Mental health from my perspective

Mental illness is so dismissed because it is not a visible illness. You can’t notice a person suffering from a mental illness but you can notice someone suffering with a broken leg. The good thing about a broken leg is that you know it will heal and the pain will stop, but mental illness can stay with you for a long time perhaps forever and the pain never stops.

A lot of people don’t understand mental health illnesses and that’s because they are simply never spoken about. People tend to just suffer in silence because it’s easier than explaining how your feeling. If people spoke out about their illnesses they would probably find a lot more in common with some people than they think. It’s just a depressing subject that no one wants to bring up because they don’t want to hear about it.

I feel like you don’t just wake up with depression, anxiety ect, it slowly and gradually forms inside you and once you have it, it’s basically inside you for life. However there are many ways you can forget about it not 100% completely but defiantly 99% and learn to live with these illness’s with your own self-help. After all it is a MENTAL illness therefore it is inside yourself, in your control, and once you realise that then helping yourself becomes a lot easier.

I suffered/suffer from depression, anxiety, OCD and BDD. I say “suffer/suffered” because like I said I feel that you can overcome these problems but they are always inside you and aren’t that hard to come back. But once you are in a good place within yourself it’s quite easy to push them feelings away again if they do resurface.

I feel these problems were the worst in my teens, because of hormones and everything, but I had no idea how to control them back then or what to do. It’s all a bit scary at first when you have these feelings inside you but you have no idea why and no idea what to do. I felt extremely angry because I didn’t know how to control these emotions and thoughts so I would just take it out on anyone and everyone. Especially in your teens I think it’s an extremely hard subject to talk about and I had no idea how to explain these things and felt like people were going to look at me as if I was “weird” or an “attention seeker.” I didn’t know what was going on myself so I didn’t have a clue how to talk about it. There was no help around for mental health so I didn’t even know what it was at first. No one ever spoke about it in school or at home so it basically just got ignored. I felt stupid most of them years and just thought I would get over it. I spent most of my teen years very angry because of this and didn’t really know where to turn, so most of the time it just turned into getting into trouble. People just thought I was a very angry teen and hormonal. I knew there was more to it but I would never ever say because I was too embarrassed so I just let people think that I was acting up and messing around. They thought I just didn’t care but I really did deep down and spent a lot of time alone just crying because I felt so trapped.

I think for a lot of people to try and escape these feelings they turn to drink/drugs and other drastic behaviours because it feels like the only way you can forget for a while. I definitely turned to drugs in my teens and it honestly blocked out everything, but once you’re not on them you find the thoughts come back faster and stronger than before and you end up feeling a lot worse. That’s where the never ending cycle starts in which you just continue to take and take the drugs/drink because your mind is completely messed up that you just get to a point that you feel awful without it.

Luckily for me I got to that day where I just thought enough is enough. I think when you become really ill you just have to give up and realise that you do need help. Unfortunately for so many people they don’t have the help of others and they don’t have that day where they think enough is enough, and they end up in an extremely bad way or in worst cases, dead. I was extremely lucky to have a great family around me which helped me through it completely and I defiantly wouldn’t be here without them. However I also had the help of anti-depressants. I was on them for exactly a year and I think they really did help me. When you’re at rock bottom they definitely give you a new perspective in life and realise that you are important and just generally make you feel happier. As the days went by everything defiantly got better and I found that they blocked out your emotions. This is a good and bad thing-I think if you’re a strong person then you can handle your feelings again once you stop taking them and you’re alright, but it is a bit of a struggle. Once I stopped taking them, because I was pregnant, I didn’t feel that bad. Slowly I started feeling the same feelings I felt before I started them and the thoughts came back again, but I self-managed them. I was able to self-manage these feelings and make myself feel better because of the fact I’d been on these tablets and realised that life can be really positive and happy if I want it to be and that’s what they taught me. If you’re a strong enough person you will realise that too and everything isn’t as bad as it seems. Once you’ve been rock bottom there is only one way up and that’s the main positive.

I think that especially young people these days need help in opening up to others about their mental health issues, as I’ve learnt and found that bottling it up can lead to years and years of unhappiness and awful behaviours. You don’t want to get to that stage where you bottle it all up for so long and the days and days just go by, and your still living life unhappily not knowing that it could all change and you could be living happily. Don’t get me wrong you will still have those bad days but your whole thought process will be completely different and your mind will be stronger than ever before because of what you have gone through already to get to this place now. Happiness is so important as this is your life and you want to live it the best you can, and being unhappy doesn’t allow you to do that.

Trust me you’ll get to that stage one day where you will just feel happy and content in yourself that even if things do go wrong from time to time you will know exactly how to control yourself and help yourself in remaining happy and positive. Think: just never give up in helping yourself and who cares what people think about you! I no and understand that it is easier said than done but everything always gets better in time.

I used to hate myself and think everything was wrong with me but over time you learn and you realise that there are worse people in the world suffering from all kinds of different life problems that are terrifying and horrific. You end up just counting yourself lucky for being able to live in a country where there is so much help and support out there, and learn that happiness doesn’t cost nothing and you’re generally thankful to be able to live your life.

I’ve also learnt from becoming ill and never knowing if something is wrong or not in your body, that health is so important and it has made me realise how lucky you and your loved ones are if they are healthy and fit, because illness can ruin your life completely and others. I am so thankful for being healthy now and realise I should be happy with just being able to be healthy and live, because there are people out there suffering every single day unable to do anything in life, which we are capable of doing, which makes me realise you just have to be happy and appreciate your good health.

Here are some quotes and sayings that help me out and motivate: