I am more than a stereotype of my mental illness

I am more than my mental illness, I have dreams and hobbies which have nothing to do with anxiety, or depression. Sometimes it's hard to remember this. I struggle every day with my condition, I talk about it constantly to those I love. I seek reassurance and validation constantly.

At least once a day my husband asks, “how are you going?” He expects an honest answer about my emotional state. As do the multitude of friends who constantly ask, “are you ok?” I try to answer honestly but I get sick of seeing the pity in their eyes, so I lie and say, “I am much better, thank you”.

With everyone reminding me to take care and not over do it, it's no wonder I get caught up in the world of my illness. I believe there should be no shame in admitting to mental illness. So, I do talk about mine openly, (mostly) honestly, and loudly.

Still it feels all I can offer the world is my wisdom and experience, hard earnt by fighting every day to accept myself and be accepted by others as the beautiful yet flawed soul I am.  However, I want to be known for more.

I want to publish my poetry, finish my first book, complete my diploma of photography, and make money capturing the beauty in the world around me. I want to do well at my day job, and be known for being a kind and caring person.

I want to be an Aunty my nieces and nephew can look up to. Most of all I want to be a wife who can contribute equally to the household and its maintenance.

Some days I bounce up and do these things, and some days I count it as a win if I can even get out of bed. Sometimes I laugh and joke and it is almost as if I am the person I want to be, but something always happens, something triggers a thought or emotion and I can’t come back from it.

Everyone has doubts and even people who never have and never will fight with mental illness can self-sabotage or doubt aspects of their life. For someone with Anxiety or depression however, self-sabotage and doubt is an Olympic sport, and we are training for gold.

I am more than my mental illness, but at times when a major episode hits it feels like all I am is my mental illness. “How are you today?” is one of the most used social niceties, when someone says it to a person they know suffers anxiety or depression it becomes more than a social question. They stare intently at you waiting for a dramatic answer, tears, or overreaction. The worst thing about this is on a bad day I’ll give them exactly what they expect.

I still write, I capture beautiful pictures, I laugh and play with my nephew, and visit my sister and grandmother. I try to spend time with my husband and do all the things it is easy to “forget” about. I battle people’s misconceptions every day, hoping my transparency can perhaps dissipate some of the stereotypes surrounding anxiety and depression.

Mindfulness is more than just another trendy buzzword.

Anxiety is a constant lump in my chest; smooth, hard, shiny, and solid like a big marble. This is how I visualise my anxiety during mindfulness. When all the chaos and mixed emotions are cleared away and I am looking at anxiety alone as a feeling it’s not as big as I think it is. Knowing this I should be able to function out in the world just like everybody else, right?

I mean everybody gets stressed, everybody gets scared, you just have to relax, and think about something else. It’s something everybody deals with sometimes, what makes me so think I’m so different?

The distinction is, I don’t have a reprieve from my worries, the back of my mind is always ticking over with concerns and things I should be afraid of. For me mindfulness is not just a buzzword, it is a daily requirement to be able to get out of bed. I know I’ve got to go to work and make money, however, without mindfulness exercises I can’t even leave the house.

See, I know how small anxiety is inside my chest because I look at it every day. I clear away the dirty emotion surrounding this one little uncomfortable lump. My anxiety is only small but it attracts other emotions to it like moths to a flame. What starts as a little black marble becomes a swirling grey mass of pain, fear, anger, hopelessness, anguish, anxiety about  anxiety, paranoia, you get the picture.

If I don’t clear away these other emotions I quickly become incapacitated. My brain shuts down, my body follows. I go from an articulate, some might say intelligent woman to a stuttering, stumbling mess, who cannot remember even the simplest of her vocabulary.

Since I suffer Generalised Anxiety Disorder, that marble of anxiety will always be there. Everything is potentially a catastrophe in my world, if my husband doesn’t say I love you enough he doesn’t love me anymore. If he says it too much then he must be guilty of something.

We went away for a day and a half on the weekend, I spent most of the time imagining our house burning down, one of our cats dying, someone breaking in, the highway flooding so we couldn’t get home for work even the house flooding because we live close to the river. I don’t mean I thought about these things and blew them off knowing I was being silly, these thoughts in my head seemed so scary and real I could almost convince myself they had already happened.

Of course, we came home and everything was fine. I prepared to return to work Monday morning for the first time since my Hospitalisation. Which just means Sunday night gave me a whole new set of concerns for my anxiety to chew, like a dog with a bone.

Mindfulness is my saviour. Closing my eyes and breathing in and out slowly ten times thinking of nothing but the air going in and out of my lungs may seem rude to people around me, but checking out of the conversation for a minute or two is better than hyperventilating and becoming a hysterical mess in public.

I have piles of colouring books, rocks I touch for texture, and guided mindful exercises on my phone. I walk mindfully, paying attention to the things I see along the way.  I even have tricks for when I am in public. If you see me rubbing my left hand in circles on my left thigh, you guessed it, I’m being mindful. All it means is I am thinking about nothing but what I am doing, seeing, physically feeling. I am bringing myself back from the edge of panic giving myself something to think about besides the growing ball of messy emotions whirling inside my chest.

Now, I’m no mindfulness expert, but this is the way I understand it. This is what helps me. I practice some form of mindfulness at least 4 times a day. Most times it is a quick one or two-minute exercise, and at least once a day I do a ten or twelve-minute exercise.  

Mindfulness doesn’t always work but I am calmer and better equipped for being out in the world as long as I remember to be truly mindful and not just someone who can throw a trendy buzzword around.

What activities do you apply mindfulness to in your life?

