I thought it was important to talk to my own experiences if I ask for the same. The weight of anxiety and depression always felt stable and it was difficult to see a way out.
It took me several years to open my family to how much I was struggling with my mental health – I felt alone and isolated and I had no safe space to go back.
It was a very taboo issue and the majority of people are not sure how to react to someone who passes through these struggles due to lack of education.
In my mind, I was a burden on everyone around me. I completely lost myself and who I was. The only comfort I felt was in the form of self -injury, with which I continued to fight for several years.
No child should resort to harm himself, but unfortunately, I did – it led to suicidal thoughts to the point where I had decided it was my only choice.
Fortunately, an exit during these complex times was actually my dog Coco. It brought a lot of comfort and support at a time when I had no one else to turn around.
My anxiety and depression quickly began to influence the image of my body and how I saw myself. I learned slowly that one thing I could control was my weight. I lived in what he felt like hell.
I will limit myself, hide food from the family to pretend that I ate it and if I had some ounces of food, then I would immediately get sick and get a laxative. It was the most unhealthy I was ever, but I don’t care as the scales continued to fall.
I was now at a point where I was fighting 3 different diseases that all longed for a different result and I struggle it on its own.
This continued until my sister and sister noticed and encouraged me to talk. It was the hardest thing I had done, and made me realize how bad I was.
They showed me that treatment was possible and it was worth being happy.
It was a complicated journey to open what was happening. It is extremely difficult to explain the extent of mental health affects your daily life.
I expected it to be an immediate elevation from my shoulder, but unfortunately, this was not the case.
After talking to both medical professionals and many different advisers, darkness does not seem to shift, there was no real knowledge of how to deal with how I felt.
I was given very quickly antidepressants, which we based massively for the coming years. I also get in touch with the eating disorder through my GP.
Unfortunately, after very little meeting time with them on a weekly basis, they were based on my treatment for how much I weighed instead of what I felt mentally.
As soon as I got to what they saw as a “healthy weight”, I was told that they didn’t have to see me anymore, even though I was still suffering mentally.
This has shown me how very natural health is kept compared to mental health.
I felt that I was back everywhere, I couldn’t help. My stress ate in every aspect of my life and I felt that no one around me understood. I felt incompetent and lost all the independence.
I couldn’t understand why my mind was fighting me in every way. I was completely exhausted.
However, one thing that upset and angered me more about all this was the thought of someone else who feels the way I felt.
I turned this anger into the passion for mental health support – I want to fight for people who can no longer or who can no longer fight for themselves.
I am away from the healing, and still massively to date, but one difference I have noticed is that when I feel myself returning to dark places is that I want to get out of them now.
Eventually I feel lucky to wake up in the mornings instead of wishing it.
My own experiences have fueled my passion to ensure that no one feels alone on their journey.
I have 3 beautiful nieces and I want the future of mental health to be different for them.
Stigma, lack of understanding and limited access to care can obviously make a difficult situation even more difficult. That is why I have chosen to support MQ’s mission – thanks to organizations like MQ, things change slowly. The more we know, the better we can provide support and the right treatment for people who are struggling with conditions.
This is what makes MQ unique: their commitment to the use of science and research to reveal the roots of mental illness. The research they provide can make a real difference in people’s lives. It is vital to create an environment where people feel safe to seek help and speak openly about their mental health.
MQ helps to break the stigma and stand for the changes that need to occur. They create a world where everyone, regardless of their background, feel authorized to seek help and talk about their mental health openly.
As much as progress as charities like MQ they have done, there are still many to be done. Research on mental health is subjective compared to other areas of medicine and therefore donations and concentration of funds are vital.
