Scary facts and the importance of support

Everyone knows that cancer is a killer. A big one. We're told, relentlessly by cancer charities that it's our duty to help 'fight' and 'beat' cancer, because we, or someone we know, will get it at some point. Now my purpose is not to undermine the importance of this message - cancer is a serious disease and is well worth the funding to treat and prevent it - but I do want to highlight the difference between the awareness of death from cancer and that of death from mental health disorders.

Some frightening stats

Are you aware, for example, that there are around 4400 suicides each year in the UK and that 90% of the victims are suffering from a psychiatric disorder at the time of death? (1) And that's just the successful ones. Around 10 times that number attempt and fail. Furthermore, a report carried out in 2009 suggested that 17%  of us experiences suicidal thoughts each year. These are by no means small numbers.

In 2013, there were over 49,000 deaths from Alzheimer's. That's more than the total number of deaths from breast cancer and lung cancer combined. (3)

That's a lot of fatalities and just part of the picture. 1 in 4 people suffer from a mental health condition every year. My point being, in case you hadn't guessed, this is serious.

The stigma

Image copyright: Rebecca Harris Quigg

Something you also may have noticed by now is that part of the purpose of this blog is to smash the stigma surrounding mental health issues into tiny, tiny pieces. Many people don't understand mental health disorders, and for that they cannot be blamed. It's very difficult to comprehend what depression or anxiety, PTSD or panic disorder let alone schizophrenia or psycopathy does to someone unless you have dealt with it first hand or had to support someone with such a condition.

What is unforgivable is the insensitivity that people sometimes display. I remember a time last year when I tried to open up to a colleague about the way I was feeling, before I'd identified it as depression. His response was, "So what are you going to do about it?", casually delivered as if I'd complained of a headache or a trivial work problem. This struck me as particularly cruel, and demonstrated a complete ignorance of the state I was in. He was someone that should have known better.

Depression - or any other m
ental health disorder - is not something you just fix by changing your job, or entering a relationship or thinking positively. It is a complex web that encompasses emotion, history, experience, genetics and many other things. It strikes at different times and in different ways. For me, it's something that happened so gradually I barely realised I was sinking until I was at the very bottom. For others, it comes out of nowhere.

Support

What all this is leading up to is the importance of support. I have mentioned it before, but I want to go into more detail. Support is available in the form of medication and therapy, and they are important routes to explore. But it also comes from our peers, and there are different kinds that can be offered.

When the Labrador of Doom strikes, a trusted
friend is essential. 

Being a friend to someone with a mental health issue is an extremely difficult and important thing. It's a very noble thing. And it doesn't always have to be in the form of talking about feelings. Some of us just aren't good at that kind of thing, but it doesn't mean there's nothing you can do.

One of the most solid forms of support I received was from my parents - practical support. Knowing that I could call my parents if I got myself into a mess, and that they would come round and help out was immensely beneficial. Of course they listened if I wanted to talk, but crucially, they did things. They washed up, they cooked dinner (even making baked beans on toast is too exhausting sometimes), they did the odd bit of cleaning. This simple stuff makes a hell of a difference when you're feeling like you can't cope.

I also had a lot of support from my friends. One in particular, Michael, was amazing. He kept in touch almost every day, he wished me luck each week before my therapy session, and then texted to find out how it went afterwards. Little things, but important. Not for one second did I doubt his support, and I genuinely feel that although I felt utterly worthless a lot of the time it stopped me from doubting my worth completely, just knowing that he was someone outside my family who was looking out for me.

Being close to someone with depression is hard. It's tempting to think that what they're feeling is partly your fault. For most, it isn't. Their mental condition doesn't mean that your marriage is failing, that they resent being a mother to your child, that you're a rubbish friend or parent or sibling. It just means that they are in the middle of a constant, exhausting, internal battle - one that doesn't necessarily let up when they go to sleep - and they simply can't find the energy to cope with daily life. It means their brain is just wired a little differently from everyone else's, either temporarily or permanently. Trust me, the fact that you are there at all means a lot more than you think, even if they're unable to express it.

