The link between contraception and mental illness

When I saw this post on Buzzfeed I was overjoyed that finally someone else has shared my experience of birth control badly affecting my mental health.

I first went on 'the pill' at 18. I took Cerazette which is taken every day constantly. It went OK for the first month or so but after being on it for about 4 months my mood dived and I went into a deep depression that lasted for years.

Back in 2015 I was referred to Gynae for bad periods and horrible stabbing pain during ovulation. The Dr I saw recommended the coil and dismissed my concerns about the effect it would have on my mental health. I had to ask 3/4 times and eventually he told me that "it will be fine as the hormones will be localised" and insisted that I have the coil.

Almost immediately after I had it inserted I had the worst 6 months of OCD in my life. I spent every day in an agony of fear, to the point of shaking some days. I worked out pretty quick that it must have been the coil causing it as although my OCD had been pretty bad beforehand this was off the scale. I ended up having to demand it's removal which was grudgingly done with the consultant still insisting that it wasn't affecting me in that way.

Mental health and contraception needs to be spoken about more. Women are pretty much told to put up and shut up when it comes to birth control, it's part of a wider issue that needs more than a short blog to debate.

There needs to be a far wider public awareness and discussion about hormones and the effect they have on our mental states.

I hope eventually that no-one has to suffer the crippling problems that I did.

Love Jen
XxxxX

Working 9-5 (With A Mental Illness)

For this blog I want to specifically write about having a mental health problem in the workplace.

Often when people think about someone with a mental health problem they assume that it prevents them from working or leaving the house. Whilst there are incredibly unfortunate people for whom this is a case there are a lot of us who work whether it’s paid or voluntary.

I’ve written previously about the problems my mental illnesses have caused in my job/s so I won’t bore you by rehashing it and describing the discrimination I suffered.  I instead want to try and describe a day in the workplace life of working with a mental illness.

As is tradition I start the day by snoozing my alarm for up to an hour (it’s not that I have anything against 30STM’s ‘Walk On Water’ I just don’t want to wake up), initially my mood will be determined by any dreams I’ve had. At the moment I’m having a lot of dreams where I become very distressed and actually wake up crying or a myriad of anxiety dreams (the normal school, work, snakes etc) which will immediately put me into a low or anxious mood. Next is a trip down to the garden to feed and clean out Esme, this always causes some anxiety after losing Stelly last year – will Esme still be alive? Will she be ill?. I’m usually bumped back down to reality by her food bowl being lobbed at me …..

Sometimes I find that a shower (being very careful to avoid the bathroom mirror – I don’t need to feel nauseous by my appearance that early in the morning) and a cup of tea make me feel more human, if I am really struggling I tend to lie back down for 10 minutes just to try and settle my head. On a bad day the thought of evening leaving the room to go downstairs to leave makes me feel terrified and close to tears but the thought of having no job is almost as bad so I have to force myself to put a foot in front of the other.

Like most people work can be a roller-coaster. It’s made more difficult because even the tiniest bit of stress will send my anxiety rocketing and panic sets in convincing me that I can’t do the job, any mistakes that I’ve made (no matter how nicely they’re pointed out) send me spiralling into paranoid thoughts that I’ll lose my job and have to re-mortgage Esme’s hutch to afford her food and my gig habit! A lot of that stems from previous jobs where any mistake I made was scrutinised and I was made to feel like I was single-handedly bringing the NHS or Veritek company down (perhaps this is a special talent?).

Another minefield is interpersonal relationships, any employee is expected to be professional and polite to everyone they encounter (unless they’re a consultant obviously). This is a bit of a challenge for me, particularly where my BPD is concerned, on a day where the depressive side rules the last thing I want to do is chat, grit my teeth whilst talking to rude callers or be helpful to people coming to the office with stupid questions. I really have to check myself to make sure I don’t snap/shout/burst into tears or hide under the desk. This in itself feeds my anxiety meaning that a lot of the time I’m also struggling with a tight chest and squirming stomach. Sometimes a depressive fog descends that I can barely see through, much less work through, this is when I’m in danger of making the aforementioned mistakes. Sometimes I’m slow at understanding what I need to do (thanks meds!) and work at a snail’s pace and other days I’m more manic and scatty as hell picking up random tasks & half doing them when the next distraction appears.

I work 4 days a week and people often comment on “how lucky” I am to have Wednesdays off, the reality is that these days are spent asleep for their entirety. This sounds lazy and probably is but the effort of working with my mental illnesses is such that I am completely wiped. The best thing I can compare it to is a marathon in the blistering sunshine – not only are you mentally wiped but you can barely drag yourself along, that’s the level of exhaustion I have to deal with on a daily basis.

I’m really lucky that for the most part I work with really understanding people who know to let me be if I’m quiet and keep me topped up with tea but who are great listeners when I do need to talk. They make me smile and cheer me up on bad days and make me feel like it was worthwhile coming into work and that’s all I can ask for.

