We need to talk about mental health

I always thought I was someone who took mental health seriously and didn't belittle or stigmatise the potential impact of a mental illness.

Until it happened to me.

On 13th July, I blogged about how I was struggling emotionally after my cancer diagnosis and resulting hysterectomy last year. When I wrote that post, I was feeling lower than I ever had done before - yes, even lower than I'd felt immediately after the diagnosis and surgery. I was at breaking point. By the end of July, I'd been signed off work and my doctor had confirmed that I was suffering from 'extreme low mood' and needed some time out.

As well as feeling overwhelmingly low and exhausted all day and every day, I felt guilty. Guilty about being off work, guilty about worrying my friends and family, and guilty because I wasn't able to cope. Would I have felt guilty if I'd broken my ankle or had a violent migraine? I suspect not. Would I have constantly told myself 'you need to snap out of this' if I'd broken my ankle or had a violent migraine? Definitely not!

No one was making me feel guilty and no one was pressuring me to get better any quicker, so my guilt was entirely self inflicted because I was subconsciously ranking physical pain above mental pain. Lots of people even told me I was brave after reading my blog post, but I just thought 'Me? Brave? Surely I'm weak, not brave, because I'm not coping!'

I even felt a little guilty if I went out to see a friend or went into town to do some shopping. Shouldn't I be staying at home all day if I'm unwell? When, actually, I should have felt confident in the knowledge that I needed that time out of the house for my mental recovery (and also to give me a little break from Jessie once in a while). I should have stopped belittling the impact of my mental health problems and started to acknowledge the importance of doing what I needed to do to get through the day.

I decided back in July that I didn't want to go on medication, even though the doctor offered it as a potential solution. Although I'm still managing without medication, I do sometimes wonder if I'm making the right decision. After my operation last year, I'd have laughed heartily in your face if you'd have suggested that I shouldn't take any medication and should just grin and bear it and let the pain take its course. I was literally counting down the minutes until my next painkiller. So why is it that I feel as if I need to fight my mental battles on my own? Why is it that we're so ready to seek help for all our other body parts when they break down, but not our brains?

When people asked me how I was during those very low days, I tried to sugarcoat it and didn't go into any amount of detail. I only opened up to a small handful of people about what I was going through because I convinced myself it was 'too awkward' to talk about. When random people asked me if I had a day off because I was walking my puppy in the middle of the afternoon, I'd tell them I'd booked the week off as annual leave to avoid telling them the truth. However, if I'd have been off work with a broken ankle or a migraine, I wouldn't have hesitated to tell people. So I was actually contributing to that stigma I'd always criticised so strongly and, again, hiding and therefore belittling what I was going through.

For the last few weeks, I've genuinely been feeling much better. I'm back in work and life seems a lot more manageable on the whole. So of course, when people ask me how I am, I brightly say 'I'm fine thanks, I'm feeling much better!' However, perhaps it would be more useful for me and for everyone else if I said 'I'm feeling a lot better but still have low days now and again.' Just like that broken ankle or that migraine which takes time to heal and tends to linger for a little while, my mental health isn't completely 'better' yet and it'll most likely be a very long time before I get to that point.

I feel so frustrated and isolated when people feel uncomfortable about talking to me about my mental health and choose to act as if nothing has happened, which they wouldn't dream of doing if someone had that broken ankle or migraine I keep harping on about. But do I really have any right to be frustrated when I always put my breezy mask on, even on my lowest days, and don't give my mental health problems the standing they deserve? When I repeatedly shy away from telling people the truth about how I'm really feeling to avoid that 'awkward' conversation and their equally awkward response? I'm in a difficult position because people find my cancer experience hard enough to talk about, let alone the resulting emotional issues, but I need to learn to speak out and normalise these discussions. If I don't, then who will?

So when I say 'we need to talk about mental health', I wholeheartedly include myself in that statement first and foremost. I hope this blog post goes some way towards starting that conversation.

Image credit: www.mentalhealthplatform.com