I have had my fair
share of mental health problems in my life. I won't bore you with the
details, but for probably the past 20 years, I have carried a huge
internal feeling of guilt about who I am, what I am doing, who I am
with, how I look, and how I should be a better person. I don't think
I'm unique or special because of this, it seems to be a symptom of
modern malaise due to the multivalent societal crap we all face, if
we buy into it. But, there is a point when it crosses from a nagging
feeling to something that engulfs and encompasses everyday life. Like
so many people like me, I hid such feelings from everyone, even my
nearest and dearest, suppressing emotions and appearing successful,
confident and happy. So when I had a spectacular meltdown about two
years ago, it came as a huge shock and surprise to everyone, me
included, though in my heart of hearts I think I knew there would be
a day when it happened. Little soap-box here: if you think you have a
serious mental health problem, go and see a doctor before it gets
really bad. About three months after I began to feel unwell my family
took me to have a private psychiatric assessment as the NHS was just
not working at the speed that was needed, and that doctor from a very
famous mental health clinic wanted to hospitalise me. I couldn't
afford it, was not ill enough to be sectioned (thank God), but I then
had to wait six weeks for a referral to an NHS clinic- please don't
follow my example and think you can cope on your own, or, as I felt,
that I was not worth helping. Despite clear indication from that
doctor that he saw a serious problem, I still didn't quite believe
him and I sent him emails afterwards indicating reasons and things
that I had done that could make me feel the way I was- blaming myself
for my own mental health problems, using them as another way to prove
to myself I was a failure.
I want to make it clear
that I do not think of myself as a victim. I've had tough and
difficult things in my life, but so does everyone. I've had some
great opportunities which, for the most part, I have made the best
of. I am not seeking to apportion blame on anyone. But I am someone
whose coping mechanisms are maladaptive. I remember clearly the time
when I started to feel like I was unworthy of people's love and
attention. I moved schools from a place that I was happy at to
somewhere quite different at that ago of 10. This isn't a 'woe is me,
wasn't I terribly abused/hurt/rejected', it was a necessity. But the
sense of who I was was challenged by the new people I came into
contact with. I was talking to a friend whom I've known since those
days, and she remembers me coming to school with a suitcase full of
books and sitting in the playground reading at break times as I felt
too scared to engage with other children. I had completely forgotten
this until she reminded me and it brought me back to the feelings I
had at such a young age. That feeling makes me sick when I think of
it now, how a child so young, supposedly without a care in the world
could feel such intense pain. It wasn't until I was about 16 that I
started to be able to assert myself- but I did that by becoming
over-ebullient, a bit of a motor mouth, putting on a mask and never
truly being able to articulate that sense of inferiority. Those
feelings never went, but were suppressed so much that they were
padlocked so well even Houdini himself wouldn't have been able to
escape from such a be-chained Pandora's box.
I built a ring of steel
around myself as I felt like if I showed the true 'me', people would
confirm all the dark thoughts and feelings I had about myself. I've
never been a fighter- not to say that I'm not a strong person, in
fact, probably the opposite. Too strong. Too capable. Too
independent. Too dismissive of anyone who couldn't cope with life. I
felt that if I could do it, coming from a family with a long history
of mental health problems, then anyone could and should be able to.
This is in part I feel because I was brought up in a 'pull yourself
together' kind of a way, but that was internalised and exaggerated by
me. I was judgemental. I had a perverse sense of arrogance, despite
loathing myself. I've also realised that I never fought or engaged
with conflict with anyone so I couldn't be rejected; so I couldn't
have anyone come back at me with a retort or angry word which would
crush the little self-esteem I had. This led to years of people
pleasing behaviour- becoming the person I thought others wanted me to
be. At the end of this process I find myself at the age of 31 still
trying to work out really who the fuck I am. Finding
out I want, feel and think has been a difficult, ongoing process. I
would like to say it's been organic but it hasn't, it's been forced,
and for some time I resented that and fought against it. Even when I
started to see a psychiatrist regularly I would under-report my
feelings, lie to therapists, afraid of judgement and feeling as if I
was wasting everybody's time.
I've
never doubted my intelligence. That may sound arrogant, but I was
brought up to put a great deal of stock in education, and I've been a
high achiever through most of my life. When I suddenly came to
realise I couldn't trust my brain when it came to my sense of self,
it was a hammer blow to realise the totem I'd been carrying was both
my gift and my curse. And I think in some ways that sense of
arrogance about my intelligence, combined with a feeling of not being
worthy of help has meant that I've dismissed out of hand some of the
help that has been offered to me. I was even told by a counsellor
whom I had a 12 week intensive course of CBT with that she had taught
me all that she could, and that I used my intelligence sometimes as a
way of keeping people at a distance. That hurt me at the time, as I
had felt that I'd really tried to avoid doing that, but I think she
was right. Unconsciously I think I thought that if I can write a
dissertation on silent language, plan an international PR campaign
and maintain a good social life, home life and boyfriend for many
years there was little that anyone else could teach me about my
thought processes. I was wrong. For years I had pushed people away,
whilst pretending, no, not even pretending, thinking
I was holding them close.
It's
hard to acknowledge and deal with mental health problems when you
have a good brain. It took me over a year of seeing psychiatrists,
being diagnosed with several different mental health problems (that's
another story in itself) to truly acknowledge that really there was a
problem, not just that I was the biggest piece of shit walking on the
earth. Whatever I do or have done, it's never been enough- despite
having helped organise a General Election campaign, worked as a press
officer for a major politician, gained a Masters Degree, won Ph.D.
funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, sung in band
for 10 years, and travelled the world. The fundamental thing is that
all of these distractionary techniques have meant I've never truly
addressed the real problem- the way that I feel about myself.
