Silence

A woman I admire died today. I didn't know her at all. Never had the chance to meet her, but I interacted with her a few times on twitter.

She was kind, forthright, thoughtful, passionate, and spoke openly about mental illness and depression. She talked about her previous suicide attempts, about how upsetting it was for her to be attacked on twitter, to be told to kill herself, to be bullied constantly by gutless, faceless, cowards. I don't know much of the details about how she died, but it seems like she killed herself. I can only imagine why. Nobody, perhaps not even her family, will know why she thought this was the only option open to her.

I expect, as this is debated online and off, that she'll be called selfish for making this choice and leaving behind so much. She was beloved, even by those who only knew her via social media. She was also hated in a way that I can't even comprehend. She was spoken to in ways no human deserves. Regardless of the circumstances, the perception of suicide being selfish is an easy conclusion to come to, but comes from flawed reasoning of people that don't really understand what it's like to live with depression.

Depression kills you in silence. The reality of being loved is impossible to understand when the silence in your mind is attacking you and making you believe you are valueless. Even in the middle of a crowd of friends and family, it dampens the noise and fills you with despair that only another person that has lived with depression can possibly understand. Even someone who lives with it day in and day cannot understand your depression. Nobody can. Your own mind rebels against you and fills you with such fear and sadness.

I live with depression every day. And anxiety. It is a horrible reality I can't explain to those that love me. It is a fear so deep within me that I can't bring it close enough to the surface of my mind to give it words. I fight it with medication, will, and anger. Only the deep anger I feel at being filled with this deeply horrible despair can drive the sadness away. Even then it is only for a time.

There have been times that I have felt so overwhelmed by depression that I have considered, and tried, to commit suicide. I was unsuccessful and I'm glad. Because I lived I've experienced so much, not all of it wonderful, but all of it worth it.

There are few words that can bring someone back from the brink. It's so hard to believe that anything can be good when you live in a silent sadness all the time. But there are people who can help. You just need to find the strength to ask.

Phone a friend, phone your family, phone a total stranger, phone lifeline. Ask for help. Find that spark of anger inside you that's saying "I want to live" and use it to pick up the phone and ask for help. There is no shame in saying you need help. It is not weak to be vulnerable.

In the world of depression silence is the enemy, and the only way to beat it is to speak out. Not just when you're in trouble, but every day. Mental illness shouldn't be spoken of in hushed whispers of shame. It should be talked about openly so that those that live with it know they can ask for help.

If you are lost please don't hesitate to contact lifeline or a mental health helpline. In Australia you can 13 11 14 anytime day or night. Save your own life, because it really does get better.

The beginning is the end is the beginning

What a day, huh?

I have one of these things:

And a whole lot of this:

 I am utterly overjoyed that he is here and here for good. I can't even explain the amazing. Also the mess, but mostly the amazing. 

Then there's the downside. I have been AMPED for a month. UP UP UP UP UP. So high I could just about fist bump the international space station. I shook myself 300km to meet Americo at the airport and worked myself up to a level of anxiety and anticipation I haven't been at since my first trip to San Francisco in 2009. 

Of course there are consequences. Obsessive consequences. Clean everything and make sure all the avengers are perfectly lined up consequences. I'm not enjoying them very much at all. 

I feel so terrible that this is the welcome Americo gets, me crazy cleaning the house to work my way through the down that I know is going to hit me pretty hard. He deserves more than this, we both do. 

But upside, today is both a beginning and an end. It is the end of Skype and Facetime, the beginning of cuddles and socks on the floor. And getting married and trying to budget for two. 

Wait, what are the upsides again? 

I'm kidding, this rocks. 

The very odd passage of time

All things considered the last six years have passed in the blink of an eye. 2343 day it may have been, but it felt like nothing in light of all that we have done.

Given that, it is really quite irritating that the last two weeks have moved in the same sort of eons that are required to form glaciers or giant redwoods.

Twelve and a half more days is impossible. I will lose my mind before it gets here.

