LET’S TALK ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH...HOW DO WE CHANGE THE STIGMA?

TRIGGER WARNINGS: MENTIONS OF DEATH, CANCER, ANXIETY, DEPRESSION, PANIC ATTACKS, SUICIDE, GENERAL MENTAL HEALTH

I know this is quite a hefty piece, so if you could give it the time and patience to read I would be so appreciative. I just want to start by saying that topic is not an easy one for me to talk about. Namely because I wish I actually had an answer to my question. Ever since I thought of the topic I’ve been fighting with myself to write this because I didn’t know if I wanted to be so personal. Once people know this part you can’t take that back. Whether I really wanted people to know something about me that I’ve been ashamed of for so long…

But then I thought of myself again. If knew at the start of my journey what I know now maybe I could have saved myself some suffering. Half of my fight so far has purely been on whether I’m okay to be feeling these things. Looking around me and seeing people able to cope better and wondering why seemingly I’m the only suffering.

Yet it is estimated that 1 in 6 people in the past week experienced a common mental health problem. That disconnect is the thing that worried me the most, why do people feel so alone when it’s so common? Of course we shouldn’t speak out if we aren’t comfortable but if I can help just one person this reaches solely on the fact that they know they aren’t alone in this, I’d feel as though all the fear I’ve gone through debating this is worth it. I’ve learnt during my journey through therapy that this is not something that we just get over or cure. We just learn to cope better with the card life dealt us.

As a disclaimer also, this is hugely my experience, I don’t have all the answers. I don’t claim to do so. Every single experience is different and that’s another reason why it’s so tough to change the stigma because what goes for one doesn’t go for all. I don’t want to sound like a know it all because that isn’t where I’m trying to go with this. I just want to contribute to a conversation that I generally don’t think is happening enough.

I want conversation to be had so harrowing statistics like ‘80-90% of people who attempt/die by suicide have a mental health condition, but not all are diagnosed’ isn’t a statistic anymore.

MY EXPERIENCE

I’ve been suffering with depression for about three years now and with anxiety for just under two. Most of the time has been shaming myself for feeling the way I was feeling, bottling up emotions and trying to cope instead of live. It took me starting my first year at university to realise I was suffering from an actual illness and what I was feeling was valid and not just a passing phase. Then starting my second year to go to get help, to start therapy, to fully accept myself for the person I am now.

As I said before half of my battle was acceptance. From sixth-form we used to make a joke about the food chain in terms of what our school was worried about. The students applying for Oxbridge, the other university students a few levels down, the students trying to get an apprenticeship a few below that and underneath all the rubble our mental health. I never felt as though I could talk to anyone at my school and that has to change in general. Getting good grades was great but at the expense of being an aid into what I’m facing now? I’d rather the focus have been on me getting help.

To start from the very beginning, my depression started from losing both of my grandparents in the span of six months. Grief was pretty much the only emotion I could feel for the rest of the year and I didn’t know that this was the start of a very hard journey. I believe that it comes from how I feel emotion, I laugh and feel joy with my whole body but on the other side of that I cry and feel loss, sorrow and pain the same way. I look back now and I can safely say I wasn’t coping, I threw myself into school, smiling and laughing because I knew when I got home I’d be sleeping to forget, throw myself into something to take my mind off of it or face the grief I was feeling.

If that wasn’t enough my uncle was diagnosed with bowel cancer four years after my aunt had died of brain cancer. My mind was out of control now, I stepped up the coping mechanisms. Keep laughing harder with my friends at school. Keep sleeping when you get home to forget about what was happening. Keep throwing yourself into anything that would help you forget. I was breaking down and spiralling. I didn’t feel as though I could talk because I didn’t want to worry my parents or close friends. Not only that but everyone else seemed to be coping. Why was I the only one that wasn’t?

Then my thoughts started to go the other way, maybe I am over-exaggerating this, this isn’t depression. I’m just grieving, this is normal. Not only that but the fear of no one believing me because I was so good at throwing myself into being happy when I was at school. No one would believe that this person could be depressed. So scary to even think about because I had no idea what I was going through and it makes me so sad to know that someone else out there may be suffering the same way.

I’ve finished my A-Levels now, passed them despite being told quite smugly by a teacher in front of my parents that I wouldn’t. So I set off and am in good spirits, maybe this is the place I can forget. I can become a new person and I don’t have to be in the box I was put in before. Loud, aggressive, outspoken, despite them not knowing me at all. All because I was really the only person with the colour skin I had and I knew how to stick up for myself. Being more worried about me wearing a hat than what I was going through. I had a point to prove, I couldn’t wait to leave and I was so excited for this new adventure.