1. http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-a-z/S/suicide/
2. http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/statistics-and-facts-about-mental-health/how-common-are-mental-health-problems/
3. http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/news_article.php?newsID=2277
Cancer stats for 2012 http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics

Image courtesy of Rebecca Harris Quigg, terrible photoshopping by Sam Thorp.

The little white pill on the counter top

There is a small white pill on the kitchen counter. So far I have managed to cut it in half, and I am looking at the two pieces. Two tiny 25 milligram pieces of SSRI. Taking it should be easy; it is going to help me get better.

We are, after all, a generation of self-medicators. We pop painkillers, contraceptives, allergy tablets as casually as we have a conversation. When we get sick, we Google our symptoms and can prescribe ourselves something before we've even seen the GP. Easy.

I cannot take this tablet. I'm so scared. As I stand staring at it, my head floods with everything that swallowing this tablet means, and could mean. It means I really am ill; it means a long uphill climb just to become normal; it means that I am about to become dependent on a drug. What if I can't come off it? What if, after 6 months, 50mg isn't enough? What if it doesn't work? What if I get awful side effects?

If there is one night I need someone to hold my hand, it's tonight. There is no-one. I sink to the kitchen floor and cry.

Half an hour later and I get to my feet, pick up the tablet. I think of my friend Jen. I think of what she would say. She'd tell me I'm brave, so that is what I tell myself, slightly shaky, tablet in palm. You are so brave, you are so brave, you are so brave... Seven times I repeat this before I can tip the tablet into my mouth and chase it with water. It's done. I collapse on the couch and begin crying all over again.

***

It is almost ten months later, and it turns out taking that first pill was a good idea after all. SSRIs don't work for everyone - they're not even necessarily recommended by GPs - but they gave me the stability to make that uphill climb and to get my head around a healthier way of looking at things.

Last week I began to come off my meds. It's a long process - I basically have to trick my body into not noticing I'm withdrawing so that I can minimise the symptoms - but I can live with that. I'm coming off the meds. It's another of my little victories.

My final twenty-something

I am officially 3 months out! Aaaand I still feel completely untrained. That said, I did run (which I haven't done since this time last year) for the best part of 12 mins last week. No laughing, this is a Good Thing for me.

I like to think I could rock the suit.
Also, girl guns are hot.

My latest cake sale raised £78 - yay!! - and I have been doing further baking this week, but not for fundraising purposes. It's my birthday tomorrow! I have been frantically baking cake for colleagues at TWO businesses. Kind of feel like Superwoman right now, which I think is pretty good going given the situation a year ago.

Growing up?

I'm looking forward to turning 29. This year has been bumpy, but it's also given me some valuable lessons, the kind of lessons I don't think I would otherwise have learned. I'm looking forward to this new chapter as someone I'm comfortable being, someone who isn't consumed by feelings of inadequacy.

For a long time I've battled with an inner emptiness that seemed impossible to fill. This aching sense of being the supporting actress in my own life as I watched it slip away. I wanted to feel 'normal', to have that magic life ingredient that everyone else seemed to have. My solution was to work, to achieve. I have always needed more - more qualifications, more skills, more studies. I have compulsively been good at everything, because in my mind there was no other option.

Yet still that wide open space remained inside me. Because it took a trip to the bottom to realise that the answer was not to better, but simply to accept myself. To be able to look at my life and understand that yes, there are things about me that are different from other people and I've ended up somewhere different from where I'd hoped. But I am not a failure. I am not a disappointment, and I am not running out of time.

So I'm raising a glass to my final year in my twenties. I'm celebrating with the people I care about, and I'm determined to appreciate my own peculiar version of normal. My life holds promise, where a year ago it only held frustration and claustrophobia. To everyone who has been a part of my journey over the past year, thank you, and I hope you will continue to play a part this year.

