, you hang in there and you just put one step in front of the other and you get there.
Breathe. It’s just one step.
If you need support there are people ready to listen without judgement. Chat to a trusted friend or talk to your GP. The mental health charity Mind has lots of resources to help.