I am in manic mode. Give me a task that should take a week and I get it done in hours. I'm begging for work. I'm nervous and jittery and fidget constantly. I can't settle to read a book, my mind is going over the same details again and again.

Sleep is a challenge and waking hours are flitting butterfly like from distraction to distraction.

I've finished a book a day for the last week. I can't even speed read.

I don't know how to focus myself or my mind to make this rather bizarre situation speed up, when it has already been faster than we ever imagined it would be.

I really don't know what to do or how to explain the insanity to anyone.

So, if you're in Canberra and you come across a slightly crazy eyed blonde girl spinning around in a park full of children who are wide eyed in confusion, perhaps you could point me at a cafe and get me a calming chamomile and pat my hand, or something?

Cause of the nutty? Surely not. 

F.I.N.E

I've been using the word fine a lot lately. When I say it, I mean it like this. 

I am fucked up. 

I am insecure. 

I am most definitely neurotic. 

And I take emotional to a whole new level. 

I cry at the drop of a hat these days. I cried watching Ricky Martin give someone feedback on The Voice Australia the other day, if that gives you some perspective about my emotional state. 

When I think about it I know it's with good reason. 

Yesterday I did a timeline mapped out of various things that have happened to me in the last three years. Things that have caused me to be F.I.N.E. 

It was, when written down, an eyeopening list of  things that taken one at a time might be ok, but when considered as a three year pattern is quite upsetting. 

Writing it down I wondered how I've managed to get myself from them to now at all. I wondered how I haven't broken. And then I considered that maybe I did get broken, and then got fixed. 

Since the first thing that happened three years ago I've started taking medication to manage my anxiety and depression. Mostly it helps, sometimes it doesn't. Maybe that's the glue that's holding me together. The thing that lets me sleep, and therefore function. I wonder where I'd be right now if I hadn't finally pulled myself together enough to ask for help from my doctor. 

I also wonder where I'd be if these things hadn't happened to me at all. Would my career have progressed faster? Would I be stronger and more stable if these things hadn't impacted my daily emotional stability? Would I be better at managing money and my life if I wasn't feeling so unstable all the time?

How much has what was said and done to me has impacted me more than I've even considered?

What is the long term impact of casually cruel words when delivered by someone who has a great deal of influence on your future?

I wonder how long it's going to be until I'm fine again, and can mean it when I say it, instead of translating it into Donald Sutherland in my head. 

happiness

I was happy today.

It was the elated kind of happy where I loved the entire world, all the people in it, and the stunning universe that holds this amazing earth in the palm of it's giant hand, and I wasn't even drunk!

It was such an odd feeling, in a world blurred by anxiety, to just feel good.

From the moment I woke up, all throughout the day, I just felt spectacular.

All the things that bug me normally, idiot drivers, busy markets, impossible car parking at the mall, it was all just fine.

It occurred to me that this is what other people feel, in their normal lives, and it doesn't seem so odd and mildly insane to feel this good.

I'm so envious of people for who this is the norm. This miraculous peace with your place in the universe is such a spectacular feeling. I've experienced only a few times in my life, usually with the aid of valium. I wish the chemical makeup of my brain allowed it to happen more often, every day, once a week, even once a year I'd love to feel this more often than I do.

For those of you that have this, I hope you treasure it for the amazing gift it is.

Not for you

When compared with my sisters mental illness, my anxiety, depression and OCD are almost non-existent.

Her illness falls in the schizophrenia range of disorders. She doesn't hear voices, but the spectrum she's in results in her not having any kind of understanding of long term consequences. She doesn't have any kind of comprehension of a life outside her own sphere of understanding. She doesn't comprehend that people aren't ready to talk to her at 7am on a Sunday. She doesn't think that calling me, or our mother, 12 times a day is unreasonable. It doesn't occur to her that I can't drop everything and drive an hour each way to deliver her cigarettes because she doesn't get paid for 3 days. Or pick her up foundation, or perfume, or whatever she needs right now but can't afford and won't be able to pay back.

