MHAW: My relationship with me

In aid of this year's Mental Health Awareness Week (16th-22nd May), Sophie writes about her experiences of Orthorexia and what that taught her about the relationship between mental health and the self.

-Sophie Cockeram 

When I found out that the theme for Mental Health Awareness Week 2016 was ‘relationships’, I felt that it was something that I couldn’t write about. My family and friends are incredibly supportive and I’ve never been in involved in anything abusive romantically. But then I started thinking about the relationship I have with myself, and how that relationship has caused me to suffer with my mental health and self-worth. I started struggling with depression at the age of about fifteen or sixteen, so this is something I am able to manage and monitor. However, in my second year of university, I experienced something other than that. And that ‘other’ was in the form of an extensive battle with disordered eating.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when this began: I generally say that it started in May 2014, as I lost quite a lot of weight in a very short space of time by eating very little and over-exercising. Once I’d shed a few pounds, I had the bug- nothing was going to stop me getting the body of my dreams. Then, in the following September, a messy break up with my long-term boyfriend led to my self-worth and confidence plummeting. I started on the Protein World ‘Slender Blend’ meal replacement plan, which turned out to be the worst, and most dangerous, thing that I could’ve done. I developed Orthorexia, which fed into bulimia and binge eating.

The funny (or very unfunny) thing is, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing to myself. I thought that it was normal to come home from eating something ‘bad’ and do hundreds of exercises in my room to try and burn off the calories. I thought that having protein shakes was great, because protein’s what makes you lean, right?? Wrong. I was harming my body beyond belief, blinded by seeing the number on the scales drop, and basically starving myself. Despite thinking and worrying about food all the time, I was living off little more than 700 calories a day. It’s very difficult to explain exactly the way I was feeling to someone that’s been lucky enough not to experience an eating disorder. I was utterly fixated by everything I was consuming, constantly researching ways to lose weight faster, forever staring at my body in the mirror and despising every little thing that I saw. There were no good bits, there was no ‘oh, my arms look alright today’, there was nothing. Nothing but this shroud of negativity, so powerful that it was pushing both my brain and body to their breaking point.

Nearly two years have passed since the beginnings of my eating disorders, and it’s still something that I struggle with. I’m a million times better than I used to be, but in extremely stressful situations, I find that it’s very easy to slip back into my old habits, as food sometimes feels like the only thing I have control over. I urge anyone that has even the slightest feeling they may have a problem with their relationship towards food or their body image to seek some help. Tell a friend, family member, support officer at school or university. I think that there is a common misconception with eating disorders, in that we often picture someone that has an almost skeletal figure. I did not look like that (in fact, I got quite a lot of compliments from people telling me how great I looked for losing weight!), but that doesn’t mean that I was in any way healthy. Admitting that I had/have a problem and talking about it with other people (or writing it all down on my blog) has helped me a huge deal.

‘The most important relationship that you’ll ever have is with yourself’ is something that’s said a lot, but is far too easily forgotten. Treat yourself nicely, respect yourself and give yourself the love that you’d give everyone else you care about. You are what matters, and your relationship with your body should be happy and healthy.

MHAW: Bipolar in Love, Navigating a Relationship While Living with a Mood Disorder

Bethany shares her experience of dealing with bipolar disorder whilst holding a relationship together.

- Bethany Lipka

My relationships have always been tumultuous, and an on-again, off-again pattern has defined almost every relationship I've had since I started dating at age 14. 

When I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (type 2) at age 24, this dating pattern suddenly made a lot of sense. Looking back, I could clearly see that hypomanic-me was capable of being happily in love, while depressed-me projected all of my negative self-perceptions onto my partner. “You don’t really love me”, “you think I’m stupid”, “just leave”, are all things I have said to people who absolutely did love me, who thought I was smart and funny, and who wanted to be with me. 

So after my diagnosis I felt relieved that I had finally identified this disordered pattern of thinking and behavior, so that I could prevent it in the future. I was in a relationship at the time (of the off, then on-again variety), and I thought that I finally had the information I needed to make sure things stayed stable. No more relationship drama, problem solved!

Easier said than done. 

I found myself falling into old habits pretty quickly. A decade-long pattern is hard to break. It’s been three years now since my diagnosis, and breaking this pattern is still something I work on every day. I constantly combat the lies that my own brain tells me about my self-worth (namely, the lack thereof). And I have to be critical of every emotional perception that I have, to determine whether it’s rooted in reality, or illness. It is challenging. It is a lot of work. But it has paid off. 

The same partner that I was with at the time I was diagnosed is now my wife. Over years, we’ve developed a pretty good system of weathering my many ups and downs. I have three tips from our experiences that may come in handy if you are in a relationship and you – or your partner – are living with a mood disorder: 

1) Talk. Talk a lot. If you are feeling low and don’t feel like talking: leave notes, send texts, write emails. But keep the lines of communication open. When your mood state (our your partner’s) is an ever-shifting thing, you need to keep your partner posted on how you are doing. No one is a mind reader. 