Also, if anyone could spare a moment to kick my ass over training to make sure I do it (instead of keep eating all this cake) that would be much appreciated!

Here's to 29!

Superwoman pic: comicbookmovie.com
Champagne pic: polyvore.com

Cake Bonanza Round III

Today I took cake and other baked goodness to work for the Mind cause. Behold the feast of deliciousness:

Incorporating double choc chip cupcakes and shortbread...

...Charmain's blueberry and oat muffins...

...Lemon & poppyseed cupcakes and Charmain's banana, bran and pecan muffins...

...and cheese scones (foreground) and coconut biscuits.

East Grinstead was a very happy place today!

Public training and more cake

The past few weeks have zipped by in a fizz of work excursions and workout DVDs. I have begun my training for Peru in earnest - Jillian Michaels' Ripped in 30 2-3 times per week, mask training twice a week and a long walk as often as possible.

The first public mask outing 

I took my training mask out in public for the first time a couple of weeks ago, much to the amusement of several of my colleagues. Having decided to get their obligatory gimp jokes out the way early on, I donned the head gear and went out during my lunch break to walk the mile or so up to the local church and back.

I should mention that this same week, I had run out of contact lenses and was wearing glasses to work. Now the issue here is that it's not really practical to wear the training mask with glasses since it sits quite high up the nose. At least it does on my face. So there was nothing for it but to venture out into the Kent countryside without them. Picture, if you will, a slight woman with a mask clamped over her face, vaguely unable to see and breathing like Darth Vader. Have I mentioned what a classy girl I can be?

There is, I have decided, only one way to tackle this situation, and that is to be excessively cheerful about it. In what reality was I ever not going to get weird looks pottering round like this? I have a trip to train for, and goddammit, I am using the latest training technology to prepare. That makes me cool. Yes it does.

Of course the feeling of trendy training quickly wore off when I took the mask off my now slightly sweaty face and unexpectedly noted its resemblance to a codpiece. Yes folks, I am running around with a codpiece ON MY FACE. And I am doing so while defiantly maintaining the cheery.

Cake: Round 3

When I started my new job, the first thing I did was to scope out the possibility of holding a bake sale. I'm delighted to report that cake is as popular here as it was at my previous place, and there are lots of people available to eat it! Consequently I am holding a baking fest this weekend to provide around 50 cake-aholics with delicious sugary treats. The girls in my team have also volunteered their culinary skills, which I'm very pleased about! Watch this space for pictures...

Charity tins are fab

Last week I emptied out my Mind collection tin and paid i
n a whopping £90 from the past few months' fundraising efforts, taking my total to over £1100. And still counting!

--edit--

Things I have learnt during the writing of this post: Searching 'codpiece' on Google images is a very bad idea.

Image courtesy of Etsy. I don't want to know why Etsy is selling Renaissance codpieces. 

Saying goodbye and the end of my totally emo existential crisis

This week has been big. Huge, in fact.

This week, I decided to stop having therapy. I didn't know until the day of my last session that I was ready to stop - it was one of those light bulb moments when suddenly you just know. I was driving away from an occupational health assessment, which I had found slightly insulting for reasons I won't bore you with, and it occurred to me that I was utterly sick of talking about my mental health.

During a friend's wedding last month I realised that I have accepted the fact that depression is a part of who I am. It's unlikely to go away, but it's manageable, and what's more, I no longer care about being judged. Because ultimately if someone thinks less of me because of my condition, it's symptomatic of their lack of education and understanding around mental health. It's their problem. In some ways my light bulb moment was the next logical step, but I wasn't expecting it to happen so soon.

muppet.wikia.com

Sat in my session that evening I felt like there was nothing left to say. Nothing to confess to, or to get off my chest. And so my therapist and I agreed it was time for us to part.

It's an odd feeling, saying goodbye to somebody who has basically steered you through the worst time in your life. She knows everything - everything - about me, yet I know nothing about her. I have been weak, vulnerable, ashamed, confused, hopeful and everything in between during our sessions, and together we have unpicked the tangle of thoughts, emotions and experiences that brought me to her in the first place. Saying goodbye was sad and joyful and melancholy and exciting all at once.

