Today I woke up and a realisation took hold of me as I got out of bed. I’ve spent over a year on antidepressants. In January 2018 I had a breakdown — and that became the catalyst for changing my life. It all started in a doctor’s office a few days in the aftermath of the breakdown. I had also been recovering from food poisoning, so I was as sick as a dog. It wasn’t the worst week of my life, but there was something in me that said;
You need to change. This isn’t right.
It had taken over a year of weekly therapy sessions to gain this level of self-awareness. During the breakdown I had vicious, dark thoughts swimming in my head. I wanted to self-harm, which was something that I vowed to never do again. I barely recognised myself in the mirror. I even had a couple of angry, borderline violent outbursts, and that was probably the scariest thing of all. Anyone who knows me in real life would probably tell you that I’m one of the calmest people they know. Deep down I was worried that I was going to hurt someone or hurt myself. Therapy alone wasn’t enough. While I think it helped me overall, it brought to light how messed up my childhood and teenage years were. It was like returning home after a hurricane had swept through the place you used to live. Nothing but carnage and broken things.
