I'm Just a Little Bit Cray and it's Totally Okay.

You may have heard about the Heads Together campaign Prince Harry and The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge launched last year... pretty sure it was last year.  It's basically just this whole big campaign to normalise discussing mental health and letting people know that IT'S TOTALLY OKAY TO BE CRAY.  Okay, so that's not quite how The Royal Family put it, but that's the message that I got.

Anyway, Sunday was the London Marathon and Heads Together was the main charity.  It was the first mental health marathon.  Mental health is just kind of a big deal right now and I personally think that's really cool, because for a long, long time it was not okay to talk about mental health and everyone thought it was weird.  So, I'm writing about this now, because it just seems like the right time.

A lot of people might still think it's weird to share such a personal experience online, but that's kind of why I'm doing it.  A lot of people probably also think it's weird when I start crying on public transport or hyperventilating in classrooms, so I think I'm beyond embarrassment by this point.  The whole point is, it shouldn't be weird and it shouldn't be embarrassing and it is no more personal than my cancer chronicles, which has only got positive responses.

If I can write blog posts about what it's like to have cancer, I can write about the scars it left me with.  Nah, not the weird line just above my left boob or the one on my neck that no one notices until they ask about the other one and I point it out to them, because I'm kind of proud of them.  I'm talking about the mental scars, the ones I haven't been so proud of.

I'm writing about what it's like living with slightly fucked up mental health, because it's actually okay to be a little bit cray and I never want anyone to feel like it isn't, because that's just a super bad way to feel.  I never want anyone to feel like I felt.  I never want anyone else to feel like their problems aren't valid or that they have no right to be feeling the way they're feeling, just because maybe someone else has it worse or because they're too rich to be depressed, or too young to have anxiety or because they should just be grateful to be alive or any of the other bullshit myths out there.

I've told myself all those things, but the truth is someone else will always have it worse, that doesn't mean you have any less right to your mental health.  It doesn't mean you have any less right to the help that's out there and it doesn't mean you should be ashamed or embarrassed to admit that you're struggling.

Everyone has a different story, but all feelings are valid.

hiding the cray and seeing the stigma

Someone once told me that they're a big advocate for standing up for people with mental health issues and there shouldn't be such a stigma around it, "like if you wanna go and see a therapist, see a therapist, that's a good thing to do, it shouldn't be a big deal."  I'd only known them for a few months, but from what they said and the way they said it, I didn't get the indication that they personally deal with mental health problems, but they have friends who do and feel strongly about it.

It kind of randomly came up in conversation, and I was a little bit surprised and consequently reacted really awkwardly.  I felt like I'd been caught out and immediately felt completely exposed, which is hilarious when you consider that a) he didn't know I have more issues than vogue, he was just talking about something he saw on Facebook, and b) I was actually completely naked at the time this conversation took place.

I wanted to agree, because I do think there's an unnecessary stigma around mental health - at least I thought I did - but I didn't want him to know how badly I suffer with my own.  How could I possibly agree that there shouldn't be a stigma and there's nothing to be embarrassed about, when I was so clearly embarrassed about it?

What would I have said?

"Yeah, me too, did I ever mention that I'm actually fucking insane? I've seen a lot of therapists and been prescribed a lot of drugs.  Sometimes I cry because I'm too scared to leave my room and I genuinely think I'm dying on a regular basis.  One time I made my bed into a blanket fort and didn't leave it for a week.  Also, I regularly believe that my teeth will fall out over night and I'm too scared to go to sleep because of that."

How to scare off boys, by Jamie.  As if that's something I need help with...

My friend and I laughed about it when I told her, she was like "What did you do? Just sit there like - oh, mental health.... what is that? This is a totally new concept to me.... I have ZERO experience in that area."

So, what did I do? I said nothing.  Possibly an equally weird reaction, because I probably just came across as communicatively incompetent, but whatever.  It's just like most boys already think I'm cray, they don't need to know that I'm medically cray on top of that...

I couldn't stop thinking about it though, because that conversation was when I realised that I actually was really ashamed - I don't know why that wasn't obvious before, since I did my best to hide it for over six years, but I'm just kind of an oblivious person...  I also came to realise that there was nothing to be ashamed about, because like he said seeing a therapist for a mental health concern, is just a really sensible action to take.  Admitting you have any kind of health problem is just a great idea in general, how else do you expect to get better?