There is a complete empty space in the consequences and consideration part of her mind that doesn't allow her to realise that she can't call someone every 5 minutes when she's well aware they're on another call.

The lack of understanding is no fault of hers, but it has such a huge impact on those around her. She expects that everything will be dropped for her the moment she needs something. No matter the time of day or the request, it must be done on her time and nobody else's.

And it's hard to say to her that this moment, this call, this request is too much. This time is not for her, this is mine, it belongs to me and I cannot devote it to you. She can't find the part of her that understands the need for me to say no to her for my own peace of mind, because she doesn't want to see that I have my own mental health issues that impact my ability to be a good sister, aunt, daughter, partner and friend. And her demands on me make it harder to be the things I need to be to those that are part of my circle.

I, middle child that I am, have a compulsive need to please others. My parents, friends, family, I have to be the one that's "good", easy to get along with. I don't ask for money, I don't generally ask for support, I don't need anyone to solve my problems for me, and clearly I am a tad in the control freak spectrum in my life, and my illness.

But a time comes where you need to say "this is not for you" and hang up the phone. And ignore the guilt that you know the next call is going to make life even harder for your mother.

Control, I haz it

I feel good today. It's a kind of weird feeling to feel good, I've been feeling off for so long.

It's been almost exactly a month, so I guess it's just possible that the magic red pills are working. Or it could be that I've taken various steps to take control of my life.

I'm down to one job. I loved my second job, it was passion, and idealism, and all the things I want government service to be, so unlike my day job, but when you feel like you're under a blanket of anxiety and you can't breathe, something had to give.  I guess it made a lot of sense to have more time in the afternoons to learn to be the confident, self assured me again.

The extra time has allowed me to focus on my family. There are issues. Ones I can't even begin to write down because I don't even want to take my brain to that place right now. It's tough being a good sister, aunt, daughter, in a family plagued by mental illness. Two highly unstable personalities in one family, rough. Two highly unstable personalities disagreeing with each other...rough isn't enough of a world. Atomic? Explosive? Not enough. But, the family thing comes with this...

Being auntie to my sweet little monkey makes the bags under my eyes worth it. 

She's part of the reason I'm taking care of me. I want to be around for her, do things for her, be the awesome cool auntie for a long time. I want to spoil her with the best birthday presents, and that means learning to manage my time, my stress and my money. 

So, I got a loan and paid out my visa. And closed the account. I'm performing without a net. Like a lot of folks my age I have a minor debt problem. Not a huge one, it's one card, no loans, no store cards, no mortgage, just the one visa, but it stresses me out and I know I can't manage to pay it off if I keep using it. So it's gone. Which also stresses me out, because I have to learn to use a budget, not native to my personality, but let's see how we go. 

I've never allowed myself to be in a position where I don't have enough to eat, or can't pay my bills, and when I've needed to I've managed to be very good with money. This is one of those times. Planning meals, doing proper grocery shopping, eating healthy and smart, all these things are things that people learn to do at some point in their life, and I guess now is when I learn. 

I have a goal to pay off the loan in a year. I think I can do it. It's a 3 year loan, I pay it off in 18 months I save $1200. I pay it off in a year I save over $1600. If I manage to pay it off in a year, while still saving money, I'm rewarding myself with 8 weeks holiday to San Francisco for Christmas 2013. And a new visa, but with a way lower limit. And hopefully by that point I'll have learned to manage money well enough to not end up in this place again. And all things going to plan I'll pay for the tickets and everything with real cashy money and not credit. 

oh and I kicked ass at the gym today. I hit 5.5 speed on the treadmill, I got it up to level 8, I did 30 minutes, then 15 on the cycle, then another 15 on the treadmill just because I felt like I could. 

I'm proud of me. If feels good to push my body. To let go of my mind and just push myself up that incline. I like feeling like I can do things. Like I'm achieving things. Control and stuff. Things adults do. 

oh and I've finished 97% of Lego Batman 2 and squeeeeed like a small child when I got presents in the mail, so you know, not totally an adult. 

