Just please have a read...

So I was sitting at the kitchen table, after a days study, when this familiar wave crept over me. Its started off slow, and then hit me like a ton of bricks. It wasn't an unusual feeling, I'd been here before. In the chest crushing, over whelming sense of the emotion this wave brought.

That wave, was loneliness.

Now please don't stop reading because you think this is going to be a really depressing post and for feck sake theres enough bad shit going on in the world, I dont need to be reading more of it! I get that feeling, honestly I do. It's the same thing thats been going through my head as the Irish Times puts up constant posts about homelessness on my Twitter feed, and I can't cope with the sadness of homelessness because my own home means so much to me and I couldn't bare to loose it. Not to mention the idea that you'd have no body in the world who'd want to look after you.

So I decided in order to cope with this over whelming sense of loneliness I was going to busy myself by cleaning my room. I was going to pull out all the drawers and clean them and dust everything and I was going to be so shattered tired after all that I wouldnt be able to be lonely, and wouldn't I have a great sense of achievement and then that'd be lonliness pushed aside for another night!

And then...

On my twitter feed...

Popped up this fella.....

And I realised, that tonight, yeah maybe I was going to clean out my whole room, and it'd be great.  But that I wasn't going to run away from what I felt. That loneliness was shit, but it was ok to feel it and I shouldn't have to hide it.

I started thinking as well about what Kevin says about how depression never goes away. Now my speciality so to speak isn't really depression, I do suffer with it, but I would class myself as suffering more with anxiety. But the same rings true for both illness', they don't go away, even when you recover.

In the media, and I think this is a perception I have enforced upon myself, it's ok to suffer with mental health, as long as you're on the road to recovery and you're not suffering right now. I say this is a self inflicted perception I  have because despite setting up this blog to communicate to the outside world what it was like to suffer from a mental illness, I haven't really said much about the day to day issues.  Ya know its ok to not be ok, just not right now.

Stigma. It's one of the biggest words around mental health. Even when I do outpatient programmes we talk about stigma. Society's stigma, self stigma, these are huge issues and I personally don't have answers for them. I self stigmatise A LOT.  Another stigma thats coming up is this idea of bringing people down when you talk about your mental issues, and this is where the idea of 'it's ok to not be ok, just not right now' comes into play.

I don't blame people. Its only natural to not want to hear sad things. About homelessness, about the economy, about how a loved one is feeling like shit yet again today. But this fear of bringing people down, or that people switch off when things we don't really want to hear about come up, is real. and its so damaging to people who suffer with mental health.

This fear of bringing people down just adds to the culture of silence about certain aspects about mental health. Mental health is such a hot topic, and for that I am so grateful. Its not lost on me that if I'd been born generations earlier I'd possibly of been sent to have a frontal lobotomy,  if I hadn't had such wonderful caring folks I could of ended up on drugs and if they're hadn't of been such awareness there would never of been such great work done around mental health and I might still not be here.

But we need to open the discussion further..

We need to say it's ok to talk about the day to day stuff. That people don't need to pay €150 an hour to have someone listen to their thoughts because they've got people in their day to day lives who even if they don't fully understand that they will listen anyways because it's ok to talk about these things.

It needs to be ok for me to write here:

I'M SO LONELY AND IT SUCKS!!

and not have people think I'm doing it for attention, because I'm not. And I don't want a friend who's a psychologist. I just want a friend who will come over and watch a dvd, who'll help me shop for my family's Christmas presents, who knows my favourite bar of chocolate and know not to offer it to me because I'm permanently on a diet! I want a friend who knows me and accepts me, who I can know and accept back.

Because I might not be the best fun in the world, but I'm an ok person, who'd like a friend. And if you stayed with me till here, thanks so much, it means an awful lot to me. *HUGS*

And thanks Kevin, for reminding me why I started this fight, and why I get up every day and fight some more.

Relapse 101

      Let me tell you abit about relapse. It sucks ass, it's evil, it slithers in on you, you ignore all the signs, brush them all away while trying to not put much though into them. You ignore that feeling that something is trying not only to squeeze you to death at night, but has placed a huge brick on your chest. These physical manifestations are your fears and emotions. I think anyways. For over the past month and a bit, (you'll notice yourself you won't be able to pin point the moment or even the day when your relapse started) I have been so wrapped up in preventing anything bad happening to me when I went back to college, I couldn't see that something bad was happening to me right now.

