That’s mental...health
In the spirit of mental health awareness week, I wanted to write about something very personal and dear to my heart - mental health. A person’s mental health is their condition in regards to emotional and psychological well being, but for many years if a person had ill mental health, they were diagnosed as insane or abnormal, when realistically, this week alone, 1 in 6 people have been effected negatively by their mental health, meaning that throughout a lifetime the majority, if not all people are effected negatively by their mental health in some way or another - this is not abnormal.
Even though a lot of the stigma’s that used to be associated to mental health are loosening due to education and understanding, one of the issues still attached to mental health issues is that if you suffered from a mental illness, that it will always be there. If someone once had depression, anxiety or any mental health disorder, they will always be associated with having depression or anxiety etc. This is not the case and I a walking example of this. If you asked someone who met me recently, they assume that I am very level headed and forward thinking but this was not always the case. Mental illnesses are thought of as being scary or awkward to deal with as it isn’t something tangible, when in fact, similarly to an biological illness, mental illnesses can be treated, often with a lot more options and opportunities for treatments than for a biological illness.
Mental health is a subject that is very personal to me for many reasons. Honestly, this is what I want to do with my life. I’m a psychology student and if my plans all fall into play, I will be a doctor in clinical psychology in a few years. But what started my passion for ‘abnormal’ and clinical psychology was from my own experiences with mental illnesses. Think back to the age you really began to understand what emotions were and what you were really feeling. Of course we have emotions from when we’re born. We can be happy or sad or angry or a bit neutral but you only develop a much more sophisticated understanding of your emotional state and wellbeing as you reach adolescence. My parents separated when I was about 9 years old, they divorced when I was roughly 11 and this dictated a lot of my life and it was from this that I began to understand my own emotions. When moving to secondary school, I knew my parents were having money issues and decided it wouldn’t be fair on them to choose to go to a private school when I had the option of going to a good local school which was free, so that is what I did & honestly it was the best thing that could have happened to me and of course I would not be where I am or the person I am today without that experience. But it did have it’s down sides. For the next few years after being at secondary school, not to sound cliche but my life was a whirlwind of emotions. I got picked on at school for having a scar under my nose, and got called piggy an pepper pig (even though I don’t have a pig nose - just a scar) My dad moved out, my mum and dad were having MAJOR ‘disagreements’, we weren’t financially stable and my mum and I did not get along. My mum really wasn’t the best of people and I was very unhappy and I knew this consciously from about the age of 12. I used to self harm and generally was in a very dark place, I couldn’t see any positives in life. I tried to get help, through the school, and saw a counsellor & she was one of the inspirations for me to get into psychology. She was fucking awful. I would see her once a week and discuss problems or arguments that I had with my mum and I could tell she didn’t take it seriously. She would laugh at the scenarios I told her and then rather than listen to how I was feeling, she would sit there and tell me what I did wrong - what a load of help that was. There was never any resolution to how I was feeling and there was never any ‘official’ end to the sessions, but of course it did end... when SHE began to miss my sessions and wouldn’t ever reschedule them herself, so eventually I gave up. To put a cherry top of my horrible first experience with mental health treatment, many years later, my brother (at the same school as me) saw her and she told my brother overviews of what I told to her IN CONFIDENCE, still continuing to laugh about it. What a bitch. Luckily for me, soon after I had given up trying to get help from her, I had the absolute pleasure of meeting one of the most inspirational people I have met in my life. Her name is Nicky and she was the mother of my first real boyfriend. When I met Nicky, she was a hairdresser training in psychology to become a counsellor. She used to share her books with me and tell me all about her course and I could feel the passion she had to help people, and of course she knew what I was going through but we never had ‘counselling sessions’, but somehow, inexplicably, she really managed to help me personally and change my life for the better, and I will be forever grateful and hold a lot of love for her. Even though her son and I aren’t together anymore, we still exchange messages from time to time and and if I were to see her I could talk to her for hours. She is now a qualified counsellor with her own practice and I could not be more proud.
This was definitely when the darkest period of my life came to an end. By the age of 15/16 years old, I had already managed to defeat one of my demons. and of course I still get days where I feel down, but everyone does and nothing has ever compared to how I felt constantly throughout that part of my life.