Progress, I likes it. 

Strength v Weakness

I've been spending s lot of time this week thinking about these pills.

Tiny tiny little pills that have caused a big big argument in my brain.


I started taking a 25mg dose of these pills just over a year ago to help me cope with mild anxiety and pretty chronic insomnia. Two months and no extra sleep later I was up to a 50mg dose of the magic Christmas pills, and I was finally getting some sleep, and some calm, which was kind of pretty awesome. I was still getting down days, and angry days, but mostly I was doing ok-ish. Not ok, but ok-ish.

And now, here we are, the new pills. 75mg dose. The point of no return. The "it's not just helping you sleep anymore" pills. The "you're one pill away from totally loony" pills.

And the thing in my head is, is taking these me being weak, because I'm not coping, or is this me being strong because I know me well enough to know I'm not coping and I need help.

I'm kinda really mad at myself that I'm even considering this a sign of weakness. I've lived with mental illness all my life. My sister has it, my father has it, I have it. I know that mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, I know that, I really really do. But the thing is, I'm the good one. I'm the strong one. I'm the one that had a career, and a nice house, and all the good toys. I'm the one that does the right thing, and spends all day in hospital if you've had an accident, I'm reliable.

And in my head, because my sister is none of things, because of her illness, taking these pills makes me unreliable. Like her.

I know, I know, I'm not her, I'm nothing like her, but no matter how hard I try to convince myself of that, I can't make it stick.

But still, I followed the white rabbit, I took the red pill, let's see what's on the other side of the Matrix...

Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Am I alright?

It seems that some of you know me too well and have asked if I'm ok.

More disturbingly at least one person that doesn't really know me very well at all, but follows me on twitter, has asked if I'm ok. This was a disturbing "Houston we have a problem" moment for my belief that I was hiding my lack of ok-ness moderately well.

No, it seems, I am not ok.

Why am I not ok? Honestly, I don't know. I feel a sense of being incomplete, but I don't know why. I don't know what's missing. I don't know how to put it back. This is perhaps the thing that disturbs me the most. If I could pinpoint what was wrong I might have some hope of getting myself back to being me.

Let's try and break down my mental health:

1: My ideology is becoming a problem. 

No really, a huge problem. I'm a feminist. I'm pro-smart government, I really truly believe that government can do good. I'm for healthy bodies, regardless of size, and don't believe in conforming to a dangerous body image dictated to us by media conglomerates.

Imagine how joyful living with that ideology is day-to-day. Truly believing the world can be better at treating equally, while watching the Republican war on women. Truly believing the government can do better, then watching Julia Gillard firmly state that she believes marriage should be between a man and a woman, and gay civil unions are enough because they give the same rights. Like being separate is being equal. Thinking that it's possible for the media to change when it comes to portraying a healthy body image, as demonstrated by Vogue's commitment to stop using models under 16 and stop using bodies that are incredibly unrealistic, is overshadowed by the incessant and disgusting media focus on how much weight Jessica Simpson gained while she was pregnant.

It is so constant, and depressing, and dangerous, and how did we end up in this awful mess? How do we continue to tolerate this hatefulness and hopelessness? Why do we allow the media to dictate to us what is attractive and what isn't, which they're doing for the sole purpose of convincing us to spend billions on their beauty products, weight loss products, and clothes.

How are there people that support discrimination and hated in 2012 and vote for idiots like Romney who want to legislate based on the 10 commandments, despite the fact his country is supposed to be for religious freedom.

It's wearing me down a lot.

I'm starting to do things to feel less helpless. I joined the YWCA, I'm going to some of their events. I've signed up for the gender institute newsletter from the ANU. I'm hoping that doing things will reduce my dejection caused by the world being completely totally fucknuts crazy.

2: What the fuck April?

April, April, April. You really were a cunt, weren't you?

