Great, big, dirty label........

MENTAL HEALTH

What a lovely, distressing title. So this post is not intended to offend anyone or play down the seriousness of anyone's issues or conditions. This is purely my own thougths about my own condition. 

I'm going to use me as am example for this, as I obviously know me best! 

I'm your average 26 year old female, had an average upbringing with parents who got divorced and some naughty siblings, went to school, underachieved for my academic abilities but went on nethertheless to build a successful business. I had friends, they chopped and changed, I went to college, I had jobs, I went out and got wasted, moved out, boyfriends. All your fairly mormal stuff! But the difference is, when time gets tough for me through certain situations, strange things happen. My mild 'worrier' personality can develop into a panic disorder and pure O OCD. (Pure O OCD is obsessive, intrusive thoughts about great fears to the individual that are scary and constant). I do have an over sensitive imagination all of the time, always have. But I wouldn't class that as a problem, that is just ME. 

To me, I suffer emotionally, when I have too much going on that I struggle to deal with. So wouldn't it be fair to say I have Emotional Health problems? Mental health is a big, bold statement. And I don't like it. Don't get me wrong, I know I can have problems that can be debilitating at times, but I don't think this label fits for me. 

It makes me feel scared, frightened and it makes me feel WORSE. It makes me scan the Internet for signs of mental illnesses, thus provoking my thoughts further. When to me, it seems, my little episodes of feeling like this, is my body and minds way of dealing what's going on. It certainly stops me worrying about anything else in my life, I'm too busy focusing on it! 

I am me, I am a worrier, I do fear danger and getting hurt. This to me is a personality trait, not a condition. It only becomes a problem when life gets too much. But we forget, I am human, and so are you. We are allowed to be distressed. After all, I don't think we've evolved enough yet to live in the lifestyle we do. This isn't what was meant for us, social media, TV, fake airbrushing, unrealistic expectations, the want want WANT for all these possessions. 

When the shit hits the fan, and I'm not 100%, I panic I have a mental health disorder, which leads to all sorts of scary thoughts. 

So I'm giving myself a new label. I have an Emotional Health disorder. 

The power of thinking.......incredible. 

X

Obtrusive thoughts.....

Now let me explain what I mean here......

We all have obtrusive thoughts in our lifetime, by which I mean, a thought that seems to pop into your head, which is negative and can be extremely frightening. Commonly for many people it is about hurting themselves or other people that they love, disgusting sexual acts or going insane. These thoughts aren't actually what the individual likes to think about, or wants to do, but is something that they greatly fear. People can go to serious lengths to avoid putting themselves in a position that could make them carry out these horrible thoughts they have. For example, if someone was constantly worrying they may snap and harm themselves, they may avoid having knives in their house. 

So for me, my personal obtrusive thoughts are about going insane. Losing my mind. Being carted off. Breaking the hearts of those I love. Never being the same person again. It's pretty overwhelming at times. Now when I'm not feeling particularly anxious, I can look at those thoughts and almost laugh. But when I am feeling anxious......wow, I 100% believe them. It's very bizarre. 

It's hard for me to understand that this is a by product of anxiety as the thoughts are terrifying. And I mean terror. You know that feeling when you feel like your being followed on a dark night alone? Or that someone's in your house?! That kind of terror. And it can strike randomly, when you thought you was all comfy and chilled out. Because it does strike so randomly, I think it fuels the obtrusive thoughts tenfold. It reinforces the ideas that you have about yourself, thus making it 100000x more frightening, and then repeating the cycle. Oh joy. 

There are plenty of things that can also trigger these thoughts off, for me personally there is bloody loads, I'll list a few!

- seeing shadows

- seeing bright lights/reflections

- hearing whispery type noises 

- mishearing people

- thinking people are speaking too quietly/loudly 

- cold gusts of air when I'm indoors 

- getting too excitable, then energy crashing

- Physical symptoms to which include, dizziness, headaches, tingling, numbness in limbs, tight chest

- watching anything to do with mental health 

- feeling foggy or like I'm distant from reality

- talking/thinking about the paranormal 

There's plenty more, but I can't think of them all to list them! Basically it's all things that happen every day that seemingly have started to frighten me to death! If any of those things happen, I start to feel those familiar feelings of panic, which makes me start thinking about what is happening to me, to then questioning my sanity. It's exhausting!!!!  

Anxiety will not kill me. But it can scare the shit out of me! Sometimes even thinking about it all makes me feel so overwhelmed and that I'm swirling 
around, as though I was being sucked and swirled down a plug hole.   

The reality is that it is me creating my own fear. For this cycle to end, I need to become more rational, to realise I really am not in any danger, the likelihood of me going mental is so small. However silly this may seem to some people reading this, at the time it is happening to me, it's extremely real and horrifying. 

I'd like more people to be aware of just how common this is, and to really stop beating themselves up about it. It affects so many more people than I initially realised. This makes me sad :( 

So......what's causing this? What started it? I think it's a reflection of your life in general. Things are wrong, things are missing, things need to be fixed and changed. I think I've started to work out what these issues are for me, but for now I'd like to keep those private. You can't know all my insecurities, that makes me vulnerable! Ha! 

Secondly I think everybody needs a focus and a drive. It turns out I had neither. So I'm working on that too. I'll update on that in future when it's reached it's turnaround point. 

It's a battle, it's a struggle. I constantly think, "why me?!"  I thought I had the acceptance part down to a T.......clearly not. Accepting it's me, it's never going to be easy!

X