With May being Mental Health Awareness month, and having read, listened and seen others talk about their stories I thought I would take some time to share mine.

Growing up…

From a young age I can remember never really fitting in and constantly struggling with my own identity. And I felt that I was alone much of the time. This led to me craving attention, and so I became a loud and boisterous teenager who everyone knew because of it. That made me feel good on the outside, but deep down I still felt empty.

Going into my 20s things weren’t a great deal better, just another new circle of people to interact with through work, and then university. I trained as a mental health nurse, which I felt was the perfect career choice as I understood on a personal level some of the troubles people were going through. But the flip side to this was the knowledge and understanding of my own mind.

Professional understanding

Depression, anxiety and all other mental health conditions were no longer words to me. They became conditions that I understood and knee the various treatment plans for them. I found myself reading about alternative therapies too to get an even broader understanding of what can and cant work for these individuals.

However my own personal battle with depression and anxiety just ate away at me. I didn’t want to admit that something was wrong. I knew that I had good reason for my depression, but I preferred being the outgoing happy-go-lucky girl everyone around me liked.

What changed?

I had my first daughter. And then depression really kicked in. I knew postnatal depression could be short loved and treated and because this form of depression, in my warped mind, appeared more acceptable it was easier to go and get help for it.

I got through this bout of depression relatively well, and it was at this point in my life where I started to see the value in self-help books. I became a bit of a junkie and soon had loads of ideas bubbling inside me about how to make my life better, yet something was holding me back…

When I fell pregnant and gave birth to my second child my depression set in again. But this time there was an added level of anxiety. Soon after giving birth I became single mum of 2 under 2! The most scary time of my life!

Single mum life

Looking back now I realise I functioned quite well as a single mum. Though there were days when I knew I could have done more. A routine began to take shape after a while and I got myself back up again. The whole family started to benefit from having more structure in our days and life was looking good again.

Coming off medication

In Nivember 2018 I made the decision to come off all my medication. I had been able to teach myself some good breathing techniques, and was meditating daily. I had also instilled some powerful affirmations into my life which were helping me massively. It felt like the time was right so I took the opportunity to reduce and stop taking all medication.

I am proud to say that I am still medication free and continue to use all the wonderful skills I had learned through my self-help books to keep myself thinking positive.

Don’t get me wrong, of course like anyone I still have my bad days. However now I can acknowledge when I am feeling low and adjust my routine to match my mood so that life doesn’t become overwhelming.

Looking into the future

I am hoping that as I go into yet another new phase of my life, setting up my coaching business, I will be able to use my personal experiences to enhance my practice and help others thought empathy.