Little did I know this would be the place I would spiral a little further. Everyone tells you this is the place you find yourself, this is the place you become more independent. No one tells you about the loneliness, the isolation you can feel. I was trapped, I started struggling to attend all my seminars and lectures and every one was harder to find the motivation to go to than the last. At this moment I had that moment of realisation, this isn’t normal and regular grieving. This is an illness.

My whole persona changed instantly, I felt so ashamed. I struggled to go places on my own. Talking to new people became unbearable. I thought people could sense that my mental health was not good and I didn’t want to leave my room. Experiencing panic attacks. I was throwing myself into relationships and losing friendships. Being hurt when they didn’t work out because despite not being in the right frame of mind to cultivate them properly I still was feeling as though it was my fault, resenting and blaming myself in a vicious cycle. I was coming home every week and just in general not taking advantage of this new opportunity I had which only made me feel worse. Now not only was I suffering from depression but my anxiety also.

Yet again my grades didn’t slip in general I kept a 2:1 average and so I felt as though I couldn’t seek help because I wasn’t slipping up that way. Again I felt as though no one would believe me. It also didn’t feel as though I was like this at the time. I couldn’t visualise this at the time, everyday just felt like adding to one big struggle.

Epitomised by my first year exams. We get a very bad diagnosis that Friday about my uncle, it looked like the end was coming. I was hysterical, my wonderful uncle. The man who always supported me if I needed help. Who joked with me and took a genuine interest. The man who called me up just to see how I was, one of my favourite people on earth, he was leaving me. Again I had to suffer another loss. I had never felt worse. I travelled to see him on the Sunday leaving early on Monday morning to travel back to university. I sat the exam the next day, the image of his frail body overtaken by cancer in my head the whole time. But it was all I ever knew. Keep on soldiering on despite what’s happening. It was one of the worst days of my life.

I was grieving again this time but also knowing I was suffering with anxiety and depression. But nothing changed. I couldn’t bring myself to get help face to face. I tried online help, it didn’t feel personal enough. I tried phone calls I couldn’t bring myself to follow through with it. I picked up the phone to ring my GP to start the process to get counselling but I can’t even tell you how many times I picked it up and put it down again. This was a huge step for me. I was so ashamed of myself. If I do this will I be looked at differently? Will people think I’m crazy? Will people judge me? So I left it.

I went back for my second year and it all changed for me. Through seeing an inspiration of mine speak out I finally found my courage. No, what I was going through wasn’t okay or normal. However, that didn’t change the fact that I was still Gabby, I still could talk your ear off about football and especially Arsenal. I could give you a minute by minute run down of the MCU. I could genuinely tell you 100 things about my favourite show The 100 and I could listen to music constantly and not get bored. They all seem very random facts but it showed me that I’m multi-dimensional, yes I may suffer with anxiety and depression but I’m still me. I haven’t changed in the sense that I love my friends and family, I love my hobby’s and above all else its okay to be both. You aren’t the only one.

I took the step of going to my GP and it was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. I felt sick to my stomach and I was crying as soon as I opened my mouth but it was all worth it. She suggested a few avenues and now I currently go to CBT and it has taught me so much. It doesn’t cure me but it gives me the tools to change the way I think so that I never have to go back to using the coping mechanism I was using before, avoidance.

I don’t tell you this for sympathy, I tell you this because our stories may look completely different but yet we may both be suffering. I tell you this because I want you to know that IT IS okay to feel whatever you may be feeling. Whether you feel you want help, you just need someone to understand what your feeling at this moment or you need this story to remind you to try not to feel ashamed, this is what I hope sharing my story does. I could go my whole life without sharing what I just did if I thought it wouldn’t help anyone but I hope it does, so that’s why I do.

INSPIRATIONS

I added this part because if not for this I wouldn’t have looked for help and I certainly would not be sharing this story and I wanted to go into a bit more depth. When I spoke a little bit to family and friends about how I was feeling it was a mixed response. I was on the defensive because of all of my pain and fear so I only shared little parts of how I was actually feeling. Because this is such a taboo subject for me. Most people aren’t properly equipped to give that advice especially if they hadn’t suffered themselves. So I left feeling as lost as I did when I started most conversations.

