Dear Diary,
I've made no secret of my health and mental health issues but I haven't really told you what's going on so I'm going to fix that now.
Mental Health - Depression and anxiety.
I suffer with major depression, anxiety and S.A.D (as covered here) something I've battled since my very early teens.
How school affected it.
During my high school years I was very badly bullied for being 'different', which basically means because I preferred books and learning to sleeping around and drinking I stuck out like a sore thumb and the other kids didn't like that.
Added to that I was raised in a cult (Jehovah's Witnesses) I was classed as an outsider from my earliest days.
Bullying at my school included insults, mocking, constant put downs, having my belongings destroyed or stolen pretty much daily and physical violence. I was burnt, slapped, punched in the spine (still have spinal problems to this day from that one) and barely avoided an attempted stabbing.
When you spend five years being told you're worthless, disgusting, ugly an don't deserve to live it affects you, during that time I was extremely suicidal in my thoughts but never made an attempt because I didn't want to hurt my family. But according my school there was 'no bullying issues' in the school. Yeah right.
How family affected it.
I love my family, never doubt that, but as a teen I struggled with many issues as most teens do, however my family are Jehovah's Witnesses which meant the answer to most things was to pray, which is 100% useless.
Bullied at school, pray, suicidal thoughts, pray more, because of that I didn't get to seek help from the medical profession for my depression till my late teens.
For a long time I don't think my mother thought I was depressed until the day she was telling me about a very depressed person she worked with and what they were going through and I just nodded along. That was I think when she realised I actually did have an issue.
I haven't even touched the family dynamics, I grew up in a single parent family, my father having left while my mother was pregnant with me. But unlike many children who at least hear something about their missing parent I heard nothing, he was not mentioned by anyone ever.
I found a photo once, that soon vanished, I learnt his name by looking at baby cards given on my brothers birth.. I overheard somethings, about how my father beat my mother, my brother, who's older than me, could remember being slapped for spilling milk things like that, but it was a hole in my life, other children used it to poke fun and it tore me apart inside knowing he didn't want us.
How relationships affected it.
I made the big mistake of getting married very early in my life, I was 21, and he was my first boyfriend. I was so insecure I thought I'd never get anyone else so I ignored all my niggles and married him.
That was a huge mistake, I got my first bruise on our honeymoon when he lost his temper and threw the hotel keys at me, he was a controlling, domineering, abusive bully.
I spent four years being put down in front of others, belittled, starved, told I was too fat (at 9st) he'd twist my arms to get me to submit, financially burdened, (he wracked up a huge debt on credit cards but then couldn't get a loan to cover them, guess who got called into use) and finally he cheated on me.
I left him.
How religion affected it.
Not only did the religion I was raised in cause me to be an outsider to everyone outside the cult, but we were taught we shouldn't be friends with those 'kind of people' anyway, but only to be friends with 'our own'.
Except as a child in a single parent family we were somehow seen as a bad influence on their little darlings, so rarely had any kind of friendships growing up. I do remember going to a party at two different times, both ended with me being picked on and crying on my own in a separate room.
Let's not forget god fixes everything so if you're suffering or depressed then you should just pray harder.
Then there were the expectations, you probably know the witnesses call on peoples doors all the time, what you probably don't know is they have to do that, they record the time spent doing it also and report that every month, if your hours aren't enough you'll be spoken to by the elders of the congregation.The more hours you do the better your standing is, you could be the most evil person ever, but slap a smile on and do 100 hours a month and they'd think you were a saint. The less hours you do the more you're seen as a bad influence, who obviously doesn't have enough faith.
Never mind the crippling anxiety many years of bullying had created, never mind your social skills are zero because no one wanted to be around you so you never learnt that bit, you had to go out, knock on doors and talk to strangers. I did as little as I could get away with because it made me physically ill to force myself into those situations. (and that's ignoring the times being out in winter actually made me physically ill, hypothermia anyone)
Oh and there were the times they tried to kill me and my brother, though mostly my brother. We're both asthmatic, he was always worse than me, and when we were younger we both reacted badly to strong smells, perfume, aftershaves etc, my mother requested that we had the window near us open at the kingdom hall so we could have fresh air, that request was denied.
Many of them decided asthma wasn't a real thing and no one could ask them to reduce or stop wearing such strong smells, so they'd put extra on to make a point.
I lost count of how many times I watched my brother being taken away in an ambulance because they'd triggered a huge asthma attack in him. They didn't change, so we ended up sitting in a back room at the hall with a speaker so we could hear and not die, no one talked to us and we talked to no one during those years, I think I was about 10-14 ish. That affects you, that really impacts on your mental health... I don't think I'll ever forgive them.
When I finally left my cheating abusive first husband, the elders had words with me, they told me I was attention seeking, that a wifes place was at her husbands side, that as I didn't have two witnesses for his affair and his abuse that it probably didn't happen and didn't I want to make god happy by keeping the sanctity of marriage intact? ermm lol no.
Other impacts on my depression.
My job, it was untenable. I'm not going to go indepth here because it's still really raw for me, most the other things I've mentioned I've had time to come to terms with and I can handle. My job, well I'm looking for a new one, that's all that matters here.
I found my father when I was 30, turns out he'd changed his name and moved to the other side of the world when I was 16. I knew his for six months, long enough to learn that my family was actually better off without, such a manipulative, controlling arse I've never had the misfortune to know. He was completely unsympathetic about the affect his leaving us had on his children, he was proud he'd chosen to put himself first. Well, he can keep that pride, I'll keep my family.
Health, I'll cover that in another post as this is long enough now but it's not great.
How I cope.
I'm finally on medication that works for me, I've tried a few other meds over the years, the worst being Prozac (fluoxetine), that was evil for me, I was a whole other person on it and not a person I liked being either. I'm now on Citalopram and it keeps me on an even keel for the most part, stressful events and traumatic instances can still get through and send me on a downer but I can fight back better these days. My husband tends to keep me level too because he's very grounded, I start panicking about things and he settles me down.
I still struggle with sleeping though, I always have, it's then that the mind plays tricks on you, I also have trouble with paranoia which is a family issue.
(My great grandmother, and my grandma's brother were both very badly affected by a mental health condition, I don't know which, but I know it caused paranoia and in my great grandmothers case she got very violent and argumentative with it, I'm assuming is was a kind of schizophrenia but I don't think either were ever officially diagnosed. I battle the paranoia daily, but I think I have a handle on that, thankfully I've never shown any of the signs of going my great grandmothers way and neither have the rest of her descendants since my grandmas brother.)
I do find that I feel better mentally after a walk in fresh air on a clear day when there's blue sky, the temperature doesn't matter, just the clear day, which, where I currently live, doesn't happen often. I had found that exercise made me sleep better, and my self image (which is lower than low) improved slightly while I was working out, but I've lapsed on that, and gained weight recently.
I can no longer afford my gym membership so I'm going to try getting back into exercising merely by walking everywhere, hopefully that'll fulfill the exercise and fresh air quota in my life.
So that's covered the bare bones of my mental health issues, though I've skipped over a couple of things which I may cover at another point. The examples I've given are merely a few out of the many things that have gone on over the years.
If you relate at all then know this, you are not alone.
(hugs)
No comments
Post a Comment