If you find yourself in a position where you are doing all the right things, but you are still slipping, you are spiralling and you can’t stop it no matter what you seem to do, I want you to know that there is hope and there is more help. (Unfortunately with the proviso, if you are lucky enough to have private health insurance.)
Last year I found myself in that exact situation, I thought I had done everything I could, but I was losing my grip, nothing was helping and I found myself in a very dangerous place, a place with no hope. I was going to therapy, I was exercising, I was taking my meds but I was spiralling and I couldn’t stop it no matter what I did. I couldn’t see any solution, I couldn’t see what else I could do. I was desperate, I was devoid of hope and I began to think there was only one way out of this. In nine years of battling this illness I had never had thoughts of self harm or suicide. So when these thoughts came, I was terrified of myself, I was in the darkest territory I was ever in and I thought there was nowhere else to go.
I was wrong. And what I can see now is that stigma and denial played a large part in my not realising that there was more help out there for me. On my last visit to my GP I was asked if I would see a psychiatrist, I wouldn’t even discuss it. Why on earth not?? If I had heart trouble I would go straight to a specialist without a second thought. With that wonderful thing hindsight, I can now see that denial and stigma were utterly clouding my view. If I had to go to a psychiatrist then that meant I was really ill and I couldn’t’ fix it myself. It felt like I was somehow giving in, I couldn’t beat this on my own, as hard as I tried. It makes no sense, I was already on meds and going to counselling so why the problem with a consultant? I was not giving this illness the respect that it deserved. Although I had paid lip service to accepting it, I hadn’t actually believed it, I still thought that if I tried hard enough I could stop it and make it go away. I fought it so hard to beat it this time that I burned myself out, I had hit rock bottom and my body couldn’t keep going, my head and body had had enough.
I thought that going to a psychiatrist would just mean more drugs, so ignorance also played it’s part, I did not know what a psychiatrist really did, I just thought drugs, what I didn’t know was that psychiatrists do it all, they are psychologists/psychotherapists and they have expertise in the chemical side of the illness. If I had known then what I know now I would have taken my GP’s arm off to get a referral.
Two days after seeing my GP I felt so bad I rang back and asked for a referral. This was a huge step for me, an appointment for a moods and meds assessment was made for me. Long story short after the hour and a half assessment I was sitting in front of a lovely smiley consultant who advised me that I needed to be admitted to hospital, straight away. To say that that was a shock would be the understatement of the century. As far as I was concerned I was making this huge step in going for a moods and meds evaluation with a psychiatrist, hospital was something I had never ever considered, in fact, and ignorance again here, I had never put depression and hospitalisation together, and when reading about the clinic before I went in I glanced at a line which said ‘in severe cases in-patient care may be necessary’ I skipped over that without a thought about it. So when my consultant told me that I needed to go in, my brain split in two. Half of it screamed in horror, the other half cried in relief. There was something else to help me, someone else was going to help me. Within three days I was signing myself in.
On the Inside! So what is it like?
I was expecting One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest, Girl Interrupted, a 19th century mental asylum, I was terrified but I had come to the end of the road and I would try anything, even a ‘mental asylum.’ Within minutes of walking through the door, I knew I was going to be ok, the kindness and understanding that greeted me was amazing and that kindness was a daily part of my life for the next two months. Needless to say the first few days were hard, and on day two I was pretty sure that I actually didn’t need to be there, still on and off that boat on ‘The Nile’, my psychiatrist took about one minute to change my mind, on ‘the outside’ I was looking at twelve to eighteen months recovery, I knew that was true, it had taken me that long to get back to myself after my first bout seven years before. I decided to stay! What is it like? Daily life consists of lectures on mental health, exercise classes, art, gardening, mindfulness. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are served in a communal dining room and this is where you gradually begin to meet people, where strangers become comrades in arms. Aside from the voluntary activities you are given all the help that you need. Sessions with psychologists, CBT practitioners, occupational therapists and psychiatrists are weekly and bi-weekly events. You are offered all the help you need and it is up to you to make the most of it. I learned so much about my illness. I accepted that I was not alone with this, I was in a hospital with fifty one other people who were trying to deal with this illness too. I was in the company of professionals who had spent decades researching and working with depression, anxiety and bi-polar.
Through therapy I realised that I had gotten into a dangerous cycle. After each bout of depression I had, I ran faster, I didn’t look back, I tried to make up for lost time by doing twice as much, I was actually running myself back into depression through exhaustion. I went to counselling, I took my meds and did my exercise but I did not look at my behaviour and therefore could not see what I was doing. I am out of hospital five months now and I am doing great. Slowing down and accepting that I can’t always do as much as I want and go as fast as I want is difficult but it is doable. I am accepting that I have this illness and that I can’t get rid of it no matter how much I want to. What I can do though is manage it to the best of my ability, and I intend to manage the shit out of it!
Remember there is always more help and it is not scary and it is not a 19th Century asylum, it is not One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, it is Hope and it is Help.
Help information
If you need help please talk to friends, family, a GP, therapist or one of the free confidential helpline services. For a full list of national mental health services see yourmentalhealth.ie.
- Samaritans on their free confidential 24/7 helpline on 116-123, by emailing jo@samaritans.ie
- Pieta House National Suicide Helpline 1800 247 247 or email mary@pieta.ie – (suicide prevention, self-harm, bereavement) or text HELP to 51444 (standard message rates apply)
- Aware 1800 80 48 48 (depression, anxiety)
If living in Ireland you can find accredited therapists in your area here:
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