Through speaking to Melanie Pledger and several other people, I have come to realise that I have never told you much about my mental health story. So, while an entire 1000 page novel could probably do my story justice, I’ll take you through a detailed summary of what I consider the ‘turning points’.
Health of all kinds has always been at the forefront of my mind, as a result of having a physical disability (something that I’m only comfortable going into any detail about face to face), as well as the mental health issues that have developed over time.
Only five or six years ago did I realise that mental health was a thing. It took at least a further two for it to start dawning on me how much my mental health was affecting my every thought, decision or experience I was going through at the time. I hoped, rather than thought, that it would ‘just go away.’
It was when I started studying for my GCSE’s that I realised things really weren’t right. By the time it came round to sitting my GCSE exams, the very thought of having to sit an exam sent me into a panicked spiral.
Photo by Gabby K on Pexels.com
Yes, anxiety is normal during exam season, of course, but there is a difference between feeling gradually more nervous as the exams draw closer, to sitting down to your English Literature exam and thinking ‘who is Shakespeare and what the hell is Romeo and Juliet’ as you watched the room slow down before you, the scratch of pens rising and crushing in your ears, willing your heart to finally explode.
Any other time I would have quite frankly really enjoyed writing the essay, I like the way you can explore different points of view and opinion – the answer isn’t black and white. By comparison, in maths the answers and processes were more formulaic. In an anxious state of mind, I knew I just had to follow through various calculations. There is no grey area – therefore making the exam easier. And that really is saying something.
Running alongside this, was the thought of me having to go into hospital for surgery that summer. Now, I am no stranger to surgery, doctors and all that, but what really got me was the potential fixing of something that had been a chip on my shoulder since I was about thirteen. In conjunction with my physical disability, my left knee kept on dislocating incessantly. Bear in mind, the knee dislocating in itself was very debilitating because it had already restricted so much of what I could do, as over time the bone ‘rails’ holding the knee in place had reached the point of not being able to hold my knee in place. I had the operation, nervous but excited that some progress has been made…the irony makes me chuckle darkly every time.
Not a few hours after the operation, my knee popped out as it had done so many times before. All I could think was, ‘this isn’t supposed to happen’.
After that, I started studying for my A-levels in September 2018. Knowing what I know now, I think it was stupid of me just to carry on like that, but you never know until you try, and I’ve never been one to let life get in the way, as it so often tries to. But in doing so, my mood and self worth was plummeting. I was floating through life and didn’t really care. I was struggling to keep up with a conversation, let alone anything else.
Over the coming months a recurring infection started to develop, for which I had to have months of intermittent IV antibiotics. Eventually they had to wash my original wound out in a set of three surgeries in a week.
All this for an operation that hadn’t even worked. Great.
Photo by mood valley on Pexels.com
It’s making me laugh because, as I write this, my knee is still basically hanging off my leg. Despite being through all that, it feels like I’m still at square one in regards to the dislocating knee.
Although I could murder it sometimes, I largely take it as a positive in it being a reminder of all that I’ve been through and – as a result – become.
That led to my first breakdown as it suddenly hit me that there was real life, too, and I had to keep up with that.
It’s funny, really, what your body goes through when pushed to the limit.
From then I worked through therapy, trying to come to terms with the emotional (and physical) trauma. Which was particularly restricted, until relatively recently, through my thinking ‘I am physically healing, so why can’t I just move on?’
It has taken all that for me to fully appreciate we are a complete amalgamation of our experiences – there is no leaving out the worst parts.
Fast forward again to November 2019 (just under a year), and I had three tonic clonic seizures in the space of one day. While I first started noticeably having seizures when I was about 13/14 (I tell you, thirteen really isn’t a lucky number!), they were partial seizures, (where you have seizures on local parts of your body and – in my case – you aren’t unconscious). They quickly became a way of life, so they didn’t feel ‘traumatising’ as such, but looking back they acted as a ‘stirrer’ for how I was feeling. The sudden change in my epilepsy was very distressing to say the least because it is very intense and painful, in my experience. I half-bitterly-half-jokingly say ‘it’s another thing to add to the list’ of things that have happened to me.
That then gradually led to a second breakdown.
And then in October 2020 I started The Sanity Mentality, as a way of both helping other people with their struggles, but also helping myself process all that I feel, and therefore becoming more educated in the fluidity of mental health. In the hope that I would be able to turn my previously negative experiences into a positive.
I won’t sit here and say I wouldn’t change anything about what’s happened to me, but it has taught me a lot.
– D
Comments