   Of course, like all situations you look back and see the signs so clearly. The constant emotional and physical symptoms of stress; my head hurting, my teeth hurting, pains in my neck and shoulders, my stomach in bits, sleeplessness, night visions, tears, eyes burning, all the shit that goes with this crap. I am not a great person without my sleep in the first place, but adding on all these, and I started to crumble.

  I kept thinking that it was simply everything to do with college, getting ready, moving my stuff, organising somewhere to live and registering and picking subjects, the pressure of final year and what would I do with my life afterwards. But then in the past two weeks the stress just became too much. I kept thinking 'I wish my head would just stop and give me a break' and 'I just want to go home', which made no sense as I was at home. But it's because the place you're meant to feel most at home in, most comfortable in is my head, and I was not feeling happy in there by any means. I also thought both these thoughts before I went to hospital in November 2013.

   Last week things started to go very much down hill. I didn't understand the point of things anymore and all I thought about were regrets and the things I hadn't achieved in life. I didn't fully understand that you could feel hopeless but not suicidal, but I do now. After breaking down to a good friend (you know who you are) I worked up the nerve to tell my family how bad I felt, and that I needed to get back in touch with the hospital, as all the tools I had had not worked and I was out of ideas of how to help myself. A big problem is this time, its not the anxiety, its a huge wave of depression. It may mean a change of medication to help stabilise my mood. I'm not used to dealing with this heavy level of depression, and have no tools to cope.

  Telling people you feel so bad is probably the scariest part of all, next to the admittance to hospital. It's almost like at the same time you are really admitting it to yourself you need help. Also I worried sick about how it would affect my family, could the cope with the stress of it all again? My baby brother is going into his final year in college, how would my admission affect him? Then there was college. I am supposed to be going back the 22nd of September, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this. I'm still registering and going ahead with all plans as normal, but I won't lie, in my darker moments I wonder will I ever finish this year, and if I do go back will I be able to get decent enough marks to finish my degree? I think sometimes people forget, even when you're past a rough time with your mental health, you still have to go back and try pick up the pieces of your life from where you left it.

   After a terrible weekend just past, during which I had to be left on my own for the day, I decided there was not much point in eating, which left my weak and I fell hitting my head but thankfully not needing stitches. At that stage I'd been in bed constantly and unable to get warm or motivate myself to do anything much, for five days. My family and friends have been wonderful and tried everything, but there comes a point where they know themselves you need professional help.  So this Wednesday I'm being re admitted, I'm not sure for how long.

 To be totally honest, I'd rather be curled up in my little 'cave' of blankets than writing this as I find it tough to put what I'm trying to say into words eloquently. But I needed to do this, to say relapse is ok, it happens, its shit, but it happens. I never planned to be back in hospital this year,  but I'm going to be and it's going to be ok. Reach out and please get help if you need it. There's no shame in it, in fact I think you need to be braver to ask for help than suffer. Actually, I know you do.

 I don't have internet in the ward in the hospital, but there is in some places, so I'll try keep in touch with the blog as much as possible. I'm going to bring in a small little computer with me, and write articles and try upload them when I have internet access. I hope people won't forget about the blog as I am so grateful to everyone who reads it. I would really appreciate if people could keep my family in their thoughts, prayers, chants what ever you're into, as where as I will get help and support, families don't always get the same level of support.

  So I guess this is it for a little while, I'm really nervous about going in, but I know its the right thing to do. I hope everyone out there is doing well.


  Love as always.
xxx

Genie, you're free....

Hi pretty people....

  I think you'd have to live in a cave today to not of heard the tragic news about Robin Williams suicide. He was a wonderful funny man, who's movies, though sometimes seemingly slap stick always had a deeper message for humanity embedded in them. When I was very sick last September before hospital, I wanted something that reminded me of my childhood, something familiar, and as you'll see on my Instagram, it was the movie Aladdin. Robin just had that power, to change people's day or even their lives. Sadly he couldn't work the genie's magic on his own.

