It has been brought to my attention that my most recent posts have been somewhat sad in nature. As I have said, I tend to find that when I'm in 'crisis' I find it much easier to write - perhaps because I have some source material!
I find that writing when I feel a certain way is a great release for me and I also hope that by putting my thoughts out there in the ether they might be able to help someone else, just by knowing they aren't alone in having dark times. To that end I have today signed up to become a campaigner for the mental health charity, Mind. I have done a few things for them in the past, most notably raising over £200 by running a half marathon. I feel so passionate about ensuring that mental health conditions are understood and want to assist others through their journeys. There is something so comforting about knowing there are others out there who have a pretty good idea about what you're going through and having someone to talk to. Talking about my issues, I found, was one of the major turning points in finding a way out of my misery. Those of you who know me may have read a previous blog which documented some of my journey through depression and how dark things got; I'm living and breathing proof there is a way to find a light in the darkness even if I still struggle with it on occasion. I saw a Victor Hugo quote today which is very apt in this instance; "Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars". For me, the night that sits in my soul gives me an empathy and want to help other people dealing with their own darkness. That is my small constellation.
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Sometimes in life the voices in our head win. Those horrible voices who tell you you're not good enough or that you're ugly or that you'll never be a success at anything. I've been able to keep those voices at a whisper for a while but in recent weeks they have found a way to turn up the volume and are currently shouting at me.
They are so loud, it is very hard to ignore them. The ones who shout the loudest are the ones who get heard and currently the most deafening culprits are "you don't deserve to be happy" and "you're not good enough". Given I have been suffering with depression and anxiety for a long time, I am more than used to these voices and am getting better at dealing with them. I think part of the reason they are shouting so loudly at the moment is because I'm not taking good enough care of myself. When I eat well, sleep well (or as well as one can when one suffers with insomnia), meditate regularly and practice yoga I feel better about myself and those voices tend not to scream so loudly. Just a small deviation (so I've neglected my yoga practice and have consumed far too much alcohol than is necessary in the last 2 weeks) tends to give my misery a chance to get its claws back in. The one great thing about having suffered for as long as I have is that I now recognise when I'm walking into blackness and can do my utmost to try to either avoid going there entirely or at least to have some kind of light with me to get me through it without too much injury. I vow to be a better person not just to shut the voices up, but because I want to be. As hard as it is, I have to accept who I am right in this moment in order to be able to be better. I will take better care of myself and in turn take better care of those around me. I will be stronger and not allow myself to be caught up in what others are doing if it does not serve me or my goals in life. Learning to say no to others is about learning to say yes to yourself (thank you to the gorgeous Chloe Brotheridge for that gem of a quote) and I definitely need to be saying yes to myself a lot more. Sometimes in life the voices win, yes, but sometimes if we listen carefully we might just hear that whisper of courage that tells you to keep going and perhaps we will learn something we didn't know before and become all the better for it. I feel like I might be having some sort of existential crisis. Either that or lack of sleep is causing me to go ever-so-slightly doolally (or more so than normal).
Funny that today where we should be celebrating all things love, that I should be feeling this way. I am struggling hugely with self-love. Yesterday I felt incredibly positive. The weekend had been lovely, and I had felt incredibly spoiled by friends and family with amazing gifts and messages of love for my birthday. I was buoyed by this, and whilst I really don't enjoy going to work I was "happily" getting through my day. Suddenly then, a dark cloud descended. I struggle a lot with the way I am perceived and treated; and some comments and demands were made which sadly made me feel very unhappy. I have never been able to be fully contented in a job, always feeling that I am being used/abused but under-utilised. This is possibly partly due to the roles I have found myself in and also due to my own distrust of my ability and potential. I do also think that people overlook me because of my appearance a lot of the time. I have noticed in recent weeks, following some big changes at work, that I feel less and less a part of a team and more and more like either a servant or a useless appendage or both. Today is a day where I feel incredibly wretched and rubbish. Questioning why I can't just deal with things and be OK. Now, obviously, I know that as a depression sufferer, this isn't always possible but I feel like I'm staring down the barrel of a million failures (things I talked about in my previous post above success - see here) and wondering how it came to this. It struck me as I began to compose this blog, that I seem to only be able to write when I am feeling blue. It terrifies me that in order to be creative I have to feel despair or misery. Creativity is such an important thing, and if it is only ever manifested during times of crisis, I'm scared that as I start to recover from my depression I will lose my creative streak. I used to only be able to write songs when I experienced heartbreak and I seem to only be able to write a blog when I am feeling low. The drive to finish my novel stems very much from wanting to feel like a success at something rather than the desire to write. It occurs to me as I create this nonsensical stream of consciousness that self-love is very difficult but so important. I believe that many people assume that loving yourself means being overbearing and constantly telling people how good you are (this is actually a good indicator of being very insecure), but self-love is about accepting who you are, knowing that you are the best you that you can be, and not comparing yourself to anyone else (Comparison is the thief of joy after all). Without self-love the way I felt at the outset of this would be the way we all feel constantly (and what another terrifying thought that is). We all deserve love, and the greatest love we can give is love for ourselves as this is the only way we can truly give love to others. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about success. What makes someone successful and how do we measure it?