Jeremy's death hit me surprisingly hard, considering I didn't know the kid that well. I spent a lot of time after the funeral thinking about what it would have been like if it were Owen. It was a horrible thing that I couldn't get out of my head. The thought of my amazing baby brother not being part of my life was rough. I still struggle to get the idea out of my head that something could happen to him. He does crazy shit, climbs mountains, does obstacle courses designed by the SAS, runs in those stupid shoes that look like feet, things could happen to him. It scares the fuck out of me.

And then there's my mother. Crazy, stupid, wench. She went and fell while walking out the back of beyond. She was mourning Jeremy, probably like me, scared about the idea of it happening to Owen, and she tripped on something and went down. She put her arm out to break her fall, and shattered her arm. Badly. It broke from wrist to nearly elbow, pushing her wrist joint an inch down her arm. Seriously. And then the crazy bitch walked out, because what other choice did she have? No phone signal, no GPS, not even the dumbass dog, so she walked out. And I get a call at 10pm that she's in hospital. I've never been so scared. To see my mother, for the next 3 days, tiny, weak, dehydrated, starving, in pain, waiting for surgery. Dealing with my sister, my family, being the grown-up, talking to the nurses, the doctor, helping her manage her pain meds, then having her live with me for two weeks not even able to open jars? It was confronting.

One day my mother is going to die. Not for awhile, because she's tough, but it's going to happen. And it's a reality I really am not prepared to confront.

3: Wagon, what wagon?

I fell off it hard. I promised myself I'd be healthier this year. Not to try and lose weight or change my body, or anything, but because I won the best of the genetics from both my parents and have had a variety of health issues in my life including:

• High cholesterol
• High blood sugar
• High blood pressure
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Arthritis
• Tension Headaches

And, as an added bonus, my dad's family seems to have some level of addictive personality and I have family that have gone through codeine and valium addiction, which I don't want to go through, so the last two of those things are a real problem for me to manage. Oh, and, yeah, I'm allergic to anti-inflammatories, which is a bigger problem. Managing pain while being incredibly cautious about taking opiates is a blast for reals. I live with a fairly constant level of pain which blows. 

Part of managing the pain, and the rest of it, is exercise. If your joints and muscles are working properly you get less arthritic pain. And exercise releases endorphins, so that helps with the depression and anxiety. It's time out of mind for me, where I focus on a physical burn, instead of a mental pain. It's amazing at helping me cope. So not going since February is kind of a thing for me. I've got excuses, I took on a second job which has been reletively good for my mental health, but bad for my physical health. I've had tonsillitis twice, followed by a bad chest and sinus infection. I've been tired, and depressed, plus my mum was here, and then I was out of town. Good excuses all, but it's a cumulative effect. Don't exercise, feel more tired, feel more depressed, feel too tired to exercise, feel too depressed to go to the gym, and so on. 

In order to be a more complete me I need to commit to moving. Focussing my energy into building a better body to sustain me for longer. I need to manage my emotional wellbeing in more ways than the little christmas coloured happy pills. Not going has contributed, massively I think, to the current state of my emotional wellbeing. Or, you know, major lack of well being. 

The sugar ain't helping either. I know sugar gives me highs and lows. In a massive way. I get low, I have sugar, I get high, 2 hours later we play the same game over again. Depression leaves me with no self-control to speak of, so I don't say no to myself when it comes to sugar. Stupid stupid stupid. That goes for a ridiculous volume of carbs, as well, of course. 

4: May. Birthday blues. 

I love my birthday. I hate my birthday. Yea, I do dearly love being the centre of attention. I'm an attention whore, I admit it. But also, I hate it. Hate it. Hate it. I don't know why, I always have. I dread it and suffer the most painful depression in the most of May. It starts early and nothing helps. Yeah, I know, fucked. AND stupid. 

