The common cold of mental illnesses – depression.
Indeed, like that pesky winter cold, a lot of us get it, with 1/4 people apparently suffering at some point. However, while I’ll be the first to complain about my blocked nose, pounding head and sore throat, I couldn’t think of anything worse than talking to most people I know about my mental health struggles.
But please! Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s an illness like any other, we need to break down the stigma.
Why, then, do I feel so deeply embarrassed? Why is there always a niggling fear that my big, deep, dark secret will be outed? Did I look too awkward at my friend-of-a-friends suicide joke? Will a vague acquaintance who happened to see me on a particularly bad day make me the pre-drinks gossip?
There is no denying that, as much as I feel it shouldn’t, my experiences of mental illness make me feel weak, pathetic and… different.
As Sarah Redrup recently wrote for That’s What She Said, “The stigma around mental health won’t go away until it becomes normal to talk about” and to make that happen, “People have to talk about their experiences as if they were normal.”Â
This is exactly what Time to Change’s “Time to Talk” day on 4th February is all about – aiming to get the nation to break the silence surrounding mental health. So, as I believe the saying goes, I’m starting with the (wo)man in the mirror.
Depression and I have a longer history than I would like and I’ll warn you now, it’s not especially pretty. I can’t be sure exactly when all of this started, but what I do know is that Year 11 was the worst year of my life. It’s hard to put the feelings of depression into words without sounding either trivial or sensational, but I vividly remember the constant pain of just existing.
Looking back, I am amazed at my capacity for being so demanding, ungrateful and downright cruel in the midst of the turmoil inside my head. My friends, understandably distressed, distanced themselves until after a few hellish months, I had (almost) no peer support network at all. I was utterly convinced that there was no way out of this exhausting yet boring nightmare wherein I woke up, cried, went to school, cried, came home – you guessed it – cried.
2011 saw my first suicide attempt, going down as a blurry nightmare of a year that almost feels like it never happened. After what felt like an eternity, things did seem to be on the up, with two great and carefree years at sixth form.
(Photo Credit: time-to-change.org.uk)
What I hadn’t realized about depression is that that is not always the end of the story – a bit like the common cold, depression has the tendency to strike again. University can be really tough on mental health and in second year, as much fun as I was having, I gradually spiralled back into a state of self hatred, with increasing days not leaving bed, difficulty sleeping and eating, self harm, panic attacks – the list goes on.
This culminated in a Saturday night spent in A&E due to my overdose on anti depressants. I don’t think I ever really wanted to die; I just knew I couldn’t carry on feeling like I did.
Time for the the happier end bit – I am grateful that for a while now the good days by far out number the bad. My mental health is something I will always be conscious of but my ability to fend off unwanted thoughts is improving.
I am also lucky enough to be surrounded by some incredibly patient, kind hearted people; it would be unjust for me not to highlight two of my housemates in particular.
I’m by no means any sort of authority on depression but my general thoughts can be broken down into a few key points.
- If you feel like this don’t lose hope.
- If your friends feel like this do all you can to be kind, patient and understanding; it can mean more than you know.
- Finally, on Time to Talk Day have conversations about mental health and mental illness as if it were normal – because it is.
Bristol SU are running a “chat off” at 12:00 on February 4th outside Senate House, aiming to get as many students and staff as possible talking about mental health for 15 minutes. Check out the Student Union or the Time to Change websites for more information and tips for talking about mental health.