   Robin was always vocal about his struggle with alcoholism and depression, which seemed so contradictory to his on screen personas. It's often the case where the people who seem like the life and soul of the party are really struggling inside with their own demons. It also goes to show that substance abuse can affect everyone, not just 'weak' people who can't 'get it together' or down and outs or people who just can't afford to go to rehab.  

  Mental health doesn't discriminate, rich or poor, black or white, old or young. It doesn't make you weak that you struggle with it sometimes. I often hear people say, 'I don't want to burden people with my problems',  and it's true in some cases people can't cope with what you tell them. BUT in the majority of cases people will do their very very best to help other people. I always say to people you'll bother people a lot more by having them come to your funeral, rather than taking a few minutes out of their day to talk. It sounds harsh and dramatic, but as we've seen by Robin's death, it can often be the outcome when people struggle. 

                       SO REACH OUT!!!


   I can't stress this enough to people. Help is out there. Some times its talking therapy, sometimes it's pills and sometimes it's both. For some people it's going home and screaming into a pillow when they get home from work and that's enough for them and that's ok too. Dealing with your mental health does not have to be a long term issue. I think sometimes people feel if they admit they're struggling, it's opening a can of worms that they will always have to deal with, this is not the case! But these short term 'bouts' are just as important to deal with if they become too much, as the long term concerns. 

   I've recently noticed how in my articles about mental health I haven't put any links to organisations which can help. Mostly I have done this as I don't know where you the reader are from, and also I don't want to recommend any service over the other as different ones help different people.  However, I am going to put some links below this time and hopefully they can be of some help to people. 

Rest in peace Robin and thanks for the laughs, gone but your legend lives on. x

www.stpatricks.ie - St Patrick's Psychiatric Hospital Dublin.

www.mentalhealthireland.ie - general mental health 

www.ie.reachout.com - youth mental health

www.pieta.ie - selfharm and suicide

www.mentalhealthamerica.net - mental health in America

www.mentalhealth.org.uk - mental health in the U.K

www.mind.org.uk - UK charity around mental health

Please note that these are simply sites I googled and am in now way affiliated with. 

Small Update, which actually turned into a long one!!

Hi pretty people!!


        I just wanted to check in and say hello as I realised today that its been almost a week since I posted anything. I really don't want to be one of those blog people that only post things once a month, especially when I actually have time on my hands! 

       So a few things have been going on. Probably the most important issue has been an addition to my medication. Generally, I am on 20mg of Lexapro a day to help control my depression and anxiety.  I have tried coming off this medication before and trying other tablets, but so far this has been the most successful one for me. I have no medical training and can only speak about my own experiences  but I will leave links to details on it down below. However, my anxiety was still a huge problem. When I went back for my first review appointment after leaving hospital I discussed how bad things had been with my team; at one point I couldn't leave the house for a week and shook badly every time I did leave the house in general, I couldn't eat in public and so on, so it was not much of a quality of life. Despite my previous negative experiences with the drug my team asked me to try Lyrica, again I will leave links below to the details of the drug. Unsurprisingly, I was very nervous taking it, as I had had problems with it before, but my team explained to me these were probably caused by the cocktail of drugs I was on, and also how the drug had been prescribed for me, i.e. I should have been put on it at a much slower pace. 

                        

       So this initially started at 50mg a day, and we increased the dose slowly over a month, until I was taking 200mg a day. I personally feel they have made a huge improvement when it comes to my anxiety. They have allowed me to say yes to things which may have frightened me previously and I would not even of attempted to do. When I was going through the first few days of the dose increase I did feel slightly sleepy but this stopped, and other wise I have had no side effects at all. I think with Lyrica you may not even notice the effects yourself but people around me have defiantly mentioned the difference to me.

      Monday of this week I had to travel to Dublin to see my team to review how I was getting on with the medication. I had been to a 21st birthday party Saturday and was too tired to travel Sunday, which meant travelling up really early to Dublin Monday morning. I know some of my triggers for causing me problems and setting me back and lack of sleep is number one on the list! So I got up at 6am Monday morning, travelled for about four hours to see my team, saw two friends and eventually arrived home that night at 10.30pm after another four hours of travelling. Now, for people who are well travelled or don't suffer with tiredness that might be fine. However I am still shattered now and its Wednesday evening. Also my team decided to raise my dose again of the Lyrica but this time by 100mg a day, which is a much faster increase than I am used to. I'm back to taking naps during the day and because there's also a virus going around our house I feel utterly crap at the moment. I don't think crap is a medical term but it's defiantly a human term everyone can understand!

