Vulnerability

“Daring greatly means the courage to be vulnerable. It means to show up and be seen. To ask for what you need. To talk about how you’re feeling. To have the hard conversations.” – Brene Brown

I have always stood by the saying that, sharing your story means that others may not feel alone and so, maybe today is the day to explain my silence on this account. Today, because it is Mental Health Day and what better day then that. As most of you would have read, I have had my battles with depression and anxiety throughout my life. However, there was one point in my life where I considered my struggles to be something more than just bouts of depression and anxiety. After a particularly hard and dark period, I was gratefully walking down a beach, time I needed away from the consistency of everyday life. I had really gotten into podcasts as a way of educating and pushing me to do better. One of the podcasts I was listening to at the time was Fearne Cotton’s ‘Happy Place’ and in this particular episode there was a condition discussed and the further I went into this episode the more I couldn’t help but resonate with it, many things started making sense and this feeling that there may be something more started to become increasingly real.

When I was back in the UK, I went to the doctors to discuss my concerns and unfortunately I just wasn’t taken seriously, due to the fact that I wasn’t presenting any symptoms at that time. I can only imagine this situation occurs more times than not and it’s such a daunting experience to have to deal with, especially when you are told to speak out but you just aren’t heard. I am not here complaining about the NHS but just giving you my experience. There wasn’t much else I could do and so I had to carry on and just muddle through the times of darkness just hoping they wouldn’t last too long.

Until one day, my whole life changed, with no warning or inkling there I was sitting on my sofa at home with my family around me, the ambulance had been called for me, the 24 hours before had been what I can only explain as being out of this world. I have flash backs from this time and the days after. Where I had been sectioned and taken to a Mental Health hospital. I was put into isolation, given drugs to sleep because I would not sleep, I was talking more than the usual person, behaving as if I was possessed, delusional and probably many things I do not remember. I had, had my first acute psychosis at 36 years old and I was kept in hospital for a month during Covid, so I could only see my family through a hallway window. Until you have been in this position there is nothing much I can do to articulate it, its different for each person and so many things happened or I thought happened it was like being in sleep paralysis, in a video game and also so vividly real. My life was now managed by drugs for the few months after I left. There was still no official diagnosis for a long term illness and so I again continued to muddle through life now knowing something like an acute psychosis was a possibility in my life.

I came out the hospital a different person, now trying to grasp life through another lens. The initial months after my discharge I had a ‘neutral’ mood which for me was better than what I had experienced in the years previous and the period I had just dealt with. But surely enough I ended up in the hole of darkness again. I was in a period of coming off my anti psychotic drugs and dealing with the perilous feeling of defeat. I carried on, I moved into my flat which had been a year in the making and just did what I needed to do to ‘survive’ during this time. And then, there it was finally, the little sparkle of light, the feeling of cosiness, the want to listen to music again, the need for connection, I had survived it again and things were looking up. I started again as I always had to, to build things up, get myself back into the gym, recognise how to communicate again and this time around get back into work which for the first time I had actually been off sick for. Coupled with this, I started furnishing my flat, spending countless weekends at garden centres for my tiny balcony which I completely flooded with flowers. I finally began thriving and enjoying living life, something I had to always grapple with. I became me again and it was a wonderful experience things were just going as they needed to, well until they started to be too good. Too good? You may say how is that possible? Isn’t that just the way life is meant to go? Well yes you would think so, this is the trajectory most would want their life to be going on.

There is no way I can fully explain what ensued in the next period of my life, I started waking up each day with this zest for life I had never encountered before but why would I knock it? It had been all I was waiting for. This was it, time to just enjoy. I wanted to be out all the time which again is nothing outwardly unusual, talking to many more people which again comes with the territory of someone of a curious mind and another thing which really wasn’t too far away from what I had a tendency to do (sometimes)…spending money more frivolously than usual. However, this combined with more than spontaneous shares of this zest for life, overly creative shows of art, love, intimacy, excessive connection to the divine being, not eating, not sleeping and extreme energy are actually the signs of a person becoming ‘high’. You see this time around my acute psychosis had decided to slowly creep up on me over a matter of months, there were some signs and then some things people would say were normal. It was hard for those around me to determine what was happening as not only was I now in my own space, they only saw little bits of what was happening. I felt like I was on happy drugs EVERY DAY.

But its not all fun and games. This time around the climax of my psychosis was actually in a hotel in the middle of London, where I had spent a few days (for no reason), having a great time working, making friends with everyone who worked there and literally thinking I was living the life I was meant to live. When it all abruptly ended, with one of the staff knocking at my door asking for an emergency contacts number, which I was refusing to give but then finally gave. The reason for this? On the last day of my stay, which I had extended a few times, I was in and out of consciousness, I briefly remember trapsing around with no shoes on, abandoning my items all over the place and having security tail me (imagine having no idea of what else you actually did or did not do). And, the next thing I know my family was there, my room was being packed up and I was on my way to my parents’ home. This time around there was no ambulance, I was taken to the hospital by my family and after a few days in A&E (which I thought was only one day) I was sectioned and taken in a white van to another mental health hospital. This experience was nothing like the first, it was possibly one of the worst times of my life. Ultimately, the NHS can only provide so much in terms of mental health services and it really depends on which borough you are taken into hospital in and where they have a bed, so it’s really pot luck about where you are placed. Again, I am not here to knock the NHS, they have been there in many times of need and I am more than grateful that we have this service. Only being semi-conscious of what was occurring before I went to this hospital I only recall being in a lounge and waking up in a room. I’ve only ended up going to hospital in the clothes I am in and maybe the few personal items I have. The rest comes when your family is able to visit and you have any sense of what you may actually need because of course you are on many drugs and those mainly (in my case) to get you to sleep and lower the energy you have. Again, I was not able to see my family as it was Covid, this time not even through a pane of glass. I was isolated, surrounded by many others also battling there own illnesses. Nothing but sleeping tablets could get you through the night and if like me you somehow were able to resist them the days and nights just became one.

From this time around, I remember my psychosis manifested itself in irritation, paranoia, voices and severe delusions and due to being in this hospital I was in, this only became worse. After one particularly bad night, I was told that it possible that I could be there for six months rather than one. Luckily for me, I have a super power of a family on my side who were able to get me into another hospital and things became progressively better for me. But as most of you know what goes up must always come down and I was not in any way prepared for this landing. The low I was thrust into this time around crippled me more than I could even explain, I had always in some form been able to keep my head above water and even work during these times in my years before but this time it was like no other. My bed was my only sanctuary and doing ANYTHING but lying down was like being pricked by 1000 needles, the harder thing during these times is knowing what you are actually capable of, and seeing it all just dissolve away into an abyss, in which you only wonder how you did it before. Asking if I was ‘ever going to get out of it’ was my mantra, joggers and hoodies were my uniform (everywhere) and the look of despair, my mask. It was so bad and unwavering this time, I was admitted to hospital again but this time I consented. Recovery is long and arduous and I have been told mine is a long road but the only reason I am able to write this now is because I am finally coming out of the longest low of my life and here I am starting from the beginning all over again.

It also turns out I was right in my assumption about my symptoms, the episode of Happy Place was about Bipolar. I listened to the likes of Stephen Fry and Liam Payne stories and this, not to say you should self diagnose but sometimes you may have more of a handle of what occurs in your own brain. And so, I have been diagnosed with Bipolar, much later than most people are in their lives but there it is. The previous highs and lows were nothing like I have witnessed in the last two years but they were subtly there before and now it has been unleashed on me in its full glory.

Well there is it is, part of my story shared, to help others on this Mental Health day.