Love JenX

xxX

O is for OCD

Welcome to the next blog in the alphabet in which I shall guide you through the weird and (not so) wonderful world of my OCD.

When you say OCD to someone they immediately think of neat-freaks or germaphobes and have a little chuckle (thank you Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners) but there is so much more to it than that (my family and friends will happily confirm my messiness to you).

OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) is essentially an anxiety disorders characterised by obsessive or intrusive thoughts, some people also have compulsions that they have to act on (E. G an OCD about security could result in someone getting out of bed multiple times to check the locks even though they know full well that they're latched because they have to). People can have an Obsession about anything at all and often find them deeply shameful.

I'm not exactly sure when the OCD element of my illness started. It bubbled around under my anxiety radar from about 2011 when I was under a lot of stress and grew in the background from there. I'm always very keen to stress the difference between anxiety and OCD, to me they are entirely separate, my anxiety (see Monday's blog) is about fear and physical symptoms whereas my OCD is more deep-seated and life-ruling.

Everyone with OCD has different fears and quirks. To me the intrusive thoughts are the worst part. I develop obsessive fears around certain things (I went through a time convinced that if I sat in a certain spot in the garden something bad would happen, likewise if I ate pasta bake there really is no rhyme or reason) or sudden horrific images will enter my mind. Some examples of my obsessive fears are a plane crashing at an airshow and it being my fault because I binge-watch Aircrash Investigation (the crash at Shoreham Airshow back in 2015 had an awful effect on me at the time), having to read through hundreds of social media posts to check that no bands/artists I like are splitting or retiring or have done something awful (without wanting to jinx it I have managed to cut down on this a lot in the last year or so) because obviously Twitter would know before they do!

My worst thoughts and scenarios however are around Esme (and of course Estelle when she was still alive). I have horrible images that suddenly appear that some awful accident has befallen her, or that I have managed to lock her in the oven/microwave/washing machine, have shut her ears in the top flap of the hutch or the absolute worst of all that I will deliberately hurt her. When these thoughts appear I can't dismiss them like one would do, they spin and spin and spin around my head jabbing my brain and making me live them in more and more graphic detail. I end up nauseous and terrified and angry with myself for allowing these thoughts to appear in the first place.

It's no wonder that I have trouble concentrating at times or that my mind may wander, my being rude and checking my phone is often triple-checking that I don't have any messages or notifications confirming that one of my many fears have come true.

Some people find that some therapies help them cope with their OCD, unfortunately for me (as I mentioned in my BPD blog) the rest of my conditions try and 'outsmart' things such as CBT and work their way around it.

I try to cope with the OCD as best I can, I do find it comes and goes, I can go a month or so without what I'd refer to as an attack and then have a whole lot in a row. There is no rhyme or reason to it and it really can be quite life-limiting.

So next time someone jokes that they're "so OCD about tidiness" then kindly point out that OCD really is no joke.

Love Jen
XxxxX

B is for Borderline Personality Disorder

Next up in my Mental Health Week blogs is Borderline Personality Disorder.

BPD is probably the trickiest of my 'conditions' because half the psychiatric world don't believe it exists so explaining something that half the world doesn't accept is a little challenging...

BPD is also known as Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, a label that I absolutely detest. I find it almost insulting that a complex disorder is described as being 'emotionally unstable' when there is so much more to it than that.

BPD can take a long time to diagnose, it's commonly misdiagnosed as Bipolar or depression and whilst it comes with depressive elements they are part of a big mix of symptoms.

People often generalise BPD as being the result of abuse or traumatic experiences, and whilst being sexually assaulted and bullied both in school and the workplace certainly didn't help, I realise that I've always had certain traits of it. Things that wouldn't phase a 'normal' kid such as a supply teacher for the day would completely freak me out, being put in different groups to work was hell. As an 8 year old you just figure that everyone feels like that, the same suprise that I had as an adult when I discovered that not everyone's mood can go from sky-high or rock bottom in under a second. I'm still having to work hard to 'forgive' myself for the things that I did and felt in my teen years that I can now attribute to BPD but at the time were excruciatingly embrassing oddities.

Living with BPD can be exhausting. It has control of both my anxiety (see Monday's blog) and OCD (coming later this week), it's the reason that my attempts at CBT to combat my OCD failed as it worked its way around my attempts to 'challenge' my thought processes. Waking up each day and having no idea which direction your thoughts and moods will take throughout the course is pretty unsettling. Without exaggeration I can go from pretty chill to manic to terrified to suicidal all in the space of a morning when I'm going through a bad patch.