For many people success comes in the form of money or some sort of accolade or adoration, for others success is simply just managing to make it through the day. I do wonder sometimes why other’s people’s perception or understanding of success makes others feel like theirs are not successes at all. I have to say that I’ve never felt like a success at anything. I’ve put myself forward for things where I could potentially be successful and never been accepted or acknowledged. I do a job - where despite my knowledge and being in a position which should be considered an integral part of the team - because I do not earn commission, and am on a low salary, I am not considered successful. And quite frankly, I don’t feel like I’m successful either. This isn’t helped by the fact that most, if not all, of my friends already own their own homes and earn in excess of £50k per year and this often makes me feel like an outsider. Because I am not on the same level as these people my life ‘successes’ are not comparable. I can’t say “hey look I’ve just paid off a chunk of my mortgage” because I can’t even afford to save for a deposit, I can’t say “wow, I just secured a huge deal and got loads of commission!” because my role doesn’t afford me that. I can’t say “I’m the director of a company” because I’m not. Part of the issue is probably my own view on success and I suppose I always thought when I grew up I would be successful because I would be married and own my own house and either be a writer or be doing a job where I earned lots of money and could take holidays whenever I wanted. None of those things have come to pass. My age doesn’t really bother me, but as I approach my 35th birthday I suppose I am thinking more about my future. I am lucky that I have a roof over my head, an amazing boyfriend and the cutest little doggie known to mankind, and this should be enough. But is it wrong of me to want more and to feel that I have achieved something more in life? I’ve tried so many things in life and never once succeeded in any of them – I write novels that nobody wants to publish (so I don’t finish them), I tried to be a pin up model but nobody wanted to hire me (so I gave up), I started a YouTube cookery channel which nobody watched (so I stopped doing it), the list goes on. Success and worth shouldn’t be measured with anything tangible like money, but with our own sense of achievement. My boyfriend said to me last night (I’m paraphrasing here by the way) “if you can go to bed happy with how you’ve been as a person then you’ve succeeded” and he is right. Some days I have to accept that my success and achievement is merely getting through the day and other days it could be that I’ve got 100 views on the blog. We only get a short amount of time to live and we shouldn’t spend it comparing our ‘successes’ to others; we should embrace what we feel we have achieved and ignore those who tell us they’re not real successes because they don’t match to their view of accomplishment. Having said that, I would still like to publish a novel or start a business. And, even if I do those things I’ll probably still feel that I’m less worthwhile than the rest, but at least I can go to bed knowing that I’m a good person and that I’ve tried my hardest even if other people don’t appreciate me or think I’m a success. Today is a very important day. Today marks world mental health day.
Not only is it important for everyone, it is very close to my heart as someone who suffers with mental health issues. It seemed apt when I realised what day it was this morning as I got to work feeling a little low. Like everyone, I have good days and bad days, it’s just that as someone who has been diagnosed with depression and anxiety my bad days can be pretty bleak. I’ve learned a lot in recent years about mental health as I’ve tried to deal with my issues, and I still find it incredibly strange that despite it being quite a common occurrence, there is still such a stigma around it and little to no education. I still find it almost funny that those who do not understand or have not suffered mental health issues think it’s acceptable to tell someone who has depression to “cheer up”. This is not helpful in the slightest. I have to wonder if they think that we enjoy being in the depths of despair and that we are being purposefully miserable. If it was as simple as just “cheering up”, then there wouldn’t be such a thing as clinical depression. I also find it insulting when people used the term ‘depressed’ or ‘depressing’ for things that are just a little bit, well, ‘shit’ for want of a better word. If you have ever suffered with depression, you would not use the term so flippantly. Depression is an overwhelming black cloud. A suffocating and oppressive beast who delights in sapping you of energy and relishes in making you feel worthless. You may be reading this and thinking that mental health issues aren’t actually that commonplace and that you’ll never have it touch you in any way, but perhaps if you heard some statistics you would realise that it’s something that truly requires us all to stand up and take notice. According to the mental health charity Mind (www.mind.org.uk) 1 in 4 people in the UK will suffer with a metal health problem each year. That’s a huge amount. (Funnily enough, there are 4 people in my team at work and I’m the ‘one’). A survey is carried out every 7 years in England to measure the number of people who have different types of mental health problems each year. The last published survey was in 2009, and the results are truly staggering. Depression – 2.6 in 100 people Anxiety – 4.7 in 100 people Mixed anxiety and depression – 9.7 in 100 people Phobias - 2.6 in 100 people OCD – 1.3 in 100 people Panic Disorder – 1.2 in 100 people Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – 3.0 in 100 people Eating Disorders – 1.6 in 100 people Some problems are asked about over a person’s lifetime, rather than each year, but it still makes for compelling reading: Suicidal thoughts – 17 in 100 people Self-harm – 3 in 100 people With statistics like these, should we not be more open to learning about mental health issues? We seem to be very quick to accept illnesses such as cancer and want to do everything we can do eliminate them but do you realise that depression can be fatal too? Either through suicide or simply through giving up the will to live. There was a time, and not even that long ago, where my depression almost consumed me. I could have let that evil creature take me and drown me in its depths. I am lucky I didn’t let it win. I am lucky that I see light at the end of the tunnel. I battle that creature every day to a certain extent with some days being easy and I’m strong enough to keep it at bay and others where it becomes that much harder, but I couldn’t have done it without help and understanding from loved ones, friends and mental health professionals. Can we please stop the stigma? Surely it’s about time we made a change and started being kinder both to each other and ourselves? Don’t ever be afraid or embarrassed by your condition or, more importantly, to ask for help. NB: If you feel you are struggling and need to talk to someone, visit Mind’s website (www.mind.org.uk); contact The Samaritans on 116 123 (UK & ROI) or jo@samaritans.org; or see your GP. |
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