Try a Little Tenderness

When you’re a person that has suffered from a form of mental illness, you look for it everywhere. You learn to recognise your triggers and your warning signs and hopefully how to brace and protect yourself from entering the depths of your particular brand of mental illness.

My brand is depression and anxiety. I’ve lived with it my whole life, sometimes suffering intensely with it and often not, but it is a constant presence in my thinking.

I had my first mental episode around the age of 15. My parents found out I’d been cutting myself and took me to the doctor. I was a shy, awkward, sensitive teenager who had just discovered music, art, cannabis and what real friends were and the impact they could have on your life. I flipped from sitting alone in my bedroom dripping candlewax onto things to spending endless hours being ‘out’ with my friends and it was overwhelming. Everything that happened to me in my childhood was starting to pull at my sleeve in an attempt to get recognised and dealt with but I didn’t have the capacity or the training to cope with it yet. I got a boyfriend. He wasn’t dealing too well with adolescence either. It was an invigorating, turbulent, hysterical, joyous, destructive, beautiful time and the release I found for all this energy and emotion was to carve tiny razor blade slices into my arms.

The doctor put me on Prozac.

I levelled out but after a year or so I stopped taking the pills because I wanted to cry. I’ve always been a cryer. I am a big fan of having a good old sob and flushing out the build up of it all into tissues filled with snot. I wanted to light some incense, put on a Placebo CD, sit on my inflatable chair and let it all out but the Prozac dried up my tears. So I stopped taking it. I was fine now.

As I write this I realise that I don’t think it was ever suggested that I talk to anyone. I don’t recall ever being recommend a therapist or psychiatrist at this point. I also realise that it was around this time that I got plonked on the contraceptive pill. I suffered from severe period pains, such that I was having to take a day off school every month because all I could do when it hit was cry and try to sleep, curled up in a ball clutching a hot water bottle. Now the contraceptive pill is an entirely different conversation worthy of its own post, so for now I’ll just say that for the majority of my adult life, I’ve felt that the contraceptive pill balanced out my hormonal reactions and definitely rid of me of the debilitating cramps. ‘Cramps’ is such a weak word to anyone that suffers intense period pains, it makes me cross. Anyway, I’ve got distracted…

As I approached turning 20 things had spiralled again. My moods were wild. I was having panic attacks. I was suffering bouts of not being able to leave the house, work, socialise and feeling like I was letting people down left, right and centre. I was also hilariously good fun.

Possibly the most crazy thing about that time is that I didn’t think I was ill. I didn’t recognise the signs that most people talk about with mental illness. Insomnia? Nope, I could sleep for days and I wanted to. I loved being asleep cos it was the only time I could let go of it all. Lack of appetite? Nope, always have and always will love eating, particularly for comfort.  It wasn’t until an ex-boyfriend had to come and rescue me following a post panic attack, vodka and orange fuelled cutting session that I shocked myself into getting help. I had (and continue to live with) suicidal thoughts but the thought of the upset to my family and friends if I were to kill myself had always kept me from the very worst. But at this point, I didn’t care.

I couldn’t talk about what I was feeling. I felt ridiculous. I was fun. I was fortunate. I had my family, great friends, hobbies and interests, a job and money and was trying to get a place at drama school. What right had I to feel sad or anxious? Eventually, in the midst of a particularly bad night of terrifying dreams and lying awake crying, I wrote it all down. Every little thing that I was feeling and that I was doing. I wrote it all down and the next day I went to see my doctor and handed him the piece of paper. To his credit (and my eternal gratitude), he read it, looked me in the eyes and said ‘I’m so glad you’ve come here’ and promptly enrolled me in some therapy and worked with me to find the right anti-depressant drugs to help me.

I completed an intense course of cognitive behaviour therapy and stayed on the Venlafaxine (after some trial and error, that’s where I settled) for several years. The CBT was eye-opening. If you’ve ever taken any kind of therapy you’ll know that they often revolve around being asked the same questions each week to monitor your mood levels. When I first saw the initial questionnaires I couldn’t believe some of the things that were on there. The realisation that OTHER PEOPLE felt these things too hit me hard. That may sound incredibly egotistical to the naked eye (it feels so, writing it) but that’s the trick of the illness: it alienates you into thinking you’re the only person that feels these things and that isolates you inside your own anxiety.

I still use my CBT practices today. My therapist taught me to recognise my warning signals; we worked out actions I can take to prevent those times getting too dark and learned a lot of mindfulness techniques, all of which I still call upon so frequently that they’re like second nature to me now. I was pushed too far though when it was suggested I could very well be bipolar, that the treatment for that was lithium and that I should go and speak to a psychotherapist with a very intimidating Germanic sounding name. I bolted.

I felt that I’d gathered enough ammunition to support myself. I’d asked for help; I’d done the work; I was going to be OK. I didn’t want to be labelled a “sick person”. I didn’t want to sign myself up for what seemed then to be a life sentence.  

What I didn’t realise at the time was that I was already signed up as a lifer. For me, whenever I recognise my warning signs, I start to worry that this is the beginning of another long, slow, upsetting process that results in a lot of energy, effort and courage from me to get myself through it. It starts as a niggling doubt but can grow to be overwhelming. And that’s exactly how it felt coming out of lockdown.