Just some poems about anxiety and depression

Hollowed out and beaten down

Still you hold your tarnished crown

Eyes are burning, muscles sore

Head is aching, you can’t take anymore

You once were queen upon your throne

Now you wander lost and alone

Your mind is trapped within your past

You fake happiness which cannot last

You need release you need to cry

You need answers you need to know why?

If not why then how? you ask

How do you fight? What an impossible task

When the danger dwells inside yourself

When the problem is your mental health

How do you fix it? Why should you care?

Why does it matter if you don’t wash your hair?

You hold your crown but deep down you know

Your castle and throne were all for show

Your mistress of nothing, you rule over none

You can’t even make sure your housework is done

There must be a way to get yourself back

To get this life of yours back on track

Perhaps the first step is to polish the crown

Wash your hair, find your shoes, and buy a new gown

Or maybe you let go of a past tarnished and frightful

And look to a future which just may be delightful.

                                     09~05~2017

Endless noise and endless fights

Forever thinking means less sleep at nights

Hard to stop the incessant noise

Hard to control my perfect poise

All this inside my mind each day

No wonder sanity feels like it’s slipping away

Two personalities with their own thoughts

My mind becoming their private tennis courts

The left side lobs a thought across to the right

The right lobs one back with all his might

I’m stuck in the middle trying to survive

Constantly wondering if I’ll get out alive

This constant noise can get so loud

Its hard to concentrate out in a crowd

I need time to myself, I need time to rest

Distractions from thoughts, but sleep works the best

No noise when I’m sleeping, except for the dreams

But that noise is different, we’re untinted it seems

Why does my mind seem split in two?

And to stop all this noise what do I do?

If I can’t get along with the thoughts in my head

If they constantly bicker about what someone has said

How can I know what is fake, what is true?

Why do friends stand by me with all I put them through.

23~04~2017

Hiding behind a perfect mask

A girl so shattered yet no one will ask

What is wrong? Why are you so sad?

Why do little things make you so mad?

They can’t see the sorrow, despair, or the pain

Only the cheerful mask, the smiles she can feign

She is scared to show the world her pain and true face

She instead moves along with kindness and grace

Helping another with whatever she can do

Her generous nature the one thing that is true

You’ll look at her passing you out on the street

You’ll look right through her never missing a beat

No one will guess she thinks she’d be better off dead

You’d never guess at the commotion inside of her head

Strangers often stop and tell her their sorrow

She listens and shows them a shoulder to borrow

Other people mean more to her than she does to herself

She will give all she can no thought for her own health

She always says yes, she hates to say no

Works so hard to make sure the truth doesn’t show

She could be your mother, your sister, your wife

Or any random female you know in your life

So take the time, stop and truly talk a while

Pay attention and you may notice what’s behind her bright smile.

 20~04~2017

Falling Further down the rabbit hole

Nothing to stop you nothing to hold

The darkness grows dense around your soul

No heat to thaw the heart numbing cold

Fall far enough the pain just may cease

But of course, this is just another lie

There is only chaos no room for peace

So, you yell and scream and ask the gods why

Why am I like this? Why am I here?

Why am I damaged beyond all repair?

You can fight, beg, or hide from your fear

But the ground hits hard, best beware

How far you fall or how deep you go

Changes each time you fall into the hole

Till you stop falling you never can know

If you’ll make it out unscathed and whole

When you hit rock bottom yes it will sting

No free rides are to be had in this wonderland

You must pick yourself up and get back in the ring

Fight back at your monsters, win your right to feel grand

20~04~2017

What a bad day looks like when you suffer anxiety and depression.

Today is a bad day. For a lot of people this might mean they forgot their wallet, or spilt their morning coffee on their shirt, perhaps they made a mistake at work and their boss told them off. For someone with anxiety and depression, someone like me, a bad day means I couldn’t get out of bed.

My husband brought me a cup of tea, reminded me to take my medication, cooked me brunch and made sure I ate it. We watched a comedy sitcom on tv together before I crawled back into bed for the afternoon.

He came in and hugged me and I had to grit my teeth and not yell at him to go away. I wanted him there and I wanted to know he loved me, but I also wanted to be able to lie there and cry without having to explain my tears.

On a bad day, my tears have no reason, my emotions are all over the place; anxiety makes me think about everything and I cannot switch off, while depression makes me apathetic and numb and I cannot care. So, when someone wants me to explain how I am feeling, I can’t. I’m too befuddled by everything, and nothing.

I feel dazed and confused, no words coming when usually I have no problem communicating. My vocabulary shrinks, I stutter and stumble through sentences, I repeat myself and then I get frustrated because no one seems to be understanding what I am trying to convey.

I look at the world through a foggy lens which leeches the beauty and wonder out of everything in front of me. On a bad day, I just lie in bed thinking how I am not good enough I will never be good enough and trying to make anything of my life is futile.

On a bad day I feel unloved, unwanted, and as if no one understands me, no one cares. It’s on these days suicide ideation seems like the most normal and natural past time, I’m not doing anything with my life so why keep wasting oxygen?

These are the days I need my friends the most, but also the days I won’t reach out to anyone. The days I fear my own emotions, and what I may do. I try mindfulness, meditation, grounding, I read a book or colour in, most days these strategies help and I can get up and get on with it, but sometimes there is nothing to pull me back and all I can do is get through the day and hope tomorrow will be better.

Tomorrow isn’t always better, this is my third day in a row where getting out of bed has been such a struggle. I still hope for tomorrow though, and hope is like a lifesaver I cling to while trying not to drown in a sea of deadly emotions.

So, yesterday was a bad day, today is a bad day, and tomorrow, well I just can’t say yet. What I can say is whether tomorrow is a bad day, a neutral day, or a good day, it’s a day I’ll still be here. I’ll still be fighting to keep my head above the choppy waters. Tomorrow I just might even make it out of bed!