World Mental Health Day

So today is World Mental Health Day. (I'll also post what I did today, but this deserves to be posted and on its own post) I think it is sad that mental health issues have such a stigma in society, especially since it stops people from talking about it and getting the help they need. Today, I've decided to share my own mental health struggles. People may think this is revealing too much about myself, but I have no problems sharing it. Talking about it is the best way to reduce the stigma. Besides, I'm a public health student. I always want to talk about my personal struggles with health. I think it's important to share them.

I have suffered from depression and anxiety since I was 15. I probably did before that, too, but that's when it got bad. We had moved to Ann Arbor and I was beyond depressed. I hated everything in life and I wished at least every day that I had never been born. I never wanted to commit suicide but that's more a testament to my faith and fear of the pain of dying than it is to the amount of depression that I was experiencing. It was the worst time in my life.

I was going to my GP for other health issues and she told me to go see a psychiatrist. That was a horrible experience and did nothing to help. I just remember a lot of crying and getting even more upset. I always complained to my parents about the psychiatrist and that she did absolutely nothing and was an idiot. When she suggested medication, my parents gave me the choice to stop going to see her. My late grandpa had severe mental illness and my dad experienced how the drugs and treatment affected him and didn't want his daughter to go through that.

My depression got a little better as high school went on. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, because I was moving back to Holland to attend Hope College. There was no other plan. It's a good thing that I got accepted!

When I started Hope, was when I started having major anxiety problems. A couple times I would throw up after eating because I would have panic attacks. It got really bad the first semester of my second year. It progressively got worse until about October when I would throw up every time that I saw, smelled, or even thought about food. I couldn't keep it down and eventually I couldn't go to the dining hall. The only thing that I was able to keep down was candy.

I went to see my new doctor and we weren't sure what it was. We tried one medicine that I ended up having an allergic reaction to. Then I thought that it might be anxiety, so she prescribed me some anti-anxiety meds. They worked wonders. I was able to eat again, although that was a process. I had to overcome a lot of the mental barriers that I had developed surrounding food as a result of my anxiety disorder. I had to drink Ensure, the dietary supplement drink, to help put back the 10 pounds that I had lost over that month. (10 pounds may not seem like a lot, but when you have almost no body fat to begin with, it's a lot) I was starting to feel much better and I was taking my meds everyday for almost a year.

At the beginning of my third year at Hope, I studied abroad at Murdoch Uni in Perth. I don't know if it was the Australian culture, being away from my usual stressors, the weather, or something else, but I stopped taking my meds everyday. I was still taking them, but I noticed that I would forget to take them for sometimes a week at a time, and I was perfectly fine. It was sometime during that semester that I stopped taking my meds altogether. I hate the idea of being on medication for anything, and I didn't want to be on them if I didn't need to be.

Then I came back to America. I had horrible reverse culture shock. (You can read about it on my old blog... http://caitlin-ccg.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/is-it-lying-to-others-if-you-are-lying.html; on a funny side note, this was written before I started dating Rohan so I still had my doubts about ever seeing the people from NTE again) I think that I went back on my meds for a while after that, but I can't remember for sure. If I did, it wasn't long term. If there was something coming up that really induced stress, I would start taking them about a week before so that they would have an effect. There were only a couple of instances of this.

I used them for a week in June 2011 and a week or so in December 2011, but I hadn't used them long term since some time in late 2010. Anyway, I said hadn't. That means I have a reason now. I have started taking my meds again. I started this morning. I've been battling depression again and I know that the next few weeks are going to be really hard on my anxiety with so many assignments due. I've been putting off going back on my meds because I wanted to make sure that I had enough to last me through all of my assignment due dates without needing to acquire a new prescription. I couldn't hold it off any longer, though, because last night I had an emotional breakdown. I'm alright now and hopefully my meds will help me get through the next few weeks. (I've also recounted the number of pills I have left and they will last me until after I turn in my last assignment.)

The take home message of this post is to remember that not everyone is as open as me about their personal struggles. Today is World Mental Health Day so please, help anyone that you think may be suffering from a mental illness. Sometimes they just need to know that someone's there to help.

That actually reminds me of something. When I was in my indigenous class today, my lecturer asked how I was. I said that I was good because that's what you say. No one wants to hear, "Oh, I went back on my anti-anxiety/anti-depressant medication today because I'm really struggling with life at the moment." They want to hear that you're doing well. I guess. I don't really think that people care, but it's the polite thing to say. Remember this too when you think that someone might need help. What they say explicitly is not always what is there implicitly.