My Mental Health

The talk of mental health has blown up over the last few years. Whether

that be anxiety, depression, bipolar, ocd, eating disorders and many more.

I have done a full blog post on my anxiety and have mentioned that I also

suffer from depression and slight ocd but I have never gone into full detail of

my full experience and personal battle with mental health, which could help others.

I'm going to start of with anxiety and panic attacks first as it is the most 

talked about regarding my mental health, plus I have already done a full blog

post on it, which you can read here. I have had anxiety for as long as I can

remember but it wasn't until I was about 12 that I can recall my first panic

attack. I had about 4-5 that week, and the following week I was talking to some

counselors and they mentioned anxiety which lead to me freaking out 

and getting myself in more of a panic about it. Zoe Sugg, also known as Zoella,

uploaded a video about her experience with anxiety and talked about it

generally. I watched this and it helped me to understand what it was that I was

going through. The next few years up until last November was a constant

struggle and a big blur. I have been going to camhs for 15 years now, which I will

mention more later, and I got put on medication mainly for my anxiety and I am

still taking them daily which have been the biggest help. The day I got put on

 medication was also the day that I was diagnosed with general anxiety

rather than social anxiety which I thought I had.

When you mention the word depression people take it in a variety of different

ways. Some people think of you sitting in a dark room and completley 

iscolating yourselfl. In my case it was iscolating myself from others, not

leaving my house, self harming, constantly feeling empty and unaware of 

my emotions but I looked fine from the outside and always put on a smile.

I think the reason depression is so difficult for people to understand is because 

there are no major physical signs of it and a lot of people put on a front in

order to present a false image. One of the reasons I went to camhs was also to

help with my moods and my self harm, and if you were wondering I have been

self harm free for just 2 1/2 years now! This is another reason I was put on medication.

OCD is another thing that people don't really understand. The majority of people think

it's wanting everything to be clean, tidy and organised. That isn't the case for

everyone. It is in my case, as everything has to be organised and I have to do things

in a certain order and a variety of things that I can't even describe. If you are

struggling to understand anxiety then I would suggest watching this video.

The last thing I wanted to talk about is something that I have never spoken about on

my blog and although a lot of people in my personal life know about it, a lot of people

also don't. I have Aspergers Syndrome which is a type of autism. This basically

means that I struggle in a lot of social situations and I think in a different ways than

others do. But does anyone think the same anyway? From the age of 2 my mom thought

I was different (this is what I'm calling it) which is when I started going to camhs. 

It was a long and difficult process, but when I was age 10 I was diagnosed with

Aspergers syndrome. At the same time I was diagnosed, I was also in the transition 

of going to high school which made the journey a lot harder than what I expected.

I used to see counselors at high school to help me through this but it didn't really work. 

I got put into this type of class called induction which meant that I did all of my lessons

there except for maths, english and science. This made the first 18 months of high school

a lot easier. But then I gradually got taken out of that and was faced with the battle

of high school all over again. When I was in year 9 I started isolating myself 

more than what I had been doing as my anxiety and depression got worse. 

This lead to me having no friends and not able to go to class which also meant that

I was teaching myself from the middle of year 10 until the end of high school. I also

stopped going to school which lead to me being picked up in the morning by one of

the teachers and me only doing 8.30-12.15 days. When I was finished high school I

was left with decision of college. Thankfully a new college had just opened by where

I live, which is a lot smaller and is only the size of a house so it is easier to cope with.

I'm not writing this post to get attention or sympathy for myself, but instead to

spread awareness of how common mental health is. Since this time last year I have

gone from being depressed and wanting to kill myself, not going out, being terrified 

of going to college and having constant panic attacks to me being able to go out 

and do things that I haven't been able to do before and have some of the best friends

that I could ever ask for. This is so common and annoying to say but if you are 

going through anything like this or a personal battle of your own, it will get better. 

Whether that be with the help or medication, like me, or with the support from 

friends or family. It is key to remember that you have to take each step at a time

and that you can't jump from the bottom to the top of the stairs in one go.

If you have any questions or would like someone to talk to then you 

can email me and I will be happy to answer or talk to you about anything.

xoxo

Lea-Mai