2) Arguments are rarely about what they’re about. This is true in all relationships, but especially for couples where someone struggles with mood variability. Sometimes “this” is really about “that”. Sometimes “I’m mad you forgot to take the garbage out” is really about “I haven’t slept in three days and my anxiety is so bad that I feel like I’m falling out of an airplane”. Try to discern the difference, and get to the root of things. 

3) Practice self-care. This advice is particularly important for the partner of someone living with a mood disorder. You are often thrown into the caregiver role, and being a caregiver can be exhausting. Take time to reboot, whatever that means for you (exercise, a good book, a long bath). You can’t run on empty, and trying to do so will put your own mental health at risk, as well as your relationship.  

Relationships are always hard, and if you are living with a mood disorder they are even harder. But having a person to help you navigate life with your illness can be one of the best possible things for your mental health, making it well worth the effort. 

For more information on finding support click here.

For more information on supporting a friend or a partner click here.

MHAW: Relationships in Mental Health – The Relationship With Yourself

Leah writes about how sometimes the most important relationship you can have is the one with yourself

-Leah Fuller

The focus of this week’s Mental Health Awareness Week is relationships, and I know that other blog posts have already touched upon friendships as a great support network if you are struggling with mental health issues. Personally, I wanted to touch on a relationship that many of us forget we have – the one with ourselves. 

Mental health issues can be a very isolating experience, especially when we think we are fighting it alone or that no-one else understands how we feel. Other relationships in our lives, be that with parents, partners, friends, or teachers are unquestionably important. However, having a relationship with yourself is undeniably even more significant throughout life. If we cannot start to believe in ourselves, like ourselves, or care for ourselves, the battle to recovery feels even more of an uphill climb. 

So, with that in mind, here are three things I personally believe you can do to improve both your relationship with yourself and your mental health:

Believe in yourself

Struggling with my own mental health, I have often thought ‘I can't do this’, ‘I'm a failure’, or ‘I'm not good enough’, as I’m sure many people can relate to. But the more we say these negative phrases the more we believe they are true. In reality, and you’ll have to trust me here, they are 100% NOT true for anyone. Believing in yourself is no easy feat, but one way to start is to tackle those thoughts by changing them to positives such as ‘I can’ and ‘I will’. The more you say them, the more you will start to believe in yourself. 

Take care of yourself

Again this is no easy task, sometimes when we’re feeling rubbish all we want to do is curl up in our duvet and hide away, but in doing this we forget to look after ourselves. It is so important to make sure you take time to eat properly, get a good amount of sleep, and do some exercise - as the saying goes healthy body, healthy mind. The best way I have found to make sure I do this is to plan my day with a to-do list including these tasks, and ticking each one as I go. This helps to acknowledge that you have both achieved things in the day and are looking after yourself. Once you’re into a routine, it’s much easier to take care of yourself. 

Make time for yourself

All too often we are too busy working towards the next deadline to make time for ourselves, to do the things we like, that bring us happiness and help us to relax. To improve your relationship with your mind, make sure you take time out, whether that’s to read a book, watch your favourite TV show, or just walk round the block. Getting some head space can really improve your outlook and do wonders for your mental health. 

Try hard this week to build a better relationship with yourself. I know it may seem a huge and hard step to take, especially if you feel you're at the bottom, but even if you take it in baby steps it will help you to be and feel happier.

MHAW: Experiences of Mental Illness within a Relationship

Saira writes about how mental health problems can be within a relationships and how it is more common than you think to raise awareness for Mental Health Awareness Week.

- Saira Wood

"Dear Wife,

I speak, but I worry that you don't hear my words, or the secrets hidden between them. I cry, but I keep it hidden inside in case you think less of me. I worry, but I stand tall and act strong in hope I'll believe I am. I feel, less of a man, less of a husband, less of a person, but I won't tell anyone because they'll see me as weak.

I wish I were louder, happier, confident, stronger, and proud of myself, but I struggle every day to find myself again. I struggle to understand why you don't leave. How you can love someone like this. Why you still tell me you love me."

"Dear Husband,

You had nightmares again last night. I didn't wake you, but I held you. I kissed your cheek, I gently rocked you and I whispered in your ear that I was here. And just as normal, you fell into a deep sleep. I don't tell you each morning because I know you'll feel embarrassed. I don't want you to have to remember again, talk about it again, relive it again. I washed your favourite shirt for the morning. I made your coffee extra sweet. I used my lunch hour to go get your favourite meal for us to have for dinner. I can't do much about the past, my love, but I can make life now easier. I wish I could stop the nightmares for good, but I can hold you through them. I know deep down you worry about looking weak, needy, fragile and vulnerable...but my love, you have only ever been strong, brave, courageous and incredible."

