For today’s blog post, I am going to speak to you about something close to my heart and that is my mental health and where I am at now. I am always very open and honest when it comes to my struggles with my mental health disorders. I think that if just one person out there can relate to what I am speaking about. Or if I can help one person, then I am doing something right. I can remember when I was first diagnosed with OCD and depression. To say that I was so deeply ashamed that I wasn’t in control of my own mind would be putting it mildly. I felt simply let down in myself. The more research that I did, I realised that I wasn’t in this on my own. That is what I want people to feel like if they happen to see this.
My backstory.
In my late teens, I would get very wound up regarding things that should not have affected me as much. This intensified over the space of a few years. After much back and forth with the doctors and a private facility, I was diagnosed with OCD. My options at the time were to medicate the condition or just carry on as I was. I decided just to keep going and try to get a hold of how I was feeling. I made changes to my daily life to help manage my OCD. Throughout all of my efforts, at times my impulses and frustrations grew so large that I would sink into a deep depression. To the point where I could not get out of bed for weeks at a time, which is when I would have to rely on anti-depressants to make me more stable.
How I am these days.
As I said, these days after living with the condition for such a long time I can help to manage my everyday life and I stick to a routine which I know works for me. The past couple of years had been pretty uneventful with regards to my mental health. For the first time in a very long time, I felt like I was once again in control of my own mind. That was until the Coronavirus hit and every single routine and plan that I have worked hard to put in place over the past couple of years both with my personal and work life came crashing down and I was back at square one and in a blind panic. I sank into a depression again and the climb back to ‘normality’ was incredibly difficult for me.
My mental health and the pandemic.
I was in a panic about catching the virus, and passing it on to my grandma whom I care for. My husband was still having to go to work and visit hospitals and I was simply terrified. My OCD is not normally centred around cleanliness, this was a new progression due to the pandemic. However, due to the virus and the climbing numbers in the number of deaths, I quickly grew fearful of leaving the house and everything that was happening around me. I was also working from home even though I felt safe in my own home. Quickly, I became very reclusive and that routine that I once longed for so much was ripped to shreds and I felt like I was going absolutely crazy trapped inside my own home. I stopped and wanted to get up. Stopped wanting to get dressed in the morning. Stopped wanting to function like normal.
My round-up.
I am not going to lie, and I will admit that it was an uphill climb. To get to where I need to be once again, it will take work. I needed to speak to my councillor regularly to speak about my issues and we put a plan together of what I could do moving forward. I went back on my anti-depressants and after a couple of weeks, I was feeling much lighter. It was just all about finding a new ‘normal’ in a world that was completely on its head. The reason why I wanted to write this post is that I feel like we have all been through the mill. I know that those suffering from mental health conditions have been rocked to their core. I just hope that you are all bearing up ok and getting through this.
If anybody does need help with your mental health, please visit the Mind website for help.