Last, but not least, there is time, distance, and the incredible stupidity of time zones. My darling friend Amanda is in Scotland, which perhaps could be the worst time zone for Australia to stay in touch with. My wonderful fiancé is in San Francisco and stays up to ridiculous hours of the night to stay in touch with me. It is difficult to have those you love so much in other countries. It is lonely, and awful, and empty. And it's not their fault, and it's not my fault, it's nobodies fault, but it sure is fucked. 

So the reality of life is, that no, I'm not ok, but fixing it is a whole world of hard. 

There are things that will help, the Christmas pills are great. I went back to the gym today, that'll help if I can stick to it. Managing my good intake a bit better, with a focus on less sugar will mean less highs and lows. Managing my money and not emotionally shopping will give me a peace of mind in the long term. And Americo will be here for two and half months in August, and that will be a huge help. It'll be the first time we'll have a house to ourselves in our combined total of a year living together. And as a first, he'll spend his birthday with me. And I'll get to wake up and kiss him as he turns 36, something we're both incredibly grateful for. 

It's just getting my brain to realise that there are things that help me, and things that hinder me, and I need to force myself to know what's the right thing, and what's the wrong thing, and help myself to get better. 

and that's that. 

For those of you that are concerned, I value you so much. Your concern touches me more than you know. Your love, your friendship, they are my salvation on the bad days. That sounds overdramatic, it really does, but it's true. 

That goes for the total strangers that have expressed concern too. Twitter is such an amazing tool for good, when it's not being an amazing tool for stupid. I've seen people who are down and depressed lifted up on the 140 character well wishes of strangers, which is enough to make my own mind lift of the bad place. The simple "I'm thinking about you" to someone on the edge is such a great thing to do for someone, and there are people that have done that for me, and it is such a blessing. 

So, thank you, my friends, y'all are wonderful bitches, all of you. And I promise you that I'll be fine, once I figure out where my head is at.

That was the really long answer, obviously. The short answer? Not right now, but I will be, because it does get better. And I will get better. 

The enemy within

Depression and anxiety are a terrible disease. Mental illness in whatever form is a terrible thing to experience. You can't see it, you can't pinpoint symptoms to a concrete disease, and diagnosis and treatments are, at best, good guess work by you and your doctor.

Medication for mental illness is dicey. Sometimes it will turn you into an emotionless robot, incapable of feeling, tasting, thinking, living. Sometimes it will make you so physically sick that the mental pain becomes secondary to the physical problems. Sometimes it will result in increased depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide. It's a mixed bag that almost always comes with bad more than good.

I take a drug called dothep for my anxiety. It's a Tricyclic antidepressant, which basically means it blocks the reuptake of serotonin in the brain, resulting in an increase in its levels. Serotonin being one of the things in your brain that results in happy, it helps you cope with stress by helping you relax. Serotonin is the stuff that makes you feel good after a block of chocolate, or post orgasm, so more is better.

I'm on a really low dose. Like really low. It's basically enough to help me sleep at night, because I'm one f those people that doesn't do that much. I stress a lot. I spend all night tossing and turning and everything is a thousand times worse the next day because I didn't sleep.

The dothep works. Its great, I guess, in that I sleep most nights. I don't hear my phone chime that I have email ever, so I'm clearly totally dead to the world, but I wake up every morning exhausted, regardless of the apparent good nights rest.

I also struggle to function a lot of days. I'm angry at work, I'm sad at home, I feel like everywhere I go out of the house I'm wearing the angry face, because I am angry. All the time. And I hate it. This irrational anger is what drove me to cave on taking something for my anxiety in the first place. And then drove me to a slightly increased dose. And here we are, 9 months later, and wondering if it's time again to increase the dose.

Is this just a period of stress? Or do I need more help? Should that help involve therapy? Am I feeling so off kilter that I need more help than I get from my family? I really don't know lately.

The questions in my head make it hard for me to settle to sleep lately. Even with the pills the ability to actually drift off to sleep is harder than it was.

And I write blog posts in my head to try and stop the swirling questions. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I have to type them out to find a quiet place in my brain.