People understand more than you think. Let's talk about mental health.

Mental health is serious. It's real, and it has no boundaries. From post natal depression, to PTSD, personality disorder to OCD, in fact 1 in 4 people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. Yet we still shy away from talking about our problems. Stigma and stereotypes have led to mental illness having a negative connotation when we should be celebrating the positives.

The more people that are diagnosed and treated, the better our understanding, the less taboo the subject, and most importantly....the larger the support system.

It's easy to bottle things up and pretend we can cope, but why should we have to? Relationships in mental health are so important - and when you start to open up about your problems you realise there are so many people dealing with the same disease, and that's just what it is. A disease.

We are not defined by our problems, and we are not controlled them.

People understand more than you think. Let's talk about mental health.

- the stories above were taken from parts of my dissertation where I spoke to a Navy Veteran and his wife 

MHAW: Depression and Me- The art of living with Depression

As part of Mental Health Awareness Week, Catherine talks about her experience in living with depression and anxiety.

-Catherine North

I’m Catherine and I’m 22 years old. I study business management at Plymouth University although I’m currently on placement at my wonderful student union.

I’ll start by giving the reality of depression:

Depression makes you feel worthless. Not worthy of your own company, your friends company, anyone’s time. It makes everything a chore: from making a cup of tea to showering. For years, I found myself struggling to get out of bed and to do anything that took even the smallest part of energy. I found the only thing that kept me alive was being distracted from my own mental battles in social situations. I couldn’t be alone as I scared myself so much. I knew what I was capable of and ended up in hospital when I found everything too much. I would be there for countless other people’s problems and would bend over backwards to ensure everyone else’s happiness was in priority over my own, because in my head, I saw happiness for me as something completely unachievable and I wanted no one else to even suffer a glimpse of what went on in my head. I had been back and forth to doctors, to clinics, been offered pills,

therapy, you name it and I refused all of it because mentally I saw it as giving in, as being a failure and as another thing to add to the long list of reasons not to be alive.

The internet is probably my biggest help source when dealing with my depression and anxiety. I felt for so long like it was just me and my doctor who knew what I was dealing with but once I started to accept that I couldn’t just keep pushing these issues away, I discovered a whole new world of people sharing their experiences of mental health. I would search hashtags on twitter and read blogging websites where a simple four line poem would make more sense to me than anything I’d ever read.

So when I was asked to write this, I couldn’t really say no.

I’ve struggled with mental health issues from a young age, so I guess I went into university thinking I’d push past it, just like I did with every other educational aspect. I could get good grades for some work while managing to scrape a pass in others due to my inability to function 90% of the time. Although still convinced I wouldn’t be alive when I was 24, I still wanted to fight.

I think the worst part for me has been understanding how I could feel so low even when I knew there were no major problems in my life. I had friends, I had family, I went to a good school etc. I think those moments when you are sat there wanting to kill yourself, yet you’re sat in the sun in your garden laughing with your friends made me so confused about who I really was. I could be two people at once and I was convinced I knew which one would win eventually. My relationships with people could be perfect and I still felt uncomfortable and dissatisfied to the point where I have been in bed with someone I love and actually been known to literally run a mile away (they were quite fast and managed to keep up luckily).  

Being exhausted is normality and the coping mechanisms I’d used when I was 12 were the only way I knew how to behave when I left home at 18. I struggled being away from the people I loved massively, I would only leave the house to get drunk (or for pizza but only pizza). I either found myself numb, hurting everyone or caring too much and then making myself distraught when I felt it wasn’t reciprocated. A Levels, being a teenager, friends, boys, a difficult home life and my own brain telling me what I felt was normal meant I never sat back to examine myself . I just ran at everything at 100mph until I realised when I got to Plymouth that this wasn’t possible unless I wanted to lose my dreams that I did genuinely care about.

University made me realise how important is was for me to put my mental health before anything else. Due to the pressure of exams and deadlines, I found myself reaching breaking point more often than I had previously, which led me to realise that I couldn’t just scrape through like when I was younger. I struggle with any relationship; if it’s romantic, I will constantly imagine them abandoning me. Thoughts such as “they don’t really like you they are just using you” are constantly at the forefront. With friendships I find that as soon as I feel comfortable to be more outspoken, people retract. I push people away, push them to their limit and it’s almost like I think you can’t hurt me more than I’ve hurt myself.