In case you're wondering, the part of me is being played by Miss Piggy in the above photo.

On, like, totally finding myself yeah?

www.superfunnyimages.com

It is a cliche, but for some of us there comes a point where we need to reassess who we are, because we need to challenge ourselves, or get a new perspective, or because the person we were just isn't working out for us anymore. There's this idea that to do so, it's necessary to spend a month in silence on an uninhabited island or spiritually connect with a Balinese wise man or something.


I am proof that this is a fallacy. I did not have to spend time in an ashram in India in order to find myself. I did not do it by seeking out a Tibetan fortune teller or a Kalahari shaman. I realised that I could be the person I want to be on a gently sagging sofa in a small room at the local community support centre. I did it by laying myself bare to a complete stranger and allowing her to help me sort through the broken pieces, remove the sharp bits and build something stronger from what was left.

The point, despite what gap year students might have you believe, is that accessing your inner strength and becoming someone you can accept and like is not about helping Cambodian orphans or taking some dubious substance and talking to God. It's about making sense of your past so that ultimately you can leave it behind and step confidently into your present.

And on a lighter note...

I have officially smashed my £1,000 target for the trek, and I still have 4 months to go!!!

sbr.ocsb.ca

The Little Book of Little Victories, and how I learned to do confrontation

Well hello there! It's been a while. Fundraising is currently taking a small hiatus while I figure out when to do my next event. In the meantime, life has delivered a good deal of excitement to my door.

The Little Book of Little Victories

When I first started my medication I decided to keep a 'victory' diary, which I affectionately call the Little Book of Little Victories, and still add entries to every so often. Depression, as I have explained, makes everything harder, from cooking dinner to socialising. So in order to get through, it helps to focus on the small things that have a positive impact; those things that mean, if only for a few moments, that you've beaten it.

In the beginning, the victories were simply things like, "Cleaned the kitchen and tidied my bedroom" and "Haven't cried today." Underneath these, I wrote how those actions make me feel. In mid September I recorded the first time that I had felt normal (for a given value of normal) in months. As the weeks and months have progressed, my little victories are growing, and recently I have been able to add two very significant ones to the list.

Last month I somehow managed to negotiate my way through a hefty interview process and find myself with a new job. Although my stress levels sky rocketed during this time, and I shed more than a few tears, I'm feeling pretty proud of myself for making such a step in such a short time. Once again I have to attribute some of this to the support of family and colleagues, but the fact that it's something I could never have done six months ago makes it all the more rewarding.

I've now been in my new role for almost a month, and have coped with the transition better than I imagined. For the record, I had imagined more than one meltdown by now. There have been none.

How I learned to do confrontation

I write this with some hesitancy, because I don't wish to claim that I have, by any means, nailed this particular issue of mine, but today, I had a conversation that required me to be somewhat confrontational, and I managed it without panicking, getting flustered, or feeling guilty.

Allow me to offer some background. Put simply, I hate confrontation of any kind. Historically I have found it sort of embarrassing and experienced feelings of guilt soon after expressing any sort of displeasure. At anything. I have talked, at some length, with my therapist about this, and when I happened to mention again that I don't like confrontation the other week in my session, she replied with a sly grin, "Don't you?!". You know you're getting better when your therapist starts getting sarky.

So the most recent victory for me was having that conversation, where I articulated my frustrations clearly, assertively and without embarrassment, and instead of feeling bad (which my brain tried a couple of times to make me do, resulting in an internal Smeagol/Gollum type scenario in which Smeagol ultimately won, getting Gollum to eff off) - I actually felt pretty good. Not, I'd like to point out, because I'm a heinous bitch who enjoys having a go, but because I had the courage to stand up and fight my corner. And that is a pretty big little victory.

Pics courtesy of http://imgarcade.com/ and http://www.quickmeme.com/