Mental Health & Me

Mental Health has played a massive part in my family life. Without going into too much detail, I was aged 9 when I found my Granda who had committed suicide. He suffered from mental health and unfortunately the demons won. As a child I never knew he had those problems and never found out how badly he suffered until I was nearly an adult. There was times when my Granda was "tired" and would be in his room sleeping for about a week at a time, I just assumed he was tired, being young and naïve. Little did I know he was in the middle of a severe nervous breakdown. The strangest part of it was he seemed able to be normal around the children so we never knew.

My mum also suffers bi polar and mental health problems and I remember as a child her being sectioned and its funny but I knew all about my mum's history. I can remember being about 6 and seeing her dragged out the house by the hospital staff. I also remember visiting her in the locked ward she was in. I remember as a child it being a scary place but remember always thinking why is my mum in here she's normal. People always assumed she was a volunteer in these places when they visited loved ones, never a patient, as would go around helping everyone and the place was gleaming from all her cleaning. Staff loved her haha!

My mum suffers nervous breakdowns when stuff in life changes, i.e. the death of my Nana (her mum) in 2010. My mums life changed and she couldn't cope. As her eldest, I had the privilege (it was all left to me) to have her sectioned against her will. It was horrible being the one making that decision but she needed it. When she got better she thanked me and knew I had to do it. To meet her now, you would never know she has these problems, and even in the middle of a breakdown she can still pass off as being fine to people from the outside world. It's something not a lot of people know about her as she's quite private. That to me is scary thing, because keeping it hidden can also mean no one can reach out to help her.

My own mental health over the years has been fragile at times, and again it's something that I keep private. Mines is similar to my mum and dealing with change was never something I was good at. I have had 3 suicide attempts, one very serious as I thought it was the answer each time I couldn't cope.

After the last attempt, my work had found out and sent me to a counsellor. Up until this point I was strongly against anything like that. I mean who wants to talk to a complete stranger about their feelings and have them judge you.

I was SO wrong.

I went for three sessions. The first session was nice, and I was open about my feelings and the second session was about learning how to cope different ways, seeing the world differently and also changing my thought process. Since then I think differently and cope differently and to be honest, its like any mental health issue I had disappeared. It just became another thing on my to do list to sort - I like lists so this worked for me.

When problems arise I now look for solutions and make it better myself or with the help of someone close. If there isn't a solution I now think to myself .... well it could be worse and think myself lucky my problem isn't worse. There's always someone worse off. Fro example I lost my baby boys in February 2016, the day before my 30th birthday. I went into early labour. Now don't get my wrong, I was devastated and my world was upside down. I could have ended it there and then. But, I looked at it differently, I thought about how lucky I was. I was lucky because I was still their mum, I got to meet them, I got to see them alive, even though it was short, I got to spend a lot of time with them, take photos, make precious memories. Then I focused on doing something in their memory. I remember arranging their funeral and thinking I want to help families in my position so I became a Funeral Arranger and every day that I have the honour of doing this wonderful job, my boys are right there with me. I was lucky for what I got when I had them, some people don't have the time I had with them, or seeing them alive, naming them, holding them.

I think talking to people is key to everything, having someone that will listen and not judge you but also knowing yourself that you are in control of your life and you have to help yourself first.