Sticking to the theme of compartmentalising let’s discuss asking for help- how I’ve blocked the below from my mind until it pops up in a flashback triggered by a similar event. Picking up the phone, going to the GP, getting medication, having therapy to help your mental health. I’m looking at 2016 versus today.
(edit) Nope I lied. I could edit this but as I finished writing it I remembered how I received help in school… It’s 2008/9, the year prior to this I experienced death for the first time. Both Nans and the dog within six months of each other passed away. I am devasted and desperately crave a goodbye from one and feel immense guilt for hating the other. This combined with an irrational fear of growing up, losing my childhood, sets me off into a whirlwind of self-hatred. I tell a friend I want to ‘jump off a cliff’ I think were the immature words of my teenage self. She then tells my tutors who, rightly so, says he will call my parents. I beg him not to. I tell them myself that I am sad all the time, told a friend and now my tutor knows. They remove all painkillers from me. Years later I’m allowed a small stash in my room on the promise that I ‘won’t take them all at once’.
I see the school counsellor- she focuses on working through my grief over loosing so much in a short space of time. I never talked about how obsessed with death I was. About how I wanted to drown. End it all before I got too old and had too many responsibilities. After about half the school year I’d masked myself into appearing better. The sessions stopped and I carried on.
So, what did I do in 2016?
(edit) Nope, hold on I lied again. It’s 2013 and I’m in my second year at uni in a deep of depression and no one- not my housemates, not even my boyfriend- is capable of understanding or even listening to what is going on in my head. Take myself off to the uni counselling assessment. Fill in all the forms get a session booked in. The day before I’m due to go to my session arrives. I feel fine. I emailed them saying that my circumstances have changed and that someone else would benefit more from this appointment than me. That was a lie. Don’t want to be a burden. Don’t deserve help.
Okay now we’re going to 2016…
During the summer at work I frequently felt overcome with dizziness. I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. Needed to get out. Sent home from work a lot. After demanding that I call to make an appointment with the doctor I finally plucked up the nerve to do so.
Doctors scare me. Nurses scare me. In fact, any professional who is literally trained and paid to help me scares me. Annihilates me with irrational fear.
So, I reluctantly went to my appointment. A GP I hadn’t seen before. Great. Even better. Now I must also inform you that I had wound myself up so much over going that I could barely utter a sound louder than a whisper. Not overexaggerating. I was crippled.
There I am alone in a room with a stranger who ‘should’ help me. When asked how can she help me today I let out a barely audible response of I feel dizzy all the time.
‘Pardon?’ she looks at me all quizzical like. I read a hundred meanings behind that one look. Stupid girl can’t even talk. Raise your voice so I can judge you. Speak up you dumb bitch. Get to the point already. Get out if you’re not going to say anything. Don’t waste my time.
I repeat my statement, a little louder this time. This is followed by some generalised questions along the lines of: how often? When? How long for? Etc.
I’m booked in for a blood test.
But there’s this pressure inside me. Coiling around my gut. Instead of fleeing, for a moment, I chose to fight for myself.
I feel anxious and think about dying a lot. I said it out loud. More than a whisper. Almost average speaking volume. This catches her off guard. But my allocated ten minutes of GP time is almost up and she needs to get me out of there and move onto the next one.
She hands me a card. NHS counselling services. Tells me to call the number on it and go on my way.
I never call the number.
That card goes straight in the bin when I get home.
Blood test day arrives. I’m not afraid of needles but the second it penetrates through my skin the brain shuts down. I’m out.
Eyes blinking open in a panic as my body slides off the chair.
Turns out, if you pass out they won’t take any blood from you. Rebooked in for another appointment.
They manage to get blood this time before I black out.
When the results come back I’m all normal. Nothing physically wrong with me. Could be low blood pressure but nothing to account for feeling dizzy. End of story. Nothing else they will pursue.
Some times goes by and that anxious need to pee all the time is back. Must have a bladder problem. Some type of infection. Once again I pluck up the courage to book an appointment. Do a urine test.
Guess what the results are… nothing wrong there.
Let’s do another blood test. Really? Do we have to?
Low and behold I pass out once again before they take anything. On the second go again they manage to get some.
What’s the result this time doc?
NOTHING IS PHYSICALLY WRONG WITH ME.
Surprise, surprise. Who saw that one coming? Now one might think, or hope even, that a professional would look at the notes and the results of both blood tests and urine tests and think to themselves: why is this patient still exhibiting these symptoms? But no. Nothing.
