#MentalHealthAwarenessWeek - A Glimpse into My Healing Journey So Far.

It is approaching the last few hours of Mental Health Awareness Week and naturally I spent most of the week attending to my mental health that is on a perpetual roller coaster. I usually never really know what months or weeks are dedicated to mental health awareness when my mental health is always at the forefront of my mind since I was first diagnosed with anxiety and depression at 13. It often feels like my life since has been dedicated to never feeling the darkness I felt then which is why I can't really pinpoint the moment I embarked on my healing journey. However, up until that point, I experienced a lot of traumatic experiences and unhealthy coping mechanisms had developed from them which in turn created more trauma.

Since moving to London I have spent a lot of time on my own. It has been lonely at times but this solitude have enabled a lot of healing. This time alone has allowed me to dive introspectively and to feel deep pains that my brain had tried so hard to hide from me. This healing journey is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I had spent so much of my adolescence running away from my past from moving half way across the world to refusing to ever look back at the places that forced me to grow, I had to feel emotions from some of the worst moments of my life for the first time so that I can release them.

Whilst I gain clarity more and more each day, sometimes I yearn for the person I was before I moved here. Getting drunk, being loud, having fun, surrounded by people, caring less about things. I miss that but then I remember that I cared less about myself too and it was during that time where the unhealed parts of me thrived, subconsciously driving me into dangerous situations. I was hurting so much yet the pretence of carefree youth masked it away from me.

I greet depression like an old friend. It has raised me and it feels comfortable and familiar. The days spent endlessly in bed living in a world of grey and melancholy. It's so all consuming that I don't want to do anything. I don't want to, therefore I won't. To this day, I look at my neatly made bed and relatively organised room with pride. "I change my sheets every Sunday!" I like to proclaim because there was a time in my life where those things seemed impossible.

It hasn't been like that in a long time because as I grew, the ways my depression presented itself to me grew as well. It started playing hide and seek with me. I was a puppet and the depression was pulling my strings. I felt like I had the most friends then. I was loud, rambunctious, revelling in the world of drugs and sex. I felt confident and walked around feeling like I was better than everyone. I was desirable and I was fun. I felt like I fit in with my peers. It was everything I ever wanted yet something in me was dying. The sense of acceptance and love felt incomparable to the sex and drugs. They filled me with emptiness and misery but it was okay because it was balanced out by the fact that people loved how crazy and fun I was. Looking back, it was simply a testament to how poorly my mental health was. It took me a long time to figure out that I was depressed then because I was so used to the stillness and melancholy. My old friend was no longer the same as it was back when I was 13. Its matured and had a preference for danger and risks. Regardless, both manifestations were all products of emptiness and were one and the same. As I kept healing, I found that this wasn't an old friend at all but the wounded part of me.

I've always had an innate sadness within me and when I would succumb myself to those feelings of melancholy, I would cry about the people in my past that I cared about deeply and had used my vulnerability as a weapon against me. I would grieve those relationships and tap into the pain each one of those little heartbreaks had embedded in me. I spent all that time grieving people yet one day I realised I always grieved the loss of others but never grieved myself. I never grieved the parts of me that were taken away by the cruelness of others. In my attempt to never be the victim, I forced myself to wear the facade of living as the fearful parts of me that barely survived the pains of the past were left neglected.

In this healing journey, I have spent a lot of time attending to her. That wounded part of me that was never looked after. It was mostly catalysed after I moved and my anxiety refused me the pleasure of meeting new people. It meant dedicating almost all my energy into self reflection and self awareness. It meant being kind to myself and not to judge myself for the things I did in the past. It meant feeling all the emotions that came with these painful experiences throughout my life that I never gave room to feeling. It meant rediscovering things that had always been a beacon of light in my life and to make room for them in my life on a daily basis. I now spend most of my time cooking, reading and teaching myself the guitar which brings me a lot of joy. I listen to what I need and to allow myself to feel all emotions no matter how negative or scary they may seem. Depression feels very far away now though the sadness is still here sometimes.

My anxiety on the other hand is still a work in progress. I have had moments where I couldn't leave the house because my anxiety was so high that I didn't feel capable of leaving my front door. Sometimes my chest feels so tight that I swear I'll stop breathing. My heart pounding louder than the music blasting through my noise cancelling headphones that only drowns out the noise from the outside but not the thoughts plaguing my head. Forehead drenched with sweat even though it's 10 degrees outside so it's not warm enough to blame it on the heat. Pure exhaustion the minute I come back into my little safe haven of a room because being in flight or fight mode every time I leave the house can take a toll on you. It is often in those moments I wish the anxiety would just leave and I find myself missing the familiarity of depression. Anxiety thrived off my discomfort and it can feel so uncontrollable, taking over every aspect of my being. My breathing, my hearing, my mind all over the place to a point where sometimes, I'm barely in the room. Its hard to fathom how my world was filled with such sensations yet to everyone else, I was just going on about my day.

The thing with anxiety is that I've had it for a long time too but it never felt familiar the way depression did. You don't need a formal diagnosis to feel anxiety. According to the Mental Health Foundation, 45% of people with feelings of anxiety in the UK say they keep it a secret but almost everyone I know has felt anxious before. We live in a highly stressful society so it is not a surprise that so many people feel anxiety.

I am still on this healing journey and there is still so much progress to be made. I often feel like I'm a never ending work in progress but it's nice to take the time to reflect back on some of my experiences with mental health through written word. It is really important that we open conversations about these experiences to know that you are not alone. Having emotions does not equate to weakness and to be vulnerable is to be brave. Vulnerability is a strength and it is essential to the human experience.

Mental health affects all of us. Our mental health is about our thoughts, feelings and behaviours and you don't need a formal diagnosis to feel like your feelings are valid. Know that all emotions are valid. Each and every one of us are made from the experiences we have gone through and the way we have interpreted them. We all have our own subjective truth, therefore whatever you feel, you are entitled to it.

Here I invite you to be gentle to yourself. In this world we are often too busy doing rather than simply being. Treat all emotions that come up with kindness and recognition and know that any negative thoughts and feelings will pass. Healing isn't a linear process and there will be a lot of ups and downs. Sometimes you don't even realise you're healing until you're well within the process and you look back to see how far you have come. We have all made it to the here and now despite all of the painful experiences we have had in the past. You have survived every experienced that has occurred in your life, you will not be stopping now.

It's Mental Health Awareness Week but we should always have a space to talk about our mental health regardless of the week, month or year.

Nicole x