With gratitude, I sit in my kitchen this Sunday morning with peace in my mind, heart and soul. It hasn’t always been like that as it has been a long road and I work hard mostly daily in order to feel this way. I am a different person now compared to the person that was lying in a psychiatric bed for weeks and months with no wish to live and planning my next attempt on my life. I am a long way from the child in 5th class who couldn’t verbalise anxiety.
Yes, my anxiety began in 5th class. I remember one day the teacher telling me off and told me to stop shaking my head. At that time, I thought I was doing a pretty good job at hiding what I didn’t know was happening me, but that day I knew I needed to up the game and cover up more. I didn’t know what was happening to me as I became a constant worrier, had regular nightmares, began to have feelings of self hatred and then physical symptoms like sweating and head shakes. I began thinking I wasn’t normal and I did not know how to verbalise what was going on inside of me. Soon began, my disconnection from myself as my pain became so intense and I guess I felt I had to hide it from everyone and try and be “normal”. Gabor Mate, a Hungarian physician and expert on trauma says that “the essence of trauma is a disconnect from the self” and for me that became my trauma. It wasn’t that I had any major traumatic event, my trauma for me was my complete disconnection from myself.
From there, I began the game of pretending and became a master of not showing my real self. I continued through secondary school as a master of covering up. I became almost like an alter ego of myself. To everyone, I was sometimes quiet and would isolate but mostly I walked and talked like someone with great confidence. Inside I was full of self hate, anxiety and by 4th year I began battling with the ongoing thoughts of suicide. It wrecked relationships because I felt unlovable and friendships eventually because the connection was too painful to maintain. I travelled alone after leaving cert as it was safer when I didn’t need to be close to many. I constantly felt like a bad person and I felt like a liar because I couldn’t show my real self to anyone. My real self was increasingly dying inside, disappearing day by day as the reality of pain, unending stream of thoughts, nightmares, anxiety and physical symptoms took over and became harder to hide. My fight for life for a long time was that I worried for my family and what it would do to them if I took my own life but eventually I came to the point of thinking that everyone would be better off without me. I would have been one of those people where people would have said, she was happy go lucky, always positive and so confident….no one would have known the years of inner struggle.
And so I entered the services in my early 20’s having made a poor attempt at taking my life following a lot of psychotic experiences. For me those were extreme and prolonged stress and anxiety, lack of sleep and the trauma of it all became too much. I came to the point of being repulsed just being me. My first time in the services was months of not caring. I was kept safe on the high risk ward and I felt some relief there from the years of hiding from it all. But I was numb, I still had no hope. A few diagnosis were toyed with, clinical depression was the one I think they went with. I didn’t care. I was prescribed many mixes of medication and was given ect (electric shock treatment). I thought the world was a better place without me. I planned after a few months to fool my way out of the services so that I could eventually end it all. It took time as it wasn’t an easy job but I began showing up to my groups and psychiatrist on the unit and saying I had hope, I was ok, I was feeling better. I was visited by friends and family and although my words were few, I kept saying I was ok. It worked and I got out of the services. Within a month, I was alone in the house I was living in and knowing there wouldn’t be anyone around for a few days, took an overdose of tablets that I had been gathering and that should have killed me. I was disappointed when my housemate returned two days later and tried to wake me, not knowing I had overdosed. Sick and unwell for the next couple of days, she called my parents to come and get me. I remember not being able to physically talk going home in the car and seeing my poor parents in the front, all I could muster up was, I need to go back to the psychiatric unit. I never told them or the services at that time about my attempt. From that point, I spent more months in the psychiatric unit but this time something changed towards the end. The services kept me safe and alive but any bit of hope that I would get, I knew that I was the only one with the power to work on that.
Still extremely vulnerable, full of self hate and lots of what the services would call symptoms, I fooled my way out of the services again but this time with a pinprick of hope every now and then which came in waves between hopelessness and determination.
My recovery hasn’t been perfect but I have learnt from everything. I had to come to get to know myself and for me it has become really important to find meaning and purpose in life. I have done many things in recovery that has enriched those experiences like doing a degree and further study, voluntary work, travelling to south America to do voluntary work, worked in media, had a baby….most of all……beginning to love myself. That has been the biggest antidote to my debilitating mental health. I haven’t always got it right, it takes a lot to build self worth up so I unconsciously chose relationships and stayed in situations where I felt undervalued. Low self worth I think is common between all of us whom have struggled as we carry a lot of shame and guilt for not being better that we are and at least for me, I have always put people as better than me. That was one thing that had to stop.
I eventually commenced training as a counsellor in order to help others and then saw an advertisement for roles as peer support workers in mental health. A peer support worker is someone who has personal lived experience of mental health and is in the position to help others. I was drawn to this immediately. Although, I was over 2 years in the psychiatric services, my mental distress was still a bit of a secret except to my close friends and family. This role allowed me to come out of the closet if you like and it was so freeing just to be able to say it out loud and not hide it anymore. I trained in DCU in 2012 and I have been working as a Peer Support Worker since. For a while I worked for a service and we were contracted into the HSE and now I have set up my own business of services within the community in County Mayo.
My business is Perspective. I called it that because my own recovery is based upon looking at things and doing things in a different way. I have become my own best neurohacker if you like! I had to work hard daily at incorporating calm, positive thoughts and peace into my life. I have done this daily for years with the odd up and down. With that, I suppose over time, my “symptoms” slowly lessened. My practice is built on promotion of self love and compassion in a healing way. Peer support in itself is a very powerful process for the people who attend either on a one to one basis or in a group. There is something very freeing when you show up to someone who has been to a similar depth of pain, its like an instant knowing that the person has empathy and understanding because they have been there. The connection can be a powerful motivator for everything that is good for recovery, beginning with the equality of respect. Very often, I was in situations with people and professionals who didn’t understand and I would have shut down. Peer Support in mental health has that natural respect for people who are struggling because you can feel it, remember it and know of its physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and social trauma.
To me, sometimes I question why it is called mental illness as any recovery from it is truly a journey of the full self.
For me, its important that I work within the community so that people have access to this type of support but also that everyone has a good habit of practicing wellbeing. Peer support is still relatively new but its now an evaluated evidence based practice. I think there are different levels of recovery but I believe that everyone has the capacity to live a purposeful and meaningful life. To me, everyone has mental health and although my work is a drop in the ocean of things, I hope I am part of the process that creates a culture of wellbeing. Because my mental health affected others, I also run groups for family members. Most importantly, I have a children’s programme based on the principles and practices off peer support because I want no child to disconnect from themselves as I did when I was in 5th and 6th class. Peer Support in essence, is for everyone.
All that said, other than the worry it caused others, I wouldn’t change anything. This year I was given the title Mayo’s Inspirational woman. I meet incredible people and my life is full of meaning and purpose. I know now that mental health is not a weakness, it is courage beyond belief. To finish Gabor Mate’s quote “the essence of healing is not just uncovering ones past but reconnecting with oneself in the present”.
I will continue to promote self love and connection with self as it was self hate and the disconnection from myself that nearly stole my life. Elaine.
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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