      Also I have officially decided to go back to college. This was a huge decision for me because even though I really want to go back, I'm very nervous about doing it and I know right now I'm not ready to go back and I am really hoping I wont feel that way come September. Also most of the people I know have graduated (which in some cases is GREAT!), and my best friend in college and all her lovely friends are going abroad (I'll miss you Zoe!) so really I'll know no one, which is pretty nerve-wracking. I worry sometimes too I won't be able for the course after being away for a year coupled with the fact it's my final year and so much depends on it. In life though you have to look for the positives, and my college have been very supportive (go D.C.U!) and I'm hoping to make new friends and trying to look at it all as a fresh start:) I think a lot of students go through these worries, and hopefully I won't have to face them alone. 


                     

      Recently, there have been people in my life that deep down I have known all along were not the type of people I really wanted to be friends with, but because I didn't have a whole load of company my judgement was impaired. These people have dragged me down, made me feel unworthy, lied to me (but apparently with good reason!) and greatly upset me, despite never meaning to. They're clingy and when they came to visit my home house I had to speak to them about how they treated my parents, never a good thing!! If you follow me on Instagram you will have seen my rant about this which put all the anger and frustration I feel into words. I have been trying to distance myself from these people, but because at times I am too soft for my own good I am struggling with the situation still and it is taking a lot out of me. I'll keep you updated....

                   

                          

     I suppose really what I'm trying to say is that I am shattered. I still love, love doing this blog, and it means the world to me to think people have read it,  I have just been so tired recently and every time I went to the computer to write something, I just couldn't even think, and I did not want to write crap for the sake of it. Though I'm not sure this isn't what I've done now! I just wanted to explain to people things have been tough. I guess as well to remind people that mental health is a tough topic, and when you suffer with it every day tasks can become huge issues.  If there is someone in your life like that remind to be patient with them and to support them as much as possible. Heck, be patient with everyone and support them!

    I don't know if people will read this, and a massive thank you to those that do:) I have quite a few beauty reviews coming so looking forward to seeing you all for those.

Much love and hugs! x


Lexapro:http://www.drugs.com/pro/lexapro.html


Lyrica: http://www.lyrica.com

Quick Update!

Hey pretty people!

Sorry I have not been blogging as much as normal, there's been a lot of personal stuff going on at the moment such as addition to my medication and having to face my fears head on, along with the added stress of unwanted visitors! But rest assured I will be back, as I miss writing the blog too! 

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend and happy (belated) 4th of July:) x

First mental health post- nervous...

 
                         

         Ok well I said that this blog was going to be about beauty and mental health, among other things. SO I've done a beauty post, so time for a mental health one... I am nervous about putting details of my mental health up on the internet so plainly like this, because, despite all the campaigns and websites and organisations, there is still a stigma.  People often say things that they don't always mean to be hurtful, things along the lines of  'She/he suffers with their nerves' or 'You'll be right as rain in no time!' or my all time favourite 'Have you tried not being depressed/anxious/phobic?'. 
                            

                                

      

   I think, as someone who suffers with their mental health, their is still not enough information out there. Sure we know the day to day stuff, like you won't sleep as well, you will be tired, you're heart will race, it will affect your work and home life ect. But the real ins and outs of mental health, such as you'll develop things such as irritable bowl syndrome, therapy will drain the life out of you and you'll be flatlined after it, your body will occasionally give you this 'atomic bomb' feeling, which is it shutting down to protect your mind from over loading, these are the things that only doctors and suffers really know. 

         I suppose now I've given you a very brief over view of the general gist of things, I shall get personal(ooh er!). I have suffered with my mental health from four years old. Yep you read that correctly, four years old. I don't remember being four years old of course, but doctors and my parents have informed me that that is when the trouble mostly started and I pretty much spent the whole time crying, an aspect of my childhood I do remember for a fact. Sadly getting help for a very young child with mental issues in the early nineties was no where near as possible as today, and plenty of adults resorted to the 'bold child' or 'doing it for attention' labels, and let me tell you that does do a lot of damage to the child in question. Luckily, I have supportive wonderful parents who eventually realised that this was not the case and I started therapy around six. 