However, throughout sixth form, I began to develop a form of anxiety and I don’t want to put all blame on him but a huge aspect of this was caused by a very unhealthy and controlling relationship I was in. On the surface it wasn’t unhealthy, it wasn’t aggressive or abusive - controlling is the best word I can use to describe it. He was a very jealous and self conscious person and I knew that he had his own issues but he definitely took them out on me. I’ve always considered myself to be an outgoing person, but I would miss parties and going out (even if it was just my girl friends) because he didn’t like me going and would somehow manage to have a strop of cause an argument if I did go out, and I would always end up having a lousy time and go home early. My birthday is in November and the year I turned 18, I went clubbing twice. He turned 18 the same year and the week after his birthday, he went clubbing 4 times, and I wasn’t even invited at all - one rule applied for me and another for him. I also wasn’t allowed to have any contact with any other boys. I had made a very good friends in sixth form, meaning I met him before my boyfriend and I got together and my boyfriend told me, it made him feel uncomfortable that I was friends with him so I had to delete him off of social media and stop sitting with him in school. Additionally, if a person were to fancy me, it was my fault. A few months before I went to university, I made a big change to my hair and went from butt-length blonde hair to a brown bob - it was a very spontaneous decision (I literally decided the day I got it done) but it was the best decision because as I was going to university, I wouldn’t be able to afford to keep getting my hair bleached blonde, so i went back to my roots. When he found out, he got so angry because I didn’t get his permission and thought I was trying to keep it a secret from him. It was due to these sorts of reactions that caused me to doubt everything I did and everyone I spoke to. It was only when I went to university that I began to be more outgoing again and it was probably because he was no longer around to make me wonder what would happen if i had a male friend or I wore a lot of makeup or spent a lot or any money etc. and unsurprisingly, this was when the relationship disintegrated. Now I can’t blame him fully, because he was just trying to make himself feel more comfortable - upon reflection, I should have never compromised my values and personality ever, and I know that I never will again. (Of course there are two sides to each story so I’m sorry if I have made him look like a horrible person but I can tell you that I still care a lot for this person and have a lot of time and respect for him and I would never purposely say a horrible thing about him, this is just my side of the story), but once I had recognised and accepted this issue, it was something I knew I could help myself with and I did. Another demon defeated. This is my experiences with mental health personally, but it is not the end of my experiences with mental health.
The third and final inspiration for my passion for psychology is my mum. I explained earlier that my mum and I didn’t get along in the slightest and I always seemed to be the child among 3 who was in trouble and doing something wrong the most (even though most of the times it was dumb situations that got blown out of proportion), however it has effected my brother and sister too. My mum was a very angry and spiteful person and she will be the first person to admit that. Only now that I am older, I truly understand that, yes it was unfair for my mum to act the way she was acting, but she acted that way because she wasn’t happy, not because she was a bad person. She went from being loved, comfortable and settled and not needing to work, to being a single mother, she had to go out and find a job and work 9-5 for a low income, just so she could feed and care for 3 young children. Then at the weekends she would have to wash school uniforms, clean the house, do gardening as well as cooking meals, caring for children and preparing for another week of work. She didn’t have any time to herself and it was a sudden and drastic change and to top it all off, due to complications that I’m not going into just because I don’t fully understand myself, my dad was not obligated to help. He had joined custody, but he moved to a different country so we rarely got to see him. And unfortunately, my mum resorted alcohol to in order to cope with how she was feeling. This started when I was 9/10/11 years old and she is only bouncing back from it now. Up to 10 years later. Thats a hell of a long time to be in pain and coping for the sake of other people. I never understood when I was younger and I just thought she was a horrible person - this is a outlook that neither of my siblings grew out of. My sister lives at her university and never comes home due to bitterness and my brother lives with my grandparents (a story for another time), and it honestly hurts my heart that neither of them can actually think about the struggle that my mum went through. Since coming to understanding, my mum has confided in me and said there were times when she considered taking her own life but didn’t because she didn’t think it was fair to leave us without a mother. She has apologised to me for how she used to treat us and said she understands why she lost both my brother and my sister but hopes to make it up to us one day. Even though she wasn’t the best mother when I was growing up, I understand and it’s been a hard ride for all of us but she never gave up on us and to be honest raise three great children. I wish I could have understood and helped her from a younger age and today I would do anything in order to help her to become 100% happy.
It is people like my mum, who were too afraid to get professional help because she thought people would judge her or laugh at her thinking she was overreacting and she also felt that she needed to be strong for us so would do anything to hide the way she felt. I consider myself to be part of a community full of people who have been affected either personally or through other people, by mental illness and mental disorders. Not only through my own experiences, but my desire to help other people. Whether it is many years of being depressed or suffering from anxiety, a more uncommon mental illness such as schizophrenia, of just looking in the mirror and thinking “I don’t like how I look today”, a persons mental health has an impact on everyone individually. You would have thought that seeing as everyone experiences it, it would be easier to talk about but there is still a lot of fear of the unknown that circulates mental illness. It is okay to be affected by mental health.
This year, the main focus of mental health awareness week has been directed towards men. This is because there is a common belief that men need to be strong so being affected by their mental health would make them look weak, but as a result of this belief, suicide rates in men are now substantially higher than that of women. So to the men taking the time to read this, or the girls, please tell the men in your lives that it is an issue than people need to be educated about. If you are down or unhappy or are hearing voices or are scared to talk to people or anything you are uncomfortable with, tell someone. Whether it is a professional, a girl/boyfriend or just a friend. You’re entitled and allowed to feel that way, and the only way you’ll rehabilitated from it, is through accepting and seeking help. Treat your mental health, the same way you would treat your biological health.
I apologise that this is such a long rambley post, I never intended for it to be quite so long, but this is something that I am so so passionate about and through sharing my stories, I hope that people will realise that mental health is not a scary or awkward topic to talk about and people can get better. As i have made clear throughout this whole post, this is a career path that I am going down, and even though I am not qualified as of yet, I am always here if anyone ever needs a stranger to confide in.
Happy mental health awareness week, and a toast to a future of acceptance.
You’re all butterflies.
