HCAU Talks: Mental Health Awareness – Anxiety and Depression
One in four people in the UK will experience a mental health problem every year. What this means is that in a class of thirty, around seven people will be struggling with a mental health issue. It means that in a flat of five, at least one person will be living with a mental health issue. Mental health issues can affect anyone, regardless of age or gender, and regardless of how good their life may look on the outside; this is something that I understand due to my experiences with anxiety and depression. Anxiety and depression are two intrinsically linked illnesses, but both come with contrasting symptoms. Anxiety for me is the almost constant feeling of ‘bad butterflies’ in your stomach. It is only intensified the more you lose control of a situation- something I always feel I need to have. This feeling of bad butterflies is made physical, for me in particular by a series of nervous twitches. My hands will always be moving, I might rub my fingers together, or my muscles might spasm, or I might clench my hands, again and again and again. In one particular case my hands, feet and face went completely numb and I couldn’t feel them for hours. Anxiety produces a series of negative thoughts. I have to do something as simple as ask my boss a question, and my mind runs over all the possible answers, ending with me thinking they will obviously fire me, because my simple question is that bad. It makes it extremely hard to make friends with people, as I believe that people will be judging everything I say or do, and I question whether or not they even really want me there. If anxiety is the constant questioning of what is going on around me, then depression is the negative answers my brain comes up with. When I am wondering if people are judging me, or if they want to be my friend, then depression is the part of my mind that tells me that of course they are judging me, why would they possibly want to be friends with me? Depression to me is like a dark cloud, that weighs down on my shoulders, and when I’m in the full grips of it, it is impossible to feel even remotely happy or enthusiastic about anything, instead finding myself with no energy to do anything, even as simple as get the five-minute train to the next city. Due to the fact that there was no obvious reason for me to feel the way I did, it took a long time for me to understand what was going on. It was recently Mental Health Awareness Week, and as I have begun to understand what is going on in my mind, I believe it is really important to spread awareness to people, so they can either get help for themselves, or they can help those around them. For me it was a struggle, simply because I did not understand what was going on. I had all of these symptoms, but I never put them together and realised exactly what it meant. That is why I have written down what I go through, so as someone reads this and relates, they might be able to begin to understand what they are experiencing. I still do not have a complete understanding. Even now, as I continue to get help, I am learning more and more about causes and solutions. I was lucky; I met friends that helped me ignore the evil voice inside my head, and even now listen to my anxious rants about problems that are not half as big as my mind makes them out to be. Even if you yourself are not experiencing these mental health issues, as a friend, sometimes all you need to do is be there and listen, distract and help your friend breathe and get through that particular episode. My final piece of advice that I give to people who are living with mental health issues is that your illness does not define you, and by getting help, you are proving that no matter how you feel, it in fact has very little control over you.