Achievements are hollow, especially when, as I did, you don't tell
anyone about them for fear of being seen as a show-off.
I've
come to realise that much of my drive has been a manifestation of
some kind of mania, but I've tried to hide that mania for a long,
long time for fear of exposing my mental processes which on some
level I've always known are unhealthy. And for the first time, I've
come to be comfortable with that fact. That mania has meant I have
seen and done a great deal that many other people won't get to see or
experience in their lives. It's given me a lot. But it has also taken
a hell of a lot away, probably having been the precipitating factor
in the demise of two of my most major relationships. I need to direct
it better, whilst still acknowledging it's a part of my make up- and
not feeling that I have to apologise for it. Jeffrey Eugenides in his
most recent novel The Marriage Plot
shows the mental torture a high achieving post-grad scientist has in
trying to reconcile academic achievement with bi-polar disorder. The
character eventually leaves his wife as he can't deal with the affect
his disorder has on the people around him. I can identify with that
completely- I spent many years suppressing my feelings, pushing
people away, terrified that this house of cards I'd built around
myself would come crashing down. And down it did. And I hurt a huge
number of people along the way- the thing I had spent my life
studiously trying to avoid.
It's
at times like this that there's a tendency for people to turn to
self-help books or manuals, as if the written word conjured up by
another can change our own thoughts and feelings about ourselves.
Now, if you've read a self- help book and it's worked for you, that's
great. I'm not pissing on your parade, and I feel genuinely happy for
you. I've bought a fair few in my time- Women Who Love Too
Much, Feel The Fear and Do it Anyway, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
for Dummies, Man's Search For Meaning etc
etc etc. I've started them, then they've lain on the shelf gathering
dust as I get on with my day to day life and read other books that
are, to be quite frank, more interesting. But I've also come to
realise that being told HOW to recover, HOW we should be conducting
our lives feeds into this feeling of being about as good as the dirt
on someone else’s shoes if you don't 'get' what the author is
trying to say or achieve. One size fits all models rarely provide the
best fit. There will be someone for whom it works, but there will be
ten more people for whom it doesn't. Sometimes I try to put in
practice things that I have read, and sometimes that insidious sense
of arrogance creeps in and I become complacent. And that complacency
can feed into my low sense of self-esteem, as if I feel that I know
what the answers are and where to find them, but part of me is
stopping myself. I start asking myself- do I really want to break
this cycle of self-doubt? Am I sabotaging my own recovery? Or is it a
defence mechanism in some way as I know that there is a whole world
of pain awaiting me when I realise how abusive I've been to myself
for so many years? My inner sense of self-protection, perverse though
it is, has developed excellent blinkers and soundproofed head-phones
to stop me seeing or hearing the things I've suppressed, and it
doesn't want to unlock those padlocks.
I
am lucky. I am well loved. I have wonderful friends and a supportive
family who have stuck by me during some truly erratic and difficult
behaviour. The good thing that self-help books have taught me is that
no-one else can possibly make me feel better about myself. I've put
far too much stock in the external factors to me regaining a sense of
self- but it's as if some part of me can't accept the loving help and
compliments given by those closest to me and believe myself worthy of
such love and help. THIS is what needs to change- not my
time-management skills, my interests and hobbies (I like what I like,
thank you very much), but my ability to reconcile and accept the good
and bad parts of my character. Susie Orbach for years has been
arguing that the diet industry is self-perpetuating because it feeds
on (pardon the pun) a cycle of failure; so the self-help industry
feeds into people's fears and insecurities until once they finish one
book, they realise how many more problems they have that they need to
address, or in the case of wildly popular titles, how much they need
to buy the inevitable follow up. It's no surprise that if a person
has read one self-help book and extolled the virtues of it, you'll
probably find another ten on their shelves. Self-acceptance
is the key to recovery in my view- but all the self-help books tell
us what we need to change.
The thing that has been inculcated into me by my mental health team
is that everybody's recovery is different, people have their own
journey and they must make the decisions about what is best for them.
I don't feel that self-help books emphasise this enough- it's the
relentless pursuit of THE ANSWER outside of ourselves which they
claim to have that drives people to purchase.
So
this is why I now write. For many years I fought the creative urge,
or even the urge to put down the thoughts and feelings in my head. I
never kept diaries as I didn't want to look back at them in years to
come and think what a stupid idiot I was at such a young age. And
that's meant I've suppressed a great number of things that were hard,
difficult, painful. The writing process makes me actually work out
what it is that I feel about a subject without the voices of others
to distract me. I can refine my thoughts. Explore avenues. Start
sentences and see where they take me. There's a wonderful quote from
Ted Hughes which sums up this up perfectly, 'the process of any
writer is marked by those moments when he manages to outwit his own
inner police system.' That is why when I write I try and do it as
automatically as possible. If I have an idea for a new paragraph
whilst I'm in the midst of one, I'll stop writing to begin the new
paragraph before I forget it. Joining up these jumbled ideas into a
coherent whole helps me see the connections that my brain is
sometimes too slow to see.
So, I feel like I'm
having a new start. It's a terrible old cliché that gets wheeled out
by people who've had some kind of breakdown; that it's the worst and
best thing to happen to you. But it's true- though you can't in the
midst of it fathom how it could possibly ever get better. There's a
wonderful song that I think I've mentioned before called Hiccup in
Your Happiness. And this is how
I am trying to see those terrible, head-fucking days when all you
want to do is get out of your brain, switch off, go to bed and wake
up an entirely new person. The past couple of years I feel I've been
metaphorically holding my breath until those spasmodic oesophageal
movements have settled back into a steady rhythm. And hopefully those
hiccups will never reach the same crescendo again.
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