         We struggled hugely to get people to understand, especially my school, which was a constant struggle to attend due to the fact that my worse panic attacks seemed to happen when I was in school. People used to ask me what made school so frightening for me, and I really couldn't answer. Along with the panic attacks I started showing signs of the phobia of being or feeling as if I was going to vomit, or other people being sick. I had, and still to this day have very little idea where this phobia came out of.  As most of you know, young kids get sick all the time, so this made school difficult on two levels.  Eventually three years later I changed school, and it did improve for a while. Fast forward a few years, a move to a foreign country and back, a breakdown which involved self harming and I eventually left school for good just as I was about to turn sixteen. Eventually I saw a good psychiatrist who was able to help me and prescribed me the same anti depressant I'm still on today, it was not plain sailing from there, but it was a turning point.

       This year, in my final year of my degree, after being re diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, which was a mis diagnoses, and being treated with too much of the wrong drugs, (lyrica, valium, xanex, sleeping pills, you name it I took it, as it was all prescribed for me), I had a huge breakdown. I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Dublin, and spent the next three months there. I was re diagnosed with sever generalised anxiety disorder,(among other things)and found out my odd phobia, was emetophobia. I will do a post on this phobia again, but if anyone suffers from this or even if you're not sure if you do, google Rob Kelly, this man seems to be the main expert on the subject.  To this day I have only met one other person who suffers from this while in hospital, luckily she is also a wonderful girl and we support each other as much as well can. Hi Katie!!!:)


                                     

     

    So, hospital was scary going in, I'd never been anywhere like that. I met some of the nicest people I know in there and the other patients were such a help to me. Sometimes we even had a laugh!! But you do see things and hear things in there you will never forget and you realise just how sick some people are.One of the low points was when I went through benzo withdrawals while in there, which was horrendous. This is basically when you have stopped taking the likes of valium ect. and your body is craving it big time. Think of coming off heroin, thats what it does to the body and mind, every day and night, even in your dreams. In fact they say benzos are more addictive than heroin. I CAN NOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH - BENZOS ARE NOT A LONG TERM SOLUTION !!!! The hospitals themselves have recognised this and these drugs are not treated in the same way there. However, many general doctors will prescribe them long term in large doses, its very hard to come off them and its scary going back to the anxiety but trust me in the long term this is one of the best things you can do for your mental health, and also your physical health. I was suffering with crippling migraines, loss of balance, unable to think straight or complete college work all of which lead to having to have two MRIs and a visit to a neurologist. But I'm not a doctor, this is simply my experience, always discuss medication with your doctor, and don't be afraid to look up your medication on line and ask your doctor any questions you may have. Anyways, rant over. You'd never guess it was a sore spot with me;)!?

      So, I'm back home now, I came out of hospital in the middle of February, and living with my parents and taking a break from college. Which is kinda how this blog came about. While living and studying in Dublin I had hobbies and friends and a sense of purposes with my study. But where my parents live is a small town and I know pretty much no one down here and there is nothing to do. My anxiety seems to be higher down here also, which makes me slightly agoraphobic. Apparently its to do with 'returning to the scene of the crime' type syndrome, because I went through a lot of my problems here, I am more anxious while living here. Think of it as going back to a place you were in a traumatic car crash, it brings all the emotions back and makes you upset.

   I think part of the point of this blog to me, is to explain what its like to suffer with your mental health and to try relate what I'm going through in a way that people who don't suffer with their mental health can understand, if that makes sense?? Also it helps me to reach out to people, as recovery can leave you isolated (not to mention having to live in a small town!) and sometimes you are so busy doing all the right things to recover, you forget what life is like to live!:) So its really nice to 'meet' other people, maybe connect with other emetophobics and just try get the word out there so people who don't have mental health can understand and can ask questions about it!

                                   

The 'visual' definition of anxiety!

    

        So I guess thats it for this post. I hope it wasn't too long or boring or depressing! If anyone out there is struggling, please know you are not alone, no matter where you are in the world.