Yeah, so the moral of the story is, typical me, didn't notice until a cute guy told me and then believed every word.  Hasn't always been a great strategy for me, but I'm pretty sure this one had a point.

It's hard to admit it and talk about it, especially when you're a teenager or in your twenties, because we're young and we have the world at our feet and this is the best time of our lives, right?  But depression, anxiety, panic disorders... They don't discriminate, they can affect anyone at any time in their lives, regardless of their circumstances and sometimes without a clear cause.  They're also completely normal human emotions, by the way, it's just sometimes our brains get a little carried away and then it takes over our lives for a bit... which is NOT our fault.

Mental health doesn't always need a reason.  It's just a sneaky little bitch.

how cray we talking here?

OKAY. So here's the juicy gossip.  My mental health - like everyone's - is very complex.  I'm not going to go into extensive detail right now, because it is so very complicated and I have almost seven years of cray inside of me.  There is literally just too much for one post.  So, here's the summary;

I've basically been dealing with mental health stuff, primarily anxiety and panic attacks with 'periods of low mood'/low-key depression, ever since I had cancer in 2010.  I mean... that's kind of unsurprising, right?  I realise that now, but for almost seven years I've been keeping it to myself and I never took it seriously or did anything about it until last summer... when I finally reached a point that was as close as I've ever been to a breakdown.  I don't even know how to describe that point because it doesn't even make sense to me and I was there, but I'll give it a go.

It started off with a really bad panic attack in March 2016 - one of the worst I've ever had, which lead to a series of panic attacks over the next few months.  Before them I'd actually been doing okay for a while.  I started having really intense panic attacks every single day, sometimes multiple times a day for months and I didn't know what was causing them or what to do about it.  I was too scared to go to the doctor, too embarrassed to properly tell my friends or family the full extent of what was going on and I honestly didn't know what to do.  I didn't think anyone would believe me and I didn't think anyone could help, but I finally reached a point in July last year, when I realised I needed to at least try to do something about it.  I reached the deepest darkest point of my entire life.  With all the stress my body was under, my physical health started deteriorating too.  The months of uncontrollable panic attacks, having to quit my job, fucking up my final exams and then returning home early from a trip abroad left me impossibly sad.  There's no way I can describe it to fully explain how bad it was - I'm a good writer, they just literally haven't invented words for what I was feeling yet.

I felt so trapped by the constant anxiety and panic attacks that I stopped wanting to leave the house at all.  I still wanted all the things I've always wanted; I wanted to travel the world, live abroad, go out with my friends etc. but I felt like it would never be possible, because I couldn't even make it to the supermarket without shaking and crying.  I didn't understand why I was having so many panic attacks and I didn't know how to stop them and then I became truly miserable.  For the second time in my relatively short life, I was stuck at home most of the time, but this time it wasn't cancer and I wasn't potentially dying. I felt like I had no excuse and that it was all my fault.

I was staying in bed for hours and days doing nothing.  I was crying all the time and I didn't know why.  Sometimes when I was driving at night I would pull over and cry for twenty minutes before going home.  One time I just stopped my car in the middle of the road because my eyes started filling with tears and I stayed there and cried uncontrollably for ten minutes - don't worry, I live in the deepest darkest depths of the countryside, this wasn't causing an inconvenience for anyone... well, apart from me.  It was hugely inconvenient to me.

I was ignoring texts - not because I was playing some cute guys (not that I'd even know how to successfully do that), but because I just didn't care enough to respond and I didn't have anything to say.  I thought there was no point in living. I wished that cancer had killed me. I thought about dying all the time. I genuinely didn't think any of my friends liked me. I felt like a huge burden to my entire family, so I couldn't tell them the extent of sadness I was feeling because half of me felt like they wouldn't care (because of the anxiety, not because my family are arseholes) and the other half just felt like I'd put them through enough.  Like, "hey family, I know you watched me fighting for my life when I was sixteen, but now I wish I hadn't bothered, now I actually want to die."  How could I do that to them?

I felt guilty for the way I felt, not just because I didn't want to hurt the people who love me, but because sixteen year old me fought so hard to survive and I was letting her down too.  I felt like I was letting everyone down because I was lucky enough to survive stage 3 cancer, when not everyone gets that chance and now I couldn't even do anything with my life.  I felt like I should just be grateful to be alive, and that anything other than that was like spitting in my doctors' faces.  I didn't understand why I couldn't feel that way.