It makes interactions with others, in the workplace especially, tricky. You want people to see you as a rational, professional person and you can understand their confusion when the bubbly brightly dressed person they met the day before drags herself into work in her baggy black dress surrounded by a moody silence. I feel bad for putting people through this, more so my family and friends. I have a lot of anger that I carry with me, anger at the people who bullied me and assaulted me, anger at those who screamed at me across the office, worst of all the anger at those who stood by and let it happen when they could have stepped in and finally anger at myself for not 'dealing' and allowing the disorder to inform my life this way.

One of the hardest things I have to ask myself is the catchy "is it me or BPD?". It is hard to see where the BPD ends and Jen begins (and vice versa), your personality is unique and saying that it is 'disordered' raises the question do I think/feel this way/do this because it's me or because of my BPD? Is it Jen that cares lots about her family and panics if she doesn't hear from them or is it the clingy element of the BPD?

I could go on into far more depth about my BPD but I did promise mini-blogs!

In the next blog I'll be delving into the mystical world of my OCD.

Love Jen
XxxxX

A is for Anxiety

It’s that time of year again, Mental Health Awareness week!

As you can guess it does what it says on the tin – the aim is to raise awareness of the different types of mental illness and to end the stigma surrounding them.

This week I want to do a series of ‘mini blogs’ (rather than my normal rambling musings) about the different aspects of my condition/s and how they affect my life and the impact they have on those around me.

Today’s letter is A for Anxiety.

My anxiety is a funny one, it mixes seamlessly with my OCD and Personality Disorder whilst also acting as its own separate entity. It’s the condition that gives me the most physical symptoms – tight chest, squirming stomach and the feeling of the breath being punched out of me along with the sudden stomach drop at the instant it’s triggered. During a bad episode I can physically shake. I’d differentiate anxiety from OCD as being more like severe worrying and fear rather than the obsessive fears and thoughts that my OCD gives me.

I get anxious about lots of things – the wellbeing of family and friends, social events and situations or sometimes I feel like I get anxious just for the sake of it. I can wake up gripped with fear for no apparent reason or suddenly have ‘the drop’ halfway through the day whilst enjoying office banter over a cuppa! I feel like Anxiety is one of the most easily-dismissed of the wide spectrum of mental disorders, people tend to brush it off by saying “well everyone worries about things”. Worrying and anxiety are two very different things; worrying about money, your job etc are completely normal. Anxiety will take over your life and constantly dance in front of you demanding your attention like a demonic two year old. I can physically feel my anxiety clinging to my shoulders when I’m going through a bad patch.  

Anxiety can be treated in a variety of ways, sometimes with CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) and occasionally with medication to take the edge of symptoms. CBT hasn’t worked for me because my other symptoms override it (more of that later this week) but I know a number of people whose lives have been changed by it. I take 20 MG of Citalopram per day to dampen down the symptoms. I try to manage it by carrying on as best as I can (it’s a pretty poor show to be late to work because you’re scared to walk past your bedroom door for fear of the outside world) whether it’s forcing myself to go to social events (I use strategies such as setting myself a specific home time when I can make my excuses if I’m struggling or messaging family/friends not at the event every so often to ‘touch base’ and stabilise myself) or taking myself off to gigs etc on my own. I don’t think there will be a time when I’m completely anxiety-free, there are too many triggers and as I mentioned before it’s too tied to my other illnesses.

Next in the alphabet is B for Borderline Personality Disorder!

Love Jen

XxxX

Music Ask

You guys know me, any excuse to yap about music I'll grab with both hands. So I was delighted to find this little quiz on Pinterest about my favourite songs.

1. Purple Haze - Jimi Hendrix
2. One Track Mind - 30 Seconds To Mars
3. Boys Of Summer - Don Henley
4. God Only Knows - Beach Boys
5. Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
6. Somebody Told Me - The Killers
7. Sabotage - Beastie Boys
8. Cigarettes & Alcohol - Oasis
9. Danger Zone - Kenny Loggins
10. Joanne - Lady GaGa
11. Jesus Of Suburbia - Green Day
12. Circle Of Life - Tina Turner (The Lion King OST)
13. Welcome To The Jungle - Guns N Roses
14. A Million Dreams - Greatest Showman OST
15. Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) - Marilyn Manson (cover of The Eurythmics)
16. Nimrod - Elgar
17. Grease! (obviously)
18. I Wanna Dance With Somebody - Whitney Houston (it was #1 when I was born!)
19. Welcome To The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance
20. Kings & Queens - 30 Seconds To Mars
21. Budda For Mary - 30 Seconds To Mars
22. Born This Way - Lady GaGa
23. Baby I Call Hell - Deap Vally
24. Imitation Of Life - REM
25. Numb - Linkin Park
26. Nothing Else Matters - Metallica
27. (Good Riddance) Time Of Your Life - Green Day
28. Zombie - The Cranberries
29. Shine On You Crazy Diamond - Pink Floyd
30. Ladder In My Tights - Amy Studt

There you have it! A perfect excuse for both a blog and a music waffle. I'd love to know what songs you would make your.
lists.

Love Jen
XxxxX