I’ve never connected to any famous person speaking about mental health because I couldn’t myself accept that I was suffering. I couldn’t put into words or explain properly what I was going through so I certainly didn’t want to see anyone else try. I don’t know if by fate or something else very special I started to see an Australian actor, Bob Morley from my favourite show speak out about dealing with depression and it just clicked for me. You aren’t the only one. I never believed that money or fame could affect happiness but I knew if someone on the other side of the world to me. Someone I already looked up to, admired, loved, connected with could be so brave as to share his story to an amount of people I could only dream of reaching with this, can you share your story with someone that can help you? For me at that point the answer was yes I cant stress enough how many people don’t get that moment. That doesn’t mean they aren’t brave either, battling this alone is so enormous. This is my story and my story only, everyone else’s is so different.

As I said before I struggled so much with explain how it felt to be me at the time and he tweeted that ‘as a person who suffers from depression, there are days when the enormity of it, feels like it defines you. But remember you are so much more than an illness. Don’t give up on yourself.’

It felt like it was written just for me, I was so scared to speak out because I felt as though I was defined by it. If anyone found out this would be the end of people seeing myself as I knew it because they wouldn’t be able to look past it. I remember just crying as I saw the tweet because I felt more free than I ever had before, I wasn’t the only one.

Through his recommendation I also found Matt Haig, who wrote a truly extraordinary book called ‘Reasons to stay alive.’ I would honestly implore anyone to read it whether you suffer or not because understanding is the most important thing and this is how we start. When people feel strong in a sense that they can share their experiences they should read, listen, consume in any format you can, I can’t explain how important it is to. It will change your life whether you suffer or not.

Probably one of the most well known pages and one I always find myself coming back to is this:

‘Depression is also…

Smaller than you.

Always, it is smaller than you, even when it feels vast. It operates within you, you do not operate within it. It may be a dark cloud passing across the sky, but — if that is the metaphor — you are the sky.

You were there before it. And the cloud cant exist without the sky, but the sky can exist without the cloud.’

HOW DO WE CHANGE THE STIGMA?

I really don’t know but I can only assume and suggest from my experience. One of those is conversation. 1 in 4 people are said to experience mental health issues each year. It’s not uncommon yet for so many people it feels that way, I know it did for me. I couldn’t talk about it, especially when it seemed as though it was nowhere. Never spoken about on tv as much as it should be for something so prominent.

Another thing is campaigns like Every Mind Matters. Using different avenues like sport and music etc to get this message across. Trying to get that message out there to support people on their very individualised journeys, which is even teamed up with Heads Up in the FA. Better yet with things like this let it not just be a publicity stunt when corporations claim they care about mental health and players are visibly shaken we stop the games immediately and stop reiterating the thought that people should work through their suffering.

Again in work also, people with a long-term mental health condition are also said to lose their jobs every year at around double the rate of those without a mental health condition. We have to stop the stigma by being proactive. We make information more accessible and readily available. We stop speaking of it as a taboo subject and make it a priority in all areas and departments of life, schools, work, hobby’s etc. Then more people may feel more comfortable to speak out and explain why they feel the way they do.

CONCLUSION

This is probably one of the toughest things I will ever write about because it’s the first time I’ve shared my story like this. Mental health is not simple, my anxiety and depression are not simple, this hasn’t been an easy journey and this isn’t the end of it, I’m still on this journey. It’s the same for everyone else, its never a simple fix. If I knew then what I know now then I wouldn’t have shut myself off to help or been so scared to ask for it but we also owe it to those people who don’t want to share to do so. We need to change the stigma so everyone can feel as though they can talk about how they are feeling.

Mental health is not about wanting to be treated differently in a way that you may see as helping but is really a negative way, it’s really about that understanding and listening. Talking to someone you feel is withdrawing or just checking up on the people you care about because the signs are not always there for us to see them clearly.

I’m 19 years old and I suffer from depression and anxiety. I’m not perfect. I’m not the only one and the journey to accepting this is hasn’t been easy I just hope that this will help someone else in their journey. Or to help someone who doesn’t quite understand do so.

This weeks quote is Bob Morley’s “be well, be kind” that he finishes all his tweets with. I chose it because sometimes what we need to do needs to be simplified. How about we start being intentional with how we treat ourselves and other people. It goes a long way when you’re feeling unimaginable pain and sadness above all else. It felt fitting to use this because I can’t explain the progress I’ve made because of him, I wouldn’t be so accepting of myself or passionate about speaking about this topic. I wouldn’t have spoken out and found myself personally getting help. I hope some of the future topics write do the same because its so important to me.

Stay safe everyone,

Gabrielle De Cordova-Harris

STATISTICS FOR MENTAL HEALTH FROM (MENTALHEALTH.ORG.UK and MHFAENGLAND.ORG)