Mental Health

I wasn’t sure about making the title of this post “mental health”. In my experience, people are scared of these 2 words. Both those who have mental health issues and those that know nothing about it. There are even people who are so scared of these words that they refuse to acknowledge them.

I’m ashamed to admit that I was one of those people who refused to acknowledge some mental health issues as a genuine illness. Don’t get me wrong, I understood that people had conditions such as split personalities but I always thought that conditions like stress, anxiety, depression were all states of the mind that the sufferer could do something about. If you’re depressed, do something that makes you happy! If you’re anxious about something, don’t do it! Why do you get stressed out at work? It’s just work!

How naive. How inconsiderate and downright ignorant.

I am an anxious person. I put a lot of pressure on myself to keep all of the people happy all of the time often at the expense of my own happiness. And I’ve always viewed this as a weakness. I’m not a “lovely person”, I’m a push over. I was bullied at school for being “too nice”! Can you believe that?! I never considered my anxiety as a mental health issue though. Even when my entire body succumbed to a harsh onset of eczema where blisters formed all over my skin. I had to go on a course of steroids but my thoughts were not “I need help to handle my stress and anxiety”. Rather they were “how stupid of you to get into this mes. Get a grip!”

I still struggle to understand. I’m not going to sit here and say I’ve found out all the answers because that would be lying. but something happened recently to make me think twice. I suffered postnatal anxiety. Yes, the woman who does Aikido. Knows how to breathe properly. Can lower her heart rate so that she can think straight. The woman who thought “I will never have postnatal depression because I’m happy and grateful for what I have.
The very same woman suddenly found herself burning up into a rage at the drop of a hat. No warning, no trigger. It got more and more frequent. I would blow up at my children for absolutely no reason at all. It got so bad that one of my outbursts caused me to accidentally hurt my son (not badly - I was carrying him in an awkward position because I also had to a steer the baby pram and didn’t realise at the time that my finger nails were digging into his tummy). I felt so guilty I hurt myself (again, not badly) as punishment.

That was me.

After that incident I became absolutely terrified that I’d do it again. I went to the GP who told me, in so many words, it’s just a phase, do yoga.
Yoga?! To fix the fact I can fly into a rage with no warning and there’s absolutely nothing I can do to stop it? To fix the fact I can’t handle my 3 year old who’s doing nothing except being 3! I can’t handle the extra responsibility of keeping a second child alive!
I felt so isolated and I constantly worried about when the next “attack” would surface which was basically causing me to go round in circles.

However when I thought about it, my attention turned to the many times I have considered the similarities between yoga and ki exercises. Maybe the GP wasn’t entirely wide of the mark? So I went back to the basics. Ki breathing as often as I can, a bit of meditation here and there and some stretches (which the boy tries to copy and actually turns into a bit of a laugh). I have stopped pressuring myself to have a clean and tidy home all the time - as a result my house is an absolute midden and I’m not yet at the stage where I can happily invite people over but I’m learning to live with it!

As usual I’ve veered off the point :) This post isn’t supposed to be about my treatment. This is about acknowledging, to myself and you, that I have no idea what’s going on in my own head most of the time. How dare I judge others for not knowing the same. How can I dismiss someone’s mental health when I wouldn’t ever dismiss my own feelings? The uncontrollable rage and foreboding sense of misdirection. There were things happening to me and I didn’t know what they were or how to stop them and it was bloody scary. My children were witnessing one very shouty and tearful mummy. A loose cannon. And the guilt that came with that was incredibly overwhelming. I had to do something about it for the sake of my family.

I reached out. I reset myself. I’m not saying it “fixed” me. I’m no longer saying it’s simple to treat stress and anxiety or any other mental health issue. I wanted to write this post, not only to acknowledge my lack of knowledge and to apologise to all those suffering mental health disorders for my flippancy, but also so that others who are suffering can read this and not feel so alone. Nobody talks about this stuff. Particularly mothers who don’t want the outside world to think they’re not coping. If you feel negativity, Frightened, Angry... Like you can’t be bothered... Please talk to someone. Thankfully I quickly found my own answer to help me cope but I now know that’s not the same for everyone. Maybe you will continue to struggle for a bit before you find something that works for you.

Either way, please remember you’re not alone and you shouldn’t stay silent.

xxx

Just do it!

Today my 3 year old son started a theatre group. He’s a bit of a showman and always up for a game so I knew he’d enjoy it. On the way back to the car I asked him what sort of things he’d done in class.  “We had to sit down and then stand up and then run when we were told” he said. “Sounds like hard work!” I replied. The next thing I know he’s sitting down in the middle of the pavement! “You’ve to sit down mummy!” he shouted excitedly. I didn’t know what to do. His wee face was so full of excitement and fun, I didn’t want to ruin it. But at the same time, I’m an adult! I can’t sit in the middle of the pavement while people walk round us and people in their cars stare! But you know what? I sat down! Why not? He didn’t care where he was he just did it! iit was a game, a subconscious reflection of learning, eagerness to show me what he can do, a simple 3 year old need learn through play.

I sat down because it reminded me of a very valuable lesson I learned in Aikido quite early on. When we first started doing things in a circle taking turns to go into the middle and do the technique, I was really uncomfortable. I was afraid of doing something wrong and people would laugh. Sensei must have picked up on this (he observes a lot more than you think!) and, without making it obvious and singling me out, we practiced randori with a smaller group at first. Who cares if you get it wrong, at least you tried. So what if people laugh, (they shouldn’t in a dojo - terribly disrespectful - but outside people don’t think) at least you’re doing something.

That said, I am still uncomfortable being the first in the middle. Not for the reasons above but because that’s who I am. My learning takes a reflector style. I like to watch and then do. I’m not a do-first-think-later kind of person. I could never just jump in with both feet but I’m getting better at not waiting till the very end!

And so when my son wanted me to share his learning with him, I did. Even if it meant sitting down in the middle of the street! Who cares what people were thinking. Who cares that a couple of people had to walk round us. Joseph was reflecting on something he had learned. Who was I, of all people, to prevent that.

So jump in with both feet if that’s your thing. Hold back a few minutes if you want to. But whatever you do, take a leaf out of the 3 year old’s book and just do it. If you get it wrong it’s ok, at least you tried :)