A Day In The Life - Blog 1

I'm taking part in the A Day In The Life blog project that aims to capture what it's like to live with a mental health condition by asking writers to blog about what they have been doing on specified days throughout the year. There's a 700 word limit on each post so I couldn't ramble as much as I do on here (Hurrah I hear you all cry!). But this was my post -

"At the moment none of my days are 'typical' days. The reason for this is that I am on sick leave from work due to my mental health condition. The truth is that I was getting along pretty well after a life changing change of medication until it was decided that actually I was rubbish at my job and needed to be put onto performance management. This culminated in a competition between colleagues and managers to dig for every little mishap or misfile I have ever made in the three years I have been with the team, I mean I know I wear a lot of black and aren't particularly attractive but is a modern day witch hunt really necessary? 

The culmination is that my poor brain pretty much melted down and one morning after a few weeks of being "on and off" of work I found that I couldn't physically leave my room to walk the short distance to work. So here's where I am. I don't technically have a 'proper' diagnosis of a mental health condition, for years it was just assumed by Drs and GPs that I was depressed and the best option was to fill me up with anti-depressants and hope for the best. I could play bingo with the amount of different meds I've been on - Citalopram, Fluoxetine, Duloxetine, Sertraline to name a few. What I didn't think to mention to anyone until I saw a psychologist last year was the crazy mood swings I've always had since I was a kid, sky high can shoot to rock bottom in under a minute, these go hand in hand with crippling anxiety and the huge amount of anger I carry around inside of me that I have to keep a tight lid on to stop it exploding out.

Back to today, I'm in what I like to call one of my 'crazy sad' states at the moment, I have been for the last few days. I have the energy and creative ideas of being on one of my 'highs' (sadly without the elated mood I often get) and the inability to sleep for more than an hour at a time without waking up thinking I can hear people talking (I checked to make sure my TV was unplugged 3 times last night, not amusing when it's a freezing November night and prior to going to sleep I was struggling to get warm). This is coupled with  what I call my 'low' characteristics which are feeling depressed or numb, paranoid, and suicidal. My first few minutes of being properly awake were spent inspecting the cuts on my arm from last night's self-harming session. I think only I could start an evening off cutting my arm to distract myself from the voice in my head telling me to take all my tablets and be done with everything to an hour later bubbling with creativity drawing Moomins and Rockabilly tattoos on a pair of boots. 

The first person I speak to every morning is my best friend in the world Helen (thank god for WhatsApp), messages from her throughout the day keep me going, I love her so much but I worry a lot that I'm an anchor round her neck preventing her from moving along with her life or meeting someone (who wants to date someone with a dependent, crazy best friend?). The next interactions I had this morning were of the furrier variety in the shape of my two gorgeous lop eared rabbits Estelle and Esme, they are nearly six and are the centre of my world, they are well aware of this and treat me with the necessary amount of disdain required to keep me on my toes. 

The rest of the day has been spent doing odd tasks, a trip to Tesco with Dad and a look at the waves breaking on the beach, walking a friend's dog and tonight a trip to the pub with Helen, I feel a nice G&T coming on!"

I'm hoping the project will help teach others what living with a mental illness involves but also help people realise that these are real people living their lives despite the struggles they face.

What I also didn't have room to mention is that the blog was written whilst I watch a super-epic lightening storm out of my bedroom window!

Love Jen

XxxxX