My Mental Health Journey
This month represents something that is near and dear to my heart- it’s Mental Health Awareness Month and I want to switch gears on the blog topic to celebrate. I want to share the story of my mental health journey because it’s been a long one and maybe my story sounds like yours and if it could help at least one person, then I know I’ve done my job.
My journey starts with my first panic attack in the fourth grade. I was standing in line to go to lunch with the rest of my classmates and I remember looking up at the clock and going into what I now can describe as an outer body experience; my brain was disassociating to help protect me from danger. I now know that my sympathetic nervous system went into high gear because that is how my body was created.
After that first attack, I became fixated. I was so afraid of it happening again that I developed a mild case of agoraphobia. Not wanting to travel to new places and when I did, I was petrified. I suffered for so long and never realized I was developing other fears and phobias along with it. I lived in a constant state of anxiety and I did it alone at such a young age. There was no one there to tell me it was because of mental illness, that it would get better or how to treat it; I feared for life more than anyone should at that age. My behavior absolutely mimicked how I was feeling on the inside- the crying, the resistance, complaining of stomach aches- as children I believe our mental temperament is projected in our behavior and paying attention to that behavior can give us a lot of clues to one’s mental state.
Fast forward some years when I was a sophomore in high school, I was diagnosed with a hyperactive thyroid. The thyroid is the epicenter to hormones and hormones are the main messengers in the body, they help control literally everything. To have levels of your thyroid hormone be too high, it’s basically going to put your body into hyper mode, creating symptoms like: anxiety, heart palpitations, higher body temperatures, and increased metabolism and weight loss. Being sick was the key to my mental illness. It finally taught me what mental illness was and I wasn’t only treated for the thyroid before it got any worse, it allowed me to finally be treated for the anxiety and depression that had now set in. During this time, I couldn’t get out of bed let alone go to school. I could barely eat because the anxiety and hyperactivity always made me feel sick. Add a high metabolism on top of that and I withered down to nothing quickly.
Once I was finally treated for all of my ailments, I was a new person. I had never felt that happy in my entire life. However, beyond the happiness, I was still living with phobias, anxiety and depression that had been formed in childhood that would basically be calling the shots for the next decade of my life. I was so captivated by mental illness, how it is all intertwined and connected in some way. Anxiety causes depression, depression causes anxiety. Anxiety can be the onset of more serious ailments like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. It became my life to dig deep and put a name to everything I had been suffering with.
Graduating high school, going to college with all the honors was a dream of mine. I received my bachelor’s degree in fine arts with a concentration in psychology. I had planned on going to graduate school, but that never seemed to work out. Instead I just kept pushing on, trying to get through life accomplishing whatever I could to suppress what the true issue was, and that was healing from the years of trauma caused by my mental illness. Suppressing this unknown trauma has led me to some really dark places. Suicidal ideation and a short but necessary hospitalization at a rehabilitation center back in 2014. It wasn’t until recently (the past few years) that I finally figured out how to dig deep and understand the inner workings of my mental illness and how it has shaped me into the person I am today.
With all the research I’ve done since that time in my life, I’ve come to realize that it isn’t just genetics that plays a role in the diagnoses of mental illness. Is it a contributing factor? Absolutely, but it’s the centuries old theory of nature vs. nurture that comes into play here. It’s the events in our life that shape us and play a factor in the way our nervous system is shaped. For example, if someone had lived through a severely traumatic event, that event has now caused our nervous system to wire itself in a way that will cause a reaction that mimics the traumatic event; it creates a life lived in that constant state of anxiety and stress.
Healing, recovery, re-wiring, whatever you want to call it, takes time. It has taken me years and a lot of time and research to find what works for me. I am still on SSRI’s (anti-depressants), I make sure to work out as often as my busy schedule will allow, switching up my diet, not drinking alcohol but the occasional drink, getting acupuncture and receiving CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) every other week to talk about my current stressors and the balance of my life have all seemed to play a part in my state of homeostasis. I have never been happier in my life and have felt as little anxiety as I do.
I could probably talk about mental health all day long but I won’t. It’s a very complex subject and takes a lot of patience to really dive in and try to figure out it’s inner workings. And honestly, even when you think you reached a conclusion, you haven’t. If you are currently struggling with any mental disorder, please know that it gets better. This isn’t your end, it’s just a hiccup in the road. Have patience, ask questions, find answers. Sometimes mental illness takes more time than physical illness to find an answer and if you were given this burden, you can handle this burden, take it from someone who knows. If you don’t know where to start, feel free to reach out to me and I will do whatever I can in my power to lead you in the right direction and help you find the answers you need.
Remember, you are stronger than you think and your mental illness doesn’t define you.