It’s Complicated But Please, Understand Me

Whim from Words On A Whim has created something truly amazing that I feel, deserves as much support as it can get. I was amazed when I came across her idea to help promote mental illness and to give support and acknowledgement for those who have suffered or currently suffer with a mental illness. That is why, I have decided to take part and help to spread this wonderful and thoughtful campaign. Here goes:

For years, I have struggled with a few mental illnesses of my own. At first, I just thought it was normal and a part of life that everyone just dealt with at some point or another. It wasn’t until I found myself feeling completely isolated and alone that I started to question whether it was really as ‘normal’ as I thought. Those feelings of being alone and thinking that the world was waging its own war against me seemed to last forever, to the point where I couldn’t pick myself up again, it just all kept getting worse. I always felt so sad and eventually, that sadness turned into guilt, angst, confusion and the notion that nothing was ever going to get any better. Following these feelings (as if I couldn’t feel any worse), I started getting terrible panic attacks that I couldn’t control and I was terrified. I tried my best to block it out, tell myself that it was nothing and that it would all go away over time – I felt stupid and others thought that I was only seeking attention which was definitely not my plan.

Weeks later and I was still feeling the same. My life seemed to be spiraling downwards and I no longer had the motivation to do anything positive or anything that I felt was actually worth doing – I was struggling. It felt like something was forcing my head below water and was trying to drown me until I couldn’t breathe and until I had lost all capability to take control of my life. I told the people closest to me and, whilst it felt relieving to share my feelings and experiences with someone, I didn’t feel as if they really understood. Fortunately, my mum eventually realised that I was suffering from depression and anxiety, and after talking to my gp who referred me to treatment, I started to regain my joy for life.

For anyone who is still suffering from anxiety or depression (or any mental illness for that matter), remember that recovery takes time. You may feel like nothing is improving and you may feel like a burden to your friends and family, but if they really love you then they will always be there to give you support and encouragement. Make sure that you are patient with yourself and if possible, seek help from anyone who you feel you can trust, because having that support makes all the difference. Most importantly, do more of the things that you love to do as this will help you to feel better and where possible, set little goals for yourself to keep yourself motivated and hopeful for life. Anything you want to do is possible and please don’t let yourself believe that mental illness is a sign of weakness, because it isn’t. You are so strong and you will recover, I have no doubt about that.

I now nominate Elizabeth from The world through a teenagers eye and Young & Twenty

If you’d like to take part in this amazing event, follow the steps below:

1) Take this award, add it to your blog, and award it to as many or as little bloggers as you like – with or without mental illness.

2) To whomever receives this award, write a post titled however you like, but talk about your experiences with mental illness, in order for others to understand mental illness. With your post, talk about understanding those whom suffer mental illness either from your experience personally, or that of a friend. Or just take on board the post however you like!) It can be anything. Not just depression, or schizophrenia, or panic disorder, anorexia – all of them. Any mental disorder or illness you have had any experience with yourself, or if you know someone close to you, or know a lot about it. These posts need to also remain POSITIVE to show the strength of yourself or someone you know for going through mental illness. The aim is to remove the stigma that comes with mental illness – or at least try inspiring people to speak out about it in order to aid removing the stigma even a little bit, that’s better than nothing! :)

3) Just remember to include this list at the bottom of your post, and make it a post that could help people understand mental illness, and stop the stigma.

4) Tag each of your posts with #UnderstandMe / #UnderstandMeAward either on wordpress or twitter so that your posts can be shared on Whim’s blog! Or go to Whim’s blog and message her through here, just make sure that she can find it so she can share it!

5) ANYONE can be awarded the award to take part in this, and everyone is completely welcome to award themselves with it to then award others! 

6) Don’t forget to link back to Whim’s blog so that she can share it.

Thank you for reading :)