The relationship that saved me was actually my tutor. I emailed him asking him to see him and I found myself opening up about almost everything to him. He made it clear to me how important it was I saw someone or I would lose everything I was aiming for. I’m great at convincing myself I’m fine and ten minutes later I’ll have had an awful breakdown. I’m still like it now but taking his advice and trying what works for me, has meant I’ve become more self-aware and able to stop my brain before spiralling too far down a trail of despair. I can’t always get out of it, I’m still learning to notice when I do it, or to calm my nerves and focus on what’s in front of me than the tiny slip up I just made that no one else noticed but my brain has decided that from now on everyone who noticed hates me and will no longer talk to me (I’d be lying if I said I still don’t do this daily, but just not as much).

It sounds crazily selfish to me still, but I realised that if I was to achieve what I thought I could, I had to give myself a break and be selfish. To know when I needed space, to listen to myself and to put myself at the forefront of everything I did. I was constantly trying to make others happy because the last thing I wanted was for anyone to feel as horrendous as I did.

Choosing to tell my tutor and my current employer means I know that if I need space, am having a bad day or I end up in a bad state, I have the support there if I choose to use it (and it is a big decision still). I get embarrassed, I feel silly and I feel like someone is opening up a deep wound when I call for help but I actually found more people understood and could help than I realised.

There is no answer to fixing your mental health and there is no timing on the recovery, but the more open we are about it then hopefully it will encourage others to share their experiences and get the help they need to achieve what they know deep down they are capable of. I’m nowhere near where I need to be to feel the clear head I do occasionally and I can make cups of tea on autopilot, but I feel like now it is within reach.

I now look upon my experiences as that maybe I wasn’t mentally strong enough to deal with them then, but they have taught me how to be strong. I didn’t give up, and now I wake up feeling like I have energy and ways to channel it into improving things and becoming ever more productive.

Catherine uses websites such as http://medium.com and http://thoughtcatalog.com for online support as well as other self-care methods such as writing a thought down per day. If you suffer from depression and anxiety or know someone who does, the following websites can provide useful information and resources:

http://blurtitout.org

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Depression/Pages/introduction.aspx

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/d/depression

http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/depression/#.VzuH-2M141g

http://www.studentminds.org.uk/ripple.html

Speaking to your GP can also help provide support in terms of diagnosis and treatment. 

MHAW: The Power of Friendship

Friendship is an important part of life; Grace and Lottie write about the reasons why friendship is particularly powerful as part of Mental Health Awareness Week

-Grace and Lottie

This week marks Mental Health Awareness Week. It is estimated that 1 in 4 people in England will experience a mental health problem in any given year, which is why it is so important to recognise your own symptoms and those symptoms in those closest to you.  In terms of the student population 92% of students have identified themselves as developing feelings of mental distress (NUS, 2013). This means that at times most of us will need support and a good friend can make the world of difference to many obstacles in life that we all share. Most importantly, when one is beginning to really struggle, a friend can make such a difference. 

Students are most likely to speak to friends when they are experiencing difficulties (Student Minds, 2011). Unfortunately, often people are worried about sharing their mental health problems with friends. There are several reasons for this, including stigma, the fear of being judged, finding the confidence, and the worry of being seen as weak being cited in research. Despite this, students often claim that they want nothing more than to keep in touch with friends and loved ones and be accepted for who they are.  

From a friend’s perspective, it may be hard to approach a friend that appears to be struggling, with students often not knowing what to say, when to say it and how to say it. This often leads to peers saying nothing at all despite wanting to be there for their friends. This highlights that we need to learn how to speak about mental health problems and the fact that starting up a conversation and putting out your hand for a friend regardless of if you know what to say can make all the difference.

People can be very good at hiding their difficulties and shockingly research also found that 1 in 4 people only discovered their friend was having problems when they were eventually admitted to hospital. Perhaps most distressing, was the fact that 1 in 20 were only aware of any problems when their friend had attempted to take their own life. These statistics are harrowing and open up the gateways for the importance of campaigning for and generally being positive and outspoken about the importance of open discussion of mental health and its implications for relationships and support networks. 

Also, understanding that just because you or a friend has a mental health problem or is going through difficulties does not mean that your friendship has to revolve around this, it does not need to be spoken about 24/7 – you can still be silly and do the fun stuff you used to do together. This will help you or your friend more than you think – so go on a relaxing walk, have a sleepover, plan a movie night, cook dinner together, have a cuppa tea – the little things really do make a difference. Perhaps you might find that your friend isn’t up for interactive activities. Ask what they might want at that time, send them a thoughtful text, write them a card or buy them a little gift. Let them know that you are there in times when they don’t feel like talking, and when they do.

Noticing that a friend is in need may be tricky, and even trickier may be attempting to talk to them about it in a supportive, non-patronising and caring manner. As well as this, being able to tell a friend about an issue can be stressful, frightening and may not seem worth it. However, it is important to remember that whichever side of the coin you’re on, it will always be worth it. A friend is one of the best things you can be and one of the most amazing things you can have. Reach out to a friend today and help make a positive change to both of your lives.