TIME TO CHANGE

This week is Mental Health Week. Except, I think it's finished now. But I am still going to write this entry, in case there is the slightest chance it will make someone who reads this feel slightly less rubbish.
My name is Emmy and I suffer with anxiety and depression. I am lucky enough to have only needed minimal medical intervention but other people are not as lucky as me.

I am writing this because at least 1 in 4 of us will have trouble with our mental health. I bet it's probably more like 3 in 4, to be honest. Because, if we were all honest about it, we have probably nearly all suffered. And it's not an embarrassing or shameful or weak thing, mental illness is an illness, like bronchitis or chronic migraines or haemorrhoids. Okay, maybe it's not like piles, but you get my drift. People don't choose to have a mental illness because they feel like being self-indulgent or an excuse to be lazy, it is because they cannot function in every day life and it is hard.

I was signed off work for six weeks in 2008 with anxiety and depression. I worked as a main support worker for a man with challenging behaviour, which basically meant I was paid minimum wage to what amounts to being assaulted every day at work and one day I couldn't, wouldn't, cope with it anymore. I did a strong thing by going to the doctor about it, not a weak thing. At the time I thought I'd failed, but actually, getting signed off was a great success for my emotional wellbeing and my health in general. And I was signed off work to recover and I ran away home to cry in my room and stare at the walls and sit in my bath robe and think and think and think.


And one day it doesn't hurt as much, and the day after gets better, too. Then you have a Bad Day of Doom and you think you're back at square one, but it is not square one because the sheer experience of a Better Day is the start of positive achievements and the road to recovery.


I am not trying to say that I magically got better by having time off work, far from it. It was hugely challenging, and I know people who suffer a lot worse with anxiety and depression than what I do. But I am trying to say that, if this is you now, there is hope. You can and will get better one day. Maybe not today, but perhaps tomorrow, or the day after that. You can do it.


And I'm not saying thatt once you feel better, you always will. Last night I woke up at 4 a.m. with the familiar feeling of intercostal muscle strain at the bottom of my ribs, where I have become anxious in my sleep and struggled to breathe using my diaphragm properly. I spent an hour controlling my breathing again, trying to fill my lungs up to capacity again and ridding my chest of the pain of adrenaline and panic coursing through me. The difference is now I know how to deal with that. I do breathing exercises and jot down what I think is worrying me on my bedside notepad, and what time of day it is. Then I can go back to sleep, hopefully. I am tired this morning but I am not feeling anxious.


Medals for everyone who read this, haha! I hope it's at least helped one person. If you're worried about you or one of your peoples, visit Time To Change TODAY, DON'T WAIT TILL TOMORROW. http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/


By talking about mental health and educating ourselves, we can undo the stigma related to admitting you or a family member or friend have a mental illness. I haven't edited this entry, I've just written it as it came out of my brainspace. I hope it is vaguely coherent ;) Lots of love to all xxx