This has been a weird year. It started with us locked inside and this time it dragged on and on and it proved harder to try and find the fun in the cold, dark days of winter. Things got tough as we hit the wall of working from home, illness, boredom, frustration, loneliness yet never alone and these feelings pushed us into lethargy, restlessness, removed our sex drive and eventually we ended up in a kind of ‘meh’ stasis, zoning out waiting for that first hint of change and freedom.

Just as it started to ease off my friend went missing in the US Virgin Islands. An energy I can’t describe took over my friendship group as we joined forces to try and help locate her and support each other. Several weeks went past in this emotional limbo before the covid restrictions released us enough to see each other and I rushed back home to the safety of my family and friends, only to become hugely overwhelmed by the volume of social interaction. After 4 days of my once normal level of cramming in seeing people, I crept back into solitude and a deep melancholy fell over me. I love my family and friends. I love being busy. I’ve missed it all so much! What was wrong?

Things started to open up. We could sit in a pub garden again. We could meet up with people in the park. Soon we were allowed to stay over in other places and hugging was legalised. I found myself yoyoing between emphatic enthusiasm for socialising and not wanting to leave the house. I’m not sure if I can properly converse with people anymore. Am I doing it right? It’s all a bit much.

When Sarm went missing on 8 March I don’t think any of us expected to still be holding weekly zoom meetings 3 months down the line, desperately trying to push on an investigation into her disappearance. Navigating our way past the initial rush of adrenaline, fear and fury into something we can maintain as a constant within our lives whilst still carrying on day to day necessities is well, I’m not really sure how any of us are managing it to be honest. Life has to resume at some point. People have jobs to do and children to feed but I, for one, find it a huge struggle with the guilt that comes along with seeming to get on with life as if she’s not still missing.

If I stop to think about it too much, the intensity of the emotional response is crippling. So we carry on, taking our turns to hold each other up, get stuff done or step back when we have to. But the guilt remains; I’m not doing enough. I’m not coping.

I started writing this piece a couple of months ago and as I read it back now and add to it, I feel surprised that I didn’t come to the realisation sooner than I did. Somewhere in all that mess I managed to convince myself I was ill again. I jumped to the conclusion that my volatile emotional state was because I was having a flare up of mental illness and it took me some time (and several tearful conversations about not wanting to go back to the doctors) to realise that it’s not me that’s broken… everything is just REALLY VERY FUCKING HARD RIGHT NOW and it’s perfectly OK to cry about it sometimes. It’s perfectly OK if my patience is a little thinner than normal. It’s perfectly OK if my enthusiasm wanes for normal activities or it all feels overwhelming. It’s perfectly OK to have days where I just can’t; where I get stuck at getting out of bed or leaving the house or getting chores done and I just don’t do those things that day.

Sometimes it’s NOT a mental breakdown, there are just too many bags of shit for one person to hold at once.

I’m taking my time with re-socialisation. I’m listening to the many, many people that have constantly told me to slow down and I’m pacing myself. When I make plans now, I leave gaps for recovery. If I go home to Southampton, I’m selective about who I see on each visit so I’m not rushing from one place to another. I haven’t filled every weekend from now until Christmas. Hopefully this is something I’ll be able to maintain.

I’ve been struggling with London as it opens up again to the world. The naïve side of me had hoped that the ‘in this together’ spirit we experienced through the pandemic might be visible in the ways we interact as we come out the other side but looking out my window at the traffic-laden, polluted, noisy streets of London it seems that most people have come out in more of a rush and just as cunty as before.

On Monday we walked into Soho to see a socially distanced comedy show. Our first live event in forever. I was excited. On the way there we passed the anti-lockdown protest loudly raging whilst Boris addressed the nation, putting our so called ‘freedom’ on hold for another few weeks. As rage-filled as I am at this government, I felt pretty free walking the streets in the sunshine to go see a show and I was unnerved by the angry mob who would later go on to attack a BBC journalist, calling him a traitor.

As we entered Chinatown a fight broke out amongst a group of men which resulted in four unmarked police vehicles swooping in, sirens blaring and an on foot chase with police officers brandishing tasers. I’m not going to lie that bit nearly broke me and I had to have a little cry and a cuddle when we were out of the melee. It was 6.30pm on a Monday ffs.

I regained my composure and we pushed on. The show was great and incredibly well handled by the venue. We went for dinner in an unbelievably loud restaurant where an enormous group of young people were breaking every rule going and I found it quite intimidating waiting to use the toilets with a large group of them, unmasked and shouting, crowding round me. No fucks were given, apparently.

As we walked across the local park near home a huge gathering of people could be seen and heard in the centre of the grass, with drum and bass music pumping out and a festival type vibe. Again, totally unexpected for a Monday evening.

I got home a bit shaken and wondering whether, as things come back to normal levels of London madness I might come to the conclusion I am done with my time here. But I suspect I will just slowly get used to it all again. ‘Slowly’ being the important word in that sentence. I’m taking my time. I’m taking stock of what I do and don’t want back in my life and I’m not going to be afraid to draw lines and set boundaries.

So if you ask me to do something, or if I’m going somewhere and I say no, please don’t take it personally. I’m taking care of myself and that’s perfectly OK.