My journey living with anxiety and depression began about 6 years ago…….

The Dr called it “Postnatal Depression” as at the time my oldest daughter was about 12 months old.

I am currently recovering from my 4th relapse since that time 6 years ago and I now have 3 children the oldest now being 7 than 2.5 and 8 month old.. girl.. boy.. girl in that order.

Before I get into describing my pains please understand I DO NOT wish to become public with ALL my private life. I also do not know how often I will post an article or how far blogging may take me. I am simply finally feeding a thought I’ve sat on for at least a year now hoping to release my own tensions, frustrations and feelings regarding my journey with a mental illness. I just want to help myself by sharing my journey and maybe help others, let them know their not alone, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!!!!

I manage my illness with medication along with help, support and guidance from my GP, I also see a psychologist and also a psychiatrist and all 3 I will see weekly throughout a relapse and then moving to a fortnightly or monthly appointment base for my recovery.

My fiance is by far my #1 support, he is professionally speaking “My safe calm place”. (Those of you that see or have seen a therapist or any professional in the past related to this illness may know what a safe calm place is.) But also I am proud to mention that my oldest daughter now knows how to comfort and calm me as well, she has learnt to hold me, hold my hand, pat my hand all things that really soothe me if I get worked up and my fiance is out.

Over the years I have found myself “googling” many blogs, forums and articles related to my exact feelings, looking for reassurance that I’m not alone, that I’m not crazy or stupid or different. So I only hope that as much as my goal in creating this blog is a tool to help me that it may help you too.

Some feelings I carried through this relapse are nausea, a tight chest, fast and heavy breathing, a shaking and twitching and also I was quite teary, upset and emotional.

The first thought that pops forward when I try to describe this relapse is FRUSTRATION!! I am yet to learn to NOT hate my illness (oh illness is how I sum up/what I call my mental health) and this alone I know is a heavy basket to hold and probably makes my recovery that much harder and slower. When I learn to accept my illness better, manage it, find positives in my battles through it and maybe even be proud of it, stronger because of it, approachable and knowledgeable about it just maybe a relapse won’t happen again and if it does I’ll smash it out better than the time before that and so on…

My relapces are in my opinion fast approaching. I firstly feel out of sorts/not myself, I fluster easy and get busy feeling when actually I’m doing nothing out of the ordinary. Than I start to over think everything. Most commonly the children’s health and their own happiness (my children by the way are happy, healthy, normal little people) even when I know that their fine it’s getting that message to my brain to settle, relax and rationalise that I struggle with. Also I am known to have “verbal diarrhoea” but on the decline through my relapse I may over think everything like something I’ve said or done, I overthink the things people say to me, I may see something that upsets me and I’ll over think that too..basically I will overthink EVERYTHING! I become less motivated too and more tired because my sleeps become more restless and sometimes I struggle just to fall asleep when I’m down. My house work, my happiness and my mood all collapse at once over a duration of a few days…!

This rapid switch leaves me waking up at the point of that really tight heavy chest, feeling that feeling when you can’t breathe in a satisfying deep breath, that feeling where you can’t see yourself actually getting out of bed, I’m to scared, to scared to look after my children, my babies.. I’m scared of how I’m feeling.. I’m scared to get through the WHOLE day until my fiance gets home, I’m just so scared of everything outside my sheets it stops me in my tracks! Than… nausea jumps in too, often not actually vomiting at all but the nausea feeling ohhhhh it makes me sick, just thinking about it and reflecting on these times now makes me feel yuck. (Yes it appears that I may have a phobia of vomiting.. but that’s another story….) Personally I feel at this time during a “moment” that feeding an attack (an anxiety attack) will help me rid the feeling, let out the tension in my body but nooooo… for me this doesn’t work, for me it comforts me to let more attacks in (tried and tested) and so opens another scary door AN ANXIETY ATTACK!

By this time (remember 4th relapse here) being all to familiar with what is happening in my body I need to begin putting the steps I’ve learnt over many years of therapy into place. *Know that none of these steps are at the time any easier than the other as each are the hardest most scariest steps in my eyes at the time…… I focus….on my breathing….hear……my breath…….I hold my heart…. I hold my chest to feel my hearts beat (you know most of the time it’s not even beating fast and this is a HELPFUL reminder that it’s the illness, a reminder that this behaviour is normal for me and MANAGEABLE … Once I’ve calmed myself, once I’ve grasped control of my body comes the next HARD step…. PUSHING THROUGH

So I speak aloud my movements, every….single……step……”Jess walk to the toy room”, “good Jess”, “open the blinds”….this behaviour continues until I’m moving more comfortably.

Speaking aloud and physically holding myself are steps that help me push through the physical and mental blockers in my body.

I’d LOVE to connect with you and create a better life for ourselves!