I was under the illusion that I should be completely in control of what's going on in my brain and what I was feeling.  That's pretty dumb in itself because if I was in control of any of my feelings I'd, at the very least, have much better taste in men.

On top of all that, I was embarrassed.  I think I would've been embarrassed regardless of my situation, but I felt like I had a reputation of being a strong, brave person who beat cancer and never made a fuss, who travels to strange places alone, who wants to jump out of planes and swim with sharks.  I felt a huge pressure to keep up that persona because I didn't want anyone thinking I was weak.

Anxiety made me feel weak and pathetic.  Who's going to think I'm brave if they know I missed a day of university because I was lying in bed shaking and crying, too scared to leave the house?

Also, it didn't make any sense to me - so, I can go through chemotherapy, including two serious stomach infections and a blood clot 'causing near death, completely fearlessly and I can travel the world to 'dangerous' places all by myself without a second thought, but... I can't get the tube because I feel like I'm suffocating as soon as the doors shut?  How is anyone else going to understand that?

I realise now that anxiety is just like that, but for a third of my life I told myself that no one would believe me because how could I be so scared of 'nothing' when I'm so 'brave'.  Even if they did believe me, I didn't think anyone would care or be able to help.  So what was the point in doing anything?

I'll go into more detail in future posts, but basically, up until last year, I completely downplayed everything and mostly kept it to myself, assuming I was just being dramatic... Looking back, the fact that I thought I was overreacting is more crazy than the actual mental health stuff I was dealing with.

so... err... you okay, bae?

being okay with the cray

When I started realising that I have anxiety, I defined it as my least favourite part of me, my biggest flaw... and there's a lot to choose from!  If there was one thing I could change about myself it would be that... wait, even over bigger boobs and a smaller nose?  Yup, I'd change anxiety before those things any day.

I don't want to see it that way any more though.  Partially, because if a fairy godmother does show up, I really would like that smaller nose and bigger boobs, but mostly because I AM NOT MY ANXIETY.  It is not a part of ME, it is not a flaw, it's a part of my journey and it does not define me or my life.  SIDE NOTE: I hate it when people describe their life as their 'journey', but honestly, it does seem like the most appropriate term here.

Anxiety is just my toughest challenge yet, and it's really hard and it's going to take time, but I'm going to be okay.  It sounds cliche, but the first step to getting better is admitting that you're not okay and accepting it - you don't have to share it with everyone in the world, but no one moves on from any of the stuff I've written about by not talking about it.

The good news is that we're really not alone.  Surprisingly to me, almost every person I have told, whether it be a friend, a classmate who caught me at a bad time, or the invigilator in an exam hall who approached me to ask why I was crying, has responded with the same thing.  Almost every person I've told, had on some level suffered with their mental health because it's much more common than you think.  Men and women, young and old, rich and poor, almost everyone has been able to relate and therefore help.  Even the people who couldn't directly relate, often knew someone who experienced something similar and were so nice about it. LIKE IT'S LITERALLY SOOOOO COMMON.  No one reacted the way I feared, no one told me I was being dramatic or pathetic, they just asked me if and how they could help.  People are great sometimes.

Best of all, telling people I have anxiety and having them say "yeah, me too" means that we all have a little support group now.  I call them my crazy crew (...not usually to their faces).  I have at least three people I can text and say "oh my god, I can't stop crying and I've been googling it and I think I have this rare illness that no one has contracted since the seventies and I'm definitely dying" and they know exactly what I mean and probably did the same thing when they sneezed three days ago.

I know how to look after myself now, I'm helping my friends do the same and I'm getting so much better because of it.  It's just another chapter of my highly complicated life, but I KNOW this is not forever.  I used to think anxiety was ruining every aspect of my life, and to be fair, it kind of was, but now that I'm working through it, I feel like I'm heading towards what will be the best place in my life and the best version of me. I'm going to be so much stronger and braver because of this experience.

So, basically I really am okay with it.  Mostly because it's totally normal to feel this way sometimes and because I know now that mental health problems are just as valid as physical illnesses, and (in my experience) can sometimes be worse... Realising and accepting that I'm little bit messed up has been the only way I can help myself and make the changes I need to make to help me long term.  

SO BASICALLY, I KNOW THERE IS HOPE and if you ever feel like no one cares, I promise you, you're part of a huge crazy club and we all care.