Mental health is such a broad thing, pretty much every single person in the world has some sort of mental health issue or problem. ranging from anxiety ,depression ,eating disorders ,anorexia ,ptsd and the list goes on. i have struggled alot with mental health and mental illnesses in the past and present. I am a very open person when it comes to talking about my mental health and wanted to use this space as a place to share my story with others to help spread awareness and to help others who are struggling with the same things as I do realize that it is normal and that they are not alone.

𝑫𝒊𝒂𝒈𝒏𝒐𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒂 𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒕𝒉 𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔:
When I was in grade nine I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. It was in January 2018 and I was a 14 year old girl who just started high school. I remember going because I was super depressed telling my parents How I didn’t want to live anymore and how I hated my life. I had a horrible relationship with my parents especially my with my mom. So my father who has struggled with mental health issues too before took me to see a therapist. I hated it , I hated the idea because I felt like I had a label on me, I was young and only connected mental illnesses with goth emo girls who wore all black. Which thinking back is a horrible stero type. I was ashamed of it all and didn’t tell my friends because I thought they would think of me different. I would argue with my doctors that I wasn’t depressed and would freak out when they would ask me questions like “ do you self harm” “ do you get suicidal thoughts” . Those questions made me feel like I was crazy or like there was something wrong with me. I had never even thought about doing any of those things and had such a bad stigma behind what I thought people who did that stuff looked liked or who they were ... which was not me and scared me that I would be put into a category like that or people would look at me like that.

𝑩𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒏
I stopped going to the therapist because I thought it was stupid and hated it. My anxiety and depression kinda went away for a bit, but then June of 2018 my anxiety got bad again so we went back to the doctors and she started me on anxiety meds. By then I had accepted my mental illnesses and came to terms that it was more normal than I thought. I started at the lowest dose and went up to the 3rd highest within a couple weeks. I found the meds helped a-lot with getting over whelmed and also balanced my moods.

𝑴𝒚 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒑𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒄 𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒂𝒄𝒌
At the end of summer 2018 I had my first panic attack. It was 8am on a weekday and I was at my moms dental office. I was drinking Starbucks tea when my body reacted horribly with the caffeine that day. I started to feel my heart race my hands got super clammy and I felt this urge of pure panic. I went to the bathroom because my stomach was super upset. I went back into my moms little office and called her in. I remember ripping up magazine’s to try and distract myself, I was playing with whatever I could to distract myself. 30 minutes went by of me in pure panic before my mom realized how serious it was. At this point my hands, face, stomach, legs were all completely numb my wrists were locked in wards and if I moved them my bones would crack. My eyes were twitching and were rolling to the back off my head as I was losing consciousness. I looked at my mom and told her I needed her to call an ambulance. She asked me if I could walk to her car but I couldn’t even stand because of my legs being numb. She called the ambulance and away I went. I had a panic attack for 5 hours that day before they could calm me down by finally giving me a Narcotic that would put me to sleep. that was the first time i had ever had a panic attack but wouldn’t be my last. i have had to go to the hospital twice now because of panic attacks that got too bad and got a prescription of the narcotic to have at home incase of an emergency.

𝑴𝒚 𝒅𝒆𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏
i didn’t really have much depression in my life until fall of 2019. this was one of the worst times for my depression and the darkest most hopeless time in my life. my depression hit hard in September of 2019. anyone who has depression knows how hard it is to go on with your daily life while living with this feeling inside of you. i had a huge group of friends i had a great family i was pretty happy with my body. i was going to parties every weekend , i had a job and i was in a relationship. there was nothing that was remotely wrong with my life. everything was perfect. but for some reason i didn’t feel it, it’s hard to explain this feeling inside you where u don’t feel like yourself and you feel lost. i stopped going out i distanced myself from friends i saw my best friend 3 times in 4 months and each time i did i cried about how un-happy i was. i am a girly girl i love doing my hair and makeup yet i found myself waking up throwing my hair in a bun and putting no makeup on. i would go to school feel horrible all day , come home sleep all night wake up eat dinner then sit in my room by myself feeling sad and scrolling through instagram and pinterest looking at sad quotes listening to music, then go to bed and repeat my day. pretty boring and depressing huh;). by November i had lost pretty much all my friends i was mean and miserable toward them all, jealous of how perfect and happy they were. i look back on pictures of myself and i look so horrible and sad. i was pale and was rarely smiling. i didn’t know what to do. i remembered thinking about how i couldn’t wait for my life to get better, for when i would be happy again and wanna go out and see my friends. i would try to go out to parties or football games but would always find myself crying at the end of the night or just wanting to go home. this was the lowest point in my life and i do not wish it on anyone.

𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒊 𝒈𝒐𝒕 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒎𝒚 𝒅𝒆𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆

January 2020 was a hard month for me i hit rock bottom. i was done with being sad and knew that only i could change my life and that meant doing some hard work and focusing on myself. at this time i got hit hard with an eating disorder which caused me to have extreme anxiety around eating to the point where i felt too sick to eat. i was 106 pound at height 5”8! everyone around me would try and help me eat but it didn’t work. i started going to the gym in hopes that i could gain weight by building muscle, but i felt sick and unhealthy working out since i had nothing to me. if i could tell you how i got myself out of that state i would. but one thing i can tell you is that no one can change your life, and change ur mental health but you. i looked at my life and saw how un-happy i was and thought about what i wanted my life to look like months from then and i focused on that. i healed the broken parts of me and focused on my goal... “pure happiness”.you have to stop sitting around in your own sadness and get up and do something about it. go get help, find a hobby, start going to the gym, whatever it takes to help. and you have to change your mind set from “ my life sucks , i’m never gonna be happy, i have depression” to “ i’m gonna improve my life, i’m gonna work on myself, it’s gonna be hard but i’m gonna push through it so i can be happy” and that is how i got through my depression. i changed my MINDSET.

i will always have my ups and downs i will and have made huge mistakes that have set me back months at a time but i will never give up on myself like i did, i will continue to deal with the bad days with my panic attacks and anxiety , i will deal with the fact that i wake up some mornings having a panic attack or that i can feel the depression constantly trying to get into my head. but i will never let my mental illnesses define me and control my life. i am living with anxiety and depression and i am living my best life because i pushed through the hard shit and didn’t give up.