My Reality of Mental Health

A few days ago I had a mental breakdown. I knew it was coming, I tried my hardest to contain it and hope it would go away. That's probably the worst thing you can do though, as it bubbles away inside you and just gets worse and worse until something tips you over the edge.

A number of things triggered the breakdown. The starting point was the realisation and acceptance that I am going to have to defer my studies for 6 months and that's the best case scenario. Worst case is I lose it altogether, but lets stay positive and pretend that's not even an option. Dan and I had a long chat and I decided that the break needed to happen so I could shift my full attention on to the girls, and to take some pressure off of him and lastly my physical, and now recently, mental health just isn't where it should be for me to look after patients.

The thing that pushed me over the edge was a realisation of the unhealthy behaviour I have been exhibiting. My mental health has fluctuated for as long as I can remember. I will go through a period where my mood dips and my anxiety peaks and I suffer for a period of time. What I notice during this time, whether it's intentional or not, I feel like an inconvenience. People become frustrated with me because they don't understand why I'm crying, they become agitated and low themselves because I have dragged them down and tensions just generally run that little bit higher. Because of this I feel pressure to 'make everything alright' and make everyone around me happy. Over the years I hadn't noticed how scarily good I had become at covering it up, putting a mask on, painting on the smile. So then I will go through a period of time where I am 'OK' and then the cycle repeats itself.

The cycle is like blowing a balloon up. The air going inside the balloon represents my depression and anxiety. Over time that balloon fills up, but at some point you know that if you blow one, maybe two more times that balloon might burst. That can't happen because I have responsibilities as a wife and a mother. So I open the balloon very gently and let some of that air out (you know when you let the air out ever so gently and it makes that squeaky noise?). That air being released is where my low mood comes out I'm releasing a portion of it to stop it bursting from being overfilled. Now, because I have responsibilities and I think it's an inconvenience for me to suffer, I can't let too much air out, because if I let go of that balloon what happens? It flies around the room, before landing deflated on the floor. That can't happen. So I let enough out, until someone makes me feel like I have to stop and start filling that balloon up again. I have been doing this for years and I have only just realised that this can't happen anymore, it's exhausting and each time this happens each episode gets worse.

My other realisation was my expectations of myself. The day I broke down, the girls were in Devon with the grandparents, I came home to Dan and ugly cried all over the place, I was hysterical! I kept shouting at him telling him what a terrible wife I had been and that I was sorry! I'm a very open person, but finding this really hard to write down.... I've found myself just staring at the screen with a million words circling around my brain. Everything I do revolves around whether it will make someone else happy. Sounds normal? It's a natural, respectful and generally nice thing to do something out of the kindness of your heart to make someone else happy, it doesn't sound like a negative trait right? Right! That's because it isn't, what is unhealthy is the reasoning behind why I do the things I do.

I will clean the house top to bottom ready for when Dan gets home, I will cook a nice homemade meal for when he gets home, and I will be intimate with him, even if I'm not really in the mood because I am fully convinced that if I don't he will leave. So I do whatever I think it will take to make him happy so he doesn't leave. I might add by no means is this because of him. Never in our 10 years together has he ever come home and questioned why his dinner wasn't ready if it wasn't, never has he questioned why the dishes weren't done if they weren't. The trait that is the most heartbreaking not only for me but also for him and certainly not what he deserves, I tell myself I don't love him as much as I do because I'm convinced that if I convince myself I don't love him as much as I do then it won't hurt as much if he does leave. As a mother, I'm convinced I have to be a certain type of mum otherwise my children won't love me or someone will take them away from me! Friendships are the same if I'm not a certain type of person or friend, my friendship won't be valued and they will leave.

I'm 29 years old and I have lived at least all my adulthood like this, and I have now reached a point where I am exhausted. I can't going through these cycles and thinking and feeling the way I do. On the positive side, I am thankful I have finally picked up on this and I feel incredibly strong to have made these realisations on my own. But I can't move forward now on my own.

So that was the realisation of my behaviours and cycles. Yesterday came the realisation that my balloon had burst and that I needed help. We were driving to meet the grandparents half way to pick up our beautiful girls and I cried nearly the whole way there. Dan kept asking me why I was crying? I just needed to cry, in fact what I was doing was trying to suppress a panic attack. I knew I should have just let it come so I could get it over and done with. Instead, two minutes before we pulled into the car park I couldn't hold it in and out it came. I was consumed with sheer panic of having the girls back. I honestly felt like I had forgotten how to parent, I couldn't parent, I couldn't be in charge of these tiny little humans on my own ever again, it literally consumed me that I was incapable and they deserved better. The problem was, the panic attack didn't subside naturally I had to stop it in its track and put on a brave face and pretend everything was fine for my girls and the grandparents. I couldn't bare the thought of them thinking I was incompetent! So I shut it down.

This was a huge problem. All the way home I was on edge, I was tapping my phone the whole way home in a bid to distract myself. The whole drive home I was battling with myself that I needed to leave as soon as I got home but I was consumed with shame and guilt. How could I do that to my children when I have literally just got them back?! When we got home, Amelia went straight out to play with her friends, so I tried to unpack their stuff to distract me. The longer I sat in the house the longer it felt like somebody had their hands wrapped around my neck strangling me, I felt physically sick. For the first time ever I left. I've spent all this time thinking I need to hide it and stay with my family to make them happy but actually last night, the best thing I could do for them was to leave. I couldn't let this panic attack and sadness come out in front of the kids and although my problems aren't solved from leaving I certainly feel like I have been able to be a slightly better mum today than I probably would have been if I had bottled it up and stayed yesterday afternoon! I came home last night with a petrifying realisation that I'm not OK, I need help, and it's not going to be an easy ride.

But that's OK.

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