Friday, July 19, 2024

Mental health

Quite a few of my posts cover health, and a few have covered mental health, but I've certainly not talked about depression, for example, as much as I have talked about cancer (links to my mental health related posts below).

Why? Because of stigma, because it is an admission of weakness, because I want to present my 'perfect self' online? Well you know the latter isn't true if you have read my blog in the past.

From about 1998 to 2001 I had clinical depression. It was an awful time, I had two small children and a demanding job and inside I felt completely useless, worthless and kept being told by my other half at the time that 'the problem is there is no problem'. Wow, that was helpful.

I sought help, I got anti depressants. I distinctly remember on day 16 of taking the pills, whilst riding my bike in Cambridge, I suddenly felt like a weight had been lifted from me. The tablets worked! I treated the symptoms, but not the cause. I managed fine - still felt low now and then, but I had two amazing kids and a great job, I kept up with karate, and things were on an even keel.

Around 2007 my marriage started to deteriorate, but by 2012 I was in a very dark place once again, and no drugs, or talking therapy would help. My husband would come home and tell me he was disappointed that his new partner (that's a whole other story) was not being faithful. There's a bit of irony there, no? We were still living together, but I had moved into the tiny spare room onto a put up bed. I contemplated the unbearability of the pain (which I remember as physical, not just mental). But I had two children, who were the one clear perspective in my life at the time. 

To help manage my stress I would go swimming. Just up and down, no thoughts, just moving in the water. It was about the only therapy that helped. I'd been to see Relate on my own early on, and being told that what was being said to me, how my husband treated me was 'mental abuse' was a shock. I didn't realise, didn't recognise, that the person I then loved (unloving takes time) was actually causing me such physical and emotional pain. They put a label on it (abuse). I hadn't wanted to. 

One day when at swimming, I texted my husband that I'd had enough, we had to split - move apart. I couldn't take it any more. When I got home, he said 'I got your message. I thought you'd gone to kill yourself'. That was another mighty shock. Because if that's what he'd thought, why didn't he stop me? That remains a resentment I find hard to forget, though the many other things that were said and done have been comfortably forgotten. Holding on to pain or anger only hurts me, so I don't do it. 

But this story does have a happy ending. No need for detail for the years in between, but I did attend a course by Richard Wilkins called 'Broadband Consciousness'. And that really helped me change my attitude to myself. Richard describes happiness as being like a tide - sometimes it's in, sometimes it's out, it's not a static state of being. For me mental health is like physical health - sometimes it's good, sometimes I get ill, and do what I can to get better, or manage symptoms, so I can lead a fulfilled life and be there for those I love.

But here's the happy ending - because the critical change was that I managed to alter my self-perception. The five days with Richard, Liz and the others gave me the knowledge to understand and challenge that inner voice (which was echo chambering years of undermining). I started to like who I am. 

In 2018 I met my amazing wife and in 2021 we got married. The tide is in.

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