Mental illness is still so misunderstood. Confessing you have it is hard. Finding the right medication is hard. Finding the right therapist is hard. And sleeping, apparently is pretty hard too.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

World Mental Health Day

Monday the 10th of October was world mental health day. In the spirit of the day it's time that I confess I have a mental illness.

Most of my life I've suffered from anxiety and depression and I have a mild case of OCD that mostly presents itself in an obsessions with routine. None of the three are particularly debilitating in that I can function with the normals even mid depression or anxiety episode, and my OCD doesn't really present in a way that would impact my work.

Nonetheless, all three conditions do effect me greatly. Mostly in ways that hurt me, and the people I love the most.

When mid episode, particularly depression, I take my lack of...sense of self...out on the people closest to me. I react in ways that could only be described as ridiculous to the simplest of discussions. A mildly different tone in a reply and I'll scream for awhile and then end up sobbing til I vomit on the bathroom floor. The bathroom floor being the hard cold refuge that I seek during episodes, as I've done my whole life. I don't understand the comfort of cold bathroom tiles, but that's the only place that makes sense when I'm really losing my shit.

It's something that, right now, I understand and can see objectively. I understand when outside the moment, and even sometimes when I'm in the moment, that I'm unstable. I know that I need to pull myself back and be reasonable, but I can't find the coherent part of my mind and bring it to the forefront. It is a heartbreakingly painful place to hear the concern, hurt, and uncertainty in the voice of the love of your life as he tries to find the right words to make you come back from the bad place and start making sense again.

And I don't have any advice for him when I'm in a good mental place to help him find his way through the minefield of my mental illness.

I don't even understand my mental illness, for all that I've had it my whole life.

I recently found the strength to admit I need help, thanks to a podcast I listen to called Sex and Other Human Activities (many thanks to Sara Benincasa and Marcus Parks) where they talk quite regularly about their struggles with mental health and medication and such topics. It was, after listening for a couple of episodes, that I realised that many of my day to day experiences were making me so anxious I couldn't sleep at night. Simple things like reading my email would make me cry, and sometimes I'd sit in my car at lunch afraid to go back to work. I finally did the smart thing, after a month of total exhaustion and go medicated for anxiety.

It was a tough decision for me because I have a family history, not only of mental illness, but of serious addiction. My sister is addicted to both valium and codeine, and it's done irreparable damage to her kidneys, not to mention her relationships with her family and friends. My father also had an addictive personality, which made the idea of taking anything very confronting for me. Despite all that, I talked to my doctor about it, and she found me a very mild anxiety pill that's primary purpose was a sleeping pill.

And it's helped me. I sleep at night. And that alone helps me get through a lot of the things I couldn't do before. But I still struggle. I'm still having days where nothing makes sense. I'm still overly emotional to the point that I sobbed like a child in my managers office last week because I couldn't cope with my work.

And I hate it. I hate the lack of clarity in my mind. I hate the emotions I'm feeling around my own confidence and self worth, which are both far lower than they've been in years. I can't look at myself in the mirror because I'm struggling so hard with my anxiety that I can't see my own value.

It's been very confronting for me to be this off kilter.

But I'm coping. I've become a gym junkie, after a fashion, simply because it's the only time I can get out of my head. Sweating, for whatever reason, allows me to stop thinking and let my day go. I suppose the added bonus to that is that I'm far fitter now as well. Two thumbs up for endorphins.

And I've come to the realisation that I probably need to get myself to some sort of therapy, because I know I'm not coping. And that's not a failure. That was the hardest bit, realising that asking for help is not a failure. I am not a failure simply because I can't do this on my own.

The other thing I've realised is that just because I'm unhappy with where I am mentally, doesn't mean I need to take that out on other people. Sometimes I can't help it, but I can't learn to try and control it, because I don't need to drag other people down here with me. That doesn't, however, mean I push away everyone I love simply because I've been ashamed of feeling this bad.

Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, and it's about time I really started to learn that.