Cut to couple months later where I’m about to quit my job because it’s making me miserable and the dizziness only got worse. Daily panic attacks before and after work.
I’m also on the pill. Now I and everyone else thought that nothing could mess with the hormones controlling my fertility and periods. But oh no sir, I tell you we were very wrong. On that week of ‘rest’ when my period is supposed to happen, there’s nothing. Not even a hint of spotting. I know I’m not pregnant- not had sex in a while. This happens a couple of times on the rest week. Then my uterus becomes chaotic. Bleeding on random days whilst still taking the pill. I’m running out of the pill and need to see the nurse for a check-up. I should ask about this then.
She’s nice, I’ve been to see her before. As usual, I’m asked if there are any problems. Actually, yeah there are.
Can mood/anxiety affect periods even when on the pill?
She looks at me seriously and answers yes. Have I been seen to about this? No.
There are no more questions asked. Shes on the system tapping away immediately. Booking me in with a specific doctor who she knows is empathic and will listen. Ease my nerves. I am so thankful to this nurse.
So now its October 2016. I am jobless and starting to volunteer at a small animal rescue centre. I go to my appointment the nurse made.
The doctor listens, only asking open ended questions to allow me to explore my thoughts. She prescribes me a low dosage of citalopram AND makes and appointment there and then for me to come back for a check up. AND refers me herself to the counselling service who will call me for an assessment.
That’s what I needed. Someone else to take initiative and see me. Put these procedures into motion where I couldn’t. Where I’d felt so let down by everyone around me and myself that this was the last chance before I gave up on asking for help.
I answer the call from the service. Answer all their questions honestly. I’m identified as high risk and booted to the top of the waiting list. I don’t have a job so there’s no worry over specific times I can go to a session. I’m in my first CBT session within three weeks of seeing the doctor.
Medication does nothing. On my check-up we change it from 10mg Citalopram to 50mg sertraline. You might feel worse before you feel better. Don’t make any rash decisions.
CBT is supposed to be structured support on changing and combatting your negative thoughts. We don’t really do that. I talk about how I cancel plan. Even things I enjoy like my volunteering. How I want to move out. How I like being alone. I altogether avoid telling him about the ways I want to kill myself. I don’t know if I didn’t completely open up because it was a man and I really struggled with talking and trusting to men. Or if it was that irrational fear of people trying to help me. Or if maybe I just didn’t fully understand it all myself. Or maybe the drug made me so numb that I no longer cared.
We upped the drug again to 100mg.
For a while I think it helped.
There’s a lot of brain fog around this time. I would forget to take it, make it worse by doing so.
Right now, I’m desperately trying to force myself to remember. Coming up blank. The odd memory of panic attacks. Of forgetting to go to my therapy appointment and fully freaking out over it. Blaming myself for not setting an alarm to leave. My mum coming into my room to find me hysterical and not understanding why. Choosing to just leave me rather than confront me about it. Choosing to ignore what I meant when I said it’s a panic attack. To ignore me when I said I was taking medication for depression and anxiety. Doing nothing to educate herself on what was going on with me.
I have a ‘mental health problem.’ It’s a problem.
It’s August 2022. The last year of training to become a teacher has taught me to be reflective and critical about myself and what I do.
I still have all those thoughts. I am not better like I think I am. I’m older now, experienced, wiser. Book in an over the phone mental health assessment. Moderate to high risk of anxiety and depression. Yes, I know that. I know that’s what you specialise in, but I need you to hear me out when I say that I think it goes a lot deeper than that. I’ve had help before. Was not fully honest then- trying to be now. I’ve always dissociated myself, self-sabotaged, feared rejection, jeopardised relationships, self-loathing, easily agitated, can’t accept praise, believe everyone hates me, have little to no emotional commitment to myself.
She listened, but they’re not specialised in what I’m talking about. CBT can help with tackling those negative thoughts, strategies to change my thinking. The sessions available will clash during school hours. Sorry teachers, you’re not allowed to have NHS therapy. The waitlist for one on one is a few months long. But I need to go back to the GP, be referred to a specialist. Someone who can recommend treatments for personality disorders. I can’t afford to go private at £40/50 an hour.
All this time I’ve been convinced that it’s just chemical reactions in my brain. A lack of serotonin. Maybe it is that. Or maybe it’s an underdeveloped part of my mind. Or a build of unaddressed trauma. Years of compartmentalising and dissociating from things that hurt.
Maybe I’m glorifying how broken my mind might be.
Maybe I am to blame.
All these thoughts are mine. I cannot let them own me